| Collection
Introduction (2) | Standing Female Nude, 1985
Courage of journalists entering and photographing war zones
Inspired by war photographer Don MucCullin |
| Subject | Choice between helping people or recording events to expose their horrors (dilemma) |
| Form (2) | Four sestets (rigidity amongst the chaos of war)
- "did not tremble then"
Combination of closed and open form |
| Theme (4) | Exposing truth of war to those who live in peace
Lack of compassion towards those who are suffering
Fabrication and superficiality of the news to create shock factor
Courage of journalists who enter war zones and military conflicts
- Traumatic effect of war |
| Motifs (3) | "he earns his living and they do not care"
"editor will pick out five or six"
"he has a job to do", "did not tremble then" |
| Diction; Language
Lexical fields (3)
Biblical allusion
Allegory (2)
Kenning (2)
Zuegma | Constrained and understated (portrays things at face-value)
- Photography; 'images', 'editor'
- War; 'aeroplane', 'blood', 'explode'
- Religion; 'church', 'priest', 'mass'
'All flesh is grass'
- civilians are sacrificial victims of war; links to Christ being our sacrificial lamb
(1) 'something is happening'; photographer not in complete control
- metaphorically he cannot stop the war or help the dead
- literally he must wait for the image to develop
(2) 'half-formed ghost'
- metaphorically it has a haunting effect
- literally it is a dead person (anonymous - could be anyone)
(1) 'hundred agonies in black and white' - the soldiers become figures or statistics
(2) 'where he earns his living' (England)
'The reader's eyeballs prick/with tears between the bath and pre-lunch beers (short-lived empathy due to a chaotic and saturated lifestyle) |
| Imagery and Symbolism; Pictorial
Visual, chromatic
Auditory
Associational | "running children in a nightmare heat" (allusion to a picture taken of a girl running down the street after having been burnt by napalm)
"red light" - associated with sacrifice and blood
"cries of this man's wife" - he must ignore, or rather look beyond, the pain of war in order to carry out his job
"blood stained into foreign dust" - religious undertones; 'ashes to ashes' |
| Rhythm
Consonance
Punctuation | Enjambment - creates a smooth and fluent pace; contrast to the war atmosphere
Sibilant - 'solutions slop in trays' (onomatopoeic); ironic, there is no solution to war
Use of full stops in 'Belfast. Beirut. Phnom Penh' - the words imprint in the reader's mind |
| Rhyme | Rhyming couplets create order and melody which contrasts to the confusion of war
- 'mass', 'grass'
- 'tears', 'beers
- 'rows', 'glows' |
| Tone
Mood | Bias in 'someone must do'
Duffy respects and sympathises with the photographer
The atmosphere is bitter and uncomfortable - 'they do not care'
- There isn't a direct setting of war. Rather, he is in his 'darkroom' which is both a literal and metaphorical reference to the darkness around him |
| Conclusion (2) | Duffy explores and respects the complexity of morality in these situations
The photographer is unnamed, he is simply 'he', making the poem universally applicable |
