Month: May 2015

Why is the poppy used to remember the English war dead?

In the poem Out of the Blue, certain language techniques and structure is used to show pathos, which is a strong emotion. The pathos in this poem is desperation. In stanza three, lines one to 4, the person in this scenario, which is written in first person they say “And when will you come? Do you think you are watching, watching a man shaking crumbs or pegging out washing”. There are a few reasons why i have picked out this stanza. one of these reasons is the use of enjambment between line 2 and 3, “Do you think you are watching, watching a man shaking crumbs”.

The poem centres around the hawk. The hawk has been portrayed as not even a hawk, but almost as mankind. The hawk and humanity have many similarities in this poem as I think Ted Hughes has tried to show the power of humanity and the hierarchy of our society today. We can see this in the last stanza when the hawk says “I am going to keep things like this”. This shows that the hawk is dominant on his home turf, his territory. I think this also shows the prerogative the hawk has. This is similar to something like a dictator, in somewhere like Zimbabwe, where Robert Mugabe was in control of his country, but in the hawks case its about territory. Also, Mugabe killed many of the people around him, just like the hawk, killing living creatures that are trying to obstruct his path.

The use of enjambment has been used twice in the poem i believe. stanza 2, line two and three