Charlotte Comparative Essay

Compare the ways the poets demonstrate the effects of conflict on people in 'out of the blue' and one other poem in conflict:

Out of the Blue and Poppies,both demonstrate the catastrophic effects which conflict can have upon ordinary people. Within Out of Blue, Simon Armitage portrays the feelings of utter helplessness of the public when viewing the twin towers by 'you have picked me out' the use of personal pronouns is very direct, provoking a strong emotional response from the readerWhat about the effect of conflict on the narrator ( the falling man) . Alternatively, the poem, Poppies provokes an emotional response by the excessive use of first person language and the strong juxtaposing, semantic fields of the domestic and war; this demonstrates how war invades every aspect of a grieving mother home 'spasms of paper red'. Good

The arrangement of Out of The Blue and Poppies is central to the way that both poets present the concept of conflict effecting people. In Out of The Blue's extract, Armitage demonstrates a strict control of the stanzas - each 4 lines, to further illustrate the how ordinary the day would have been before the event and the office-workers controlled regimes of the day, juxtaposing the mass panic and confusion of being an innocent victim of conflict Yes, very good point. Furthermore, this form suggests the narrator’s attempts to maintain self-control. The variations in line lengtha, which Armitage has used betrays his changing emotions and inner conflict. The lines form short, clear thoughts or questions "you have picked me out" and "So when will you come?” demonstrating a desperate awareness that his life is poised above an "appalling" void. The last phrase of stanza five mirrors the falling, tumbling motion of the people falling thousands of feet to their death.Jane Weir’s, Poppies, also appears to have a strong, regular sense of form with four clear stanzas however; there is a great deal of movement within this outwardly regular form. 19 lines out of 35 have caesuras in the middle of the lines - marked by commas or more strongly by full-stops You must quote, even when referencing sturcture, the poet has used these devices to depict the narrator’s inner emotions of a broken mother who is trying to remain calm and composed but is breaking with sadness inside.

Simon Armitagedemonstrates the effects of conflict on people by his use of language and imagery - using every day, accessible language and ordinary imagery throughout the poem to highlight and bring forth the catastrophic emotions of both the spectators and the narrator, “You have picked me out”; immediately, the speaker directly addresses the reader to get our attention, a theme that is present throughout the poem. In the context of the poem, ‘you’, is the person viewing the events unfolding. It addresses the reader and at the same time, someone on the street below.The speaker addresses someone from a building— it’s figuratively described as a distant shot by the use of the word “picked” to emphasize how the speaker is perceived to be very far away, and also to reflect the way this incident was seen by more people through media “shots” than in real life.These images highlight the ordinary lives that are being lost, furthermore, they also express the viewer’s inability to comprehend what is happening. We simply don’t have the vocabulary to express it.Armitageadditionally, evokes a sense of powerlessness by using repetition of present continuous verbs, either of words or of sounds ("twirling, turning" or "waving, waving"). This expresses the pointless repetition of actions (such as the man waving his shirt). Nothing can make any difference now.

Jane Weirs however uses the strong semantic fields of the domestic life and war to portray the devastating effect of a mother outliving her son and having to cope with in a world where her boy has been taken away by a war in which they were not involved in. The colour and texture of the poppies is expressed through touching language in the first stanza. The detailed description of the blazer is emphasised through alliteration on "bias binding… blazer". We feel the closeness between mother and child the moment she kneels to pin the poppy to the lapel. In words such as "spasms", "disrupting" and "blockade" however, she may be also recalling the violence of his death. Further demonstrating how Weirs has approached the effects of conflict inflicting pain to the people not necessarily directly involved. This sense of her blocking out the memory of his violent death with a sweeter, purer memory is sustained in the second stanza: "Sellotape bandaged around my hand". This image carries echoes of battlefield injury as well as cleaning the cat hairs off the blazer. The contrast between the death in battle and the domestic happiness (the boy has been cuddling his cat) is powerful.In the third stanza, the language becomes metaphorical and symbolic. The door to the house is the door to the world. The song-bird is a metaphor for the mother setting the child free. Embed quoteThis then changes into the dove, the symbol of peace – but here the peace the son has found is only the peace of death. Good development of analysis here.

Target: There needs to be a little more written and a little more comparison of the way in which the effect of conflict os portrayed in both.

A* One the whole, this is an excellent essay, with very strong engagement with the poems and perceptive analysis. Well done.