2535097
| Question | Answer |
| Sounds of the Day | Norman MacCaig |
| 'when the air creaked, it was a lapwing seeing us off the premises of its private marsh' | personification is light-hearted and playful; such delicate sounds can be heard suggesting a still environment which allows the speaker to hear and appreciate the natural world |
| 'when the black drums rolled, it was water falling sixty feet into itself' | 'black' - suggests the poem has more serious undertones; the image gives the drums a deeper meaning and become an ominous, brooding sound effect marking a turning point in the poem |
| 'when the door scraped shut, it was the end of all the sounds there are' | metaphor comparing to the end of a relationship; mood of despair as reader suggests that there will be no re-opening of this door - no hope of reunion |
| 'You left me beside the quietest fire in the world' | feelings of contentment replaced by ones of abject loneliness and isolation - highlights the suddenness of the new silence |
| 'when you plunge your hand in freezing water, you feel a bangle of ice round your wrist before the whole hand goes numb' | describes the initial jarring pain of this experience and the subsequent feeling of numbness - captures the intensity of the raw and painful sense of loss experienced in the initial aftermath of a breakup. |
| Assisi | Norman MacCaig |
| 'The dwarf with his hands on backwards sat, slumped like a half-filled sack' | suggests disability or deformation; simile comparing his body to a sack suggesting that he is like a lifeless object |
| 'outside the three tiers of churches built in honour of St Francis' | comparison/contrast of the grandness of the church to the beggar who has nothing |
| 'that would reveal to the illiterate the goodness of God and the suffering of His Son' | the beggar is a son of God as well, and so he should be cared for also as he is suffering |
| 'I understood the explanation and the cleverness' | saying that the dwarf understand the messages from the frescoes even though he is illiterate |
| 'A rush of tourists, clucking contentedly, fluttered after him as he scattered the grain of the Word' | onomatopoeia; alliteration; word choice relating to chicken - comparison of the tourists to chickens; blind absorption of the information from the priest; reference to the parable of the sower |
| 'the ruined temple outside' | reference to the dwarf - actually a poor man considered small by society but temple suggests he had former potential |
| 'whose eyes wept pus, whose back was higher than his head' | 'contrasts to the frescoes in the church; they are works of art unlike him' |
| 'or a bird's when it spoke to St Francis' | poem ends on St Francis reminding the reader what it really means to be a child of God |
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