Technique/idea Key Quotes and analysis
Key themes: What does Blindness The speaker’s mother is blind and
this poem explore? Loss ‘could not bear being blind’.
Helplessness The mother has to deal with the loss
of eyesight, and ‘saw things she
couldn’t see’, pretending to see the
childrens’ art to hide the loss. The
speaker deals with his mother’s ‘last
week alive’ and ‘dying’.
The mother is helpless, ‘bumping
into walls like a dodgem’, the dark
humour being used as a coping
mechanism.
Language: Any patterns Plosives The plosives of ‘bear being blind’
of language? Poetic Simile highlight the difficulty and anger she
techniques? Eg: similes, Humour feels at her situation.
metaphors, verbs, etc. Juxtaposition The Romans were all about
Elongated vowels appearances, so the simile ‘like a
Pathetic fallacy Roman’ highlights how the mother
Oxymoron attempted to stoically deal with her
situation.
There is a sense of dark humour
with the mother ‘still not finding the
food on her plate’, implying that the
speaker uses these moments of
humour to cope.
The juxtaposition of ‘kept her dignity’
to the simile of ‘bumping into walls
like a dodgem’ is another example
of dark humour, which the speaker
uses to cope with the pain of
watching his mother descent into
frailty.
Elongated vowels with the ‘long
slow slide’ show the mother’s
descent into death. The
enjambment adds to the pain and
long-term misery of it.
Pathetic fallacy shifts the poem’s
tone and focus to the mother’s
death, with ‘autumn trees around
the hospital’ symbolising the
impending death.
The final line of the poem is
oxymoronic to the whole poem, ‘she
was watching somewhere’ gives the
mother a sense of control,
compared to her inability to ‘watch’
throughout her life.
Key themes: What does Blindness The speaker’s mother is blind and
this poem explore? Loss ‘could not bear being blind’.
Helplessness The mother has to deal with the loss
of eyesight, and ‘saw things she
couldn’t see’, pretending to see the
childrens’ art to hide the loss. The
speaker deals with his mother’s ‘last
week alive’ and ‘dying’.
The mother is helpless, ‘bumping
into walls like a dodgem’, the dark
humour being used as a coping
mechanism.
Language: Any patterns Plosives The plosives of ‘bear being blind’
of language? Poetic Simile highlight the difficulty and anger she
techniques? Eg: similes, Humour feels at her situation.
metaphors, verbs, etc. Juxtaposition The Romans were all about
Elongated vowels appearances, so the simile ‘like a
Pathetic fallacy Roman’ highlights how the mother
Oxymoron attempted to stoically deal with her
situation.
There is a sense of dark humour
with the mother ‘still not finding the
food on her plate’, implying that the
speaker uses these moments of
humour to cope.
The juxtaposition of ‘kept her dignity’
to the simile of ‘bumping into walls
like a dodgem’ is another example
of dark humour, which the speaker
uses to cope with the pain of
watching his mother descent into
frailty.
Elongated vowels with the ‘long
slow slide’ show the mother’s
descent into death. The
enjambment adds to the pain and
long-term misery of it.
Pathetic fallacy shifts the poem’s
tone and focus to the mother’s
death, with ‘autumn trees around
the hospital’ symbolising the
impending death.
The final line of the poem is
oxymoronic to the whole poem, ‘she
was watching somewhere’ gives the
mother a sense of control,
compared to her inability to ‘watch’
throughout her life.
