- Paintilly / artistic - focus on light throughout
- Potential voyeurism of neighbours
- Semantic field of artistry
- Emjambed lines - allusion of flowing memory - quatrains
- Explores connection and disconnection
- Elements of positive and negative perspectives - vagueness
- Impressionism: 19th century art movement, focus on accurate depiction of light and its
changing qualities, through the view of someone else’s perspective
- Film noir: cinematic term primarily used to describe dark crime dramas with an emphasis on
cynical attitudes and sexual motivations, 1950s
- Femme fatale: stock character / archetype of a mysterious, beautiful and seductive woman who
lures men into deadly traps
- Langer: tiredness during/after pleasure, sense of slowness
- Conceit: unusual, unobvious metaphor e.g comparison of woman to landscape
Stanza 1 -
- Plural “we” binds the couple together
- Romantic atmosphere - “half bulb bright”
- ^ alliterative plosive ‘b’ potentially foreshadows harshness
- “We turned some of them off” - suggestive
- “One bar of light” - unusual language, shape of door
Stanza 2 -
- Voyeuristic impression
- “Impressionist” - artistic movement / making an impression
- “Through the thin white drapes” - could be strength of connection between the couple as they
are careless towards those looking in
- ^ alternatively suggests vulnerability and fragility of the relationship
- “Lowered yourself” - could be interpreted that woman is in power or that she is below him