stanza 3

• • "A stranger's features faintly start to twist before his eyes,"
  • Word choice suggests the gradual development of the photo and the agony of his final moments.
• • "a half-formed ghost."
  • Metaphor: Just as ghosts are vague shadows of the dead, so we understand that the image is vague and gradually until it is fully developed.
  • It also suggests that the person in the photograph was in his dying moments and his memory haunts the photographer. He can’t forget him.
• • "He remembers the cries of this man's wife, how he sought approval without words"
  • His sensitivity is shown as he is haunted by sound of woman’s pleas for husband. He did not speak the same language so had to exchange looks with the victim’s wife to ask her permission to take the photograph.
• • "to do what someone must"
  • Enjambment emphasises word ‘must’ highlighting how important he feels his job is, overcoming the moral uncertainty associated with photographing the dead.
  • This clarifies that the photographer is not a callous voyeur: he genuinely feels that others should witness the atrocities of war.
• • "the blood stained into foreign dust."
  • Word choice: ‘stained’ suggests a mark which will not come out. It implies that the consequences of this man’s death can not be removed; the memory of his suffering cannot be forgotten.
  • ‘foreign dust’ although literally meaning the dry ground of many of these war zones, also suggests the barren nature of the country in which the war takes place. Nothing good can come from it. By mentioning that it is ‘foreign’ might emphasise that we will forget the world’s troubles because they are not ours.