stanza 4

• • "A hundred agonies"
  • Emphasises the sheer number of photographs taken of appalling suffering
• • "black-and-white"
  • Black and white creates a simple contrast between good and evil: Each photo holds immense pain
• • "for Sunday's supplement."
  • section, thereby sensationalising war. It will be glanced at, then thrown away.
• • "The reader's eyeballs prick with tears between bath and pre-lunch beers."
  • Readers aren’t interested: They feel brief sympathy, and then move on.
  • Our sad reaction is restrained and short lived, sandwiched between pleasurable and relaxing events in our personal lives.
  • This is highlighted through the enjambment, “prick/with tears” indicating that their tears are momentary. The internal rhyme, “tears/beers” adds to the depressing cynicism he feels.
• • "From the aeroplane he stares impassively at where he earns a living and they do not care."
  • Final couplet suggests the photographer has no feeling for England: he cares more about war zones of the world. He is shocked by the complacency and indifference of his homeland and feels separate from his own countrymen. He refers to us as ‘they’.
  • The rhyming couplet in the final lines creates a sense of finality, the assonance of the long ‘a’ sounds slowing the pace and adding to the overall despair.