war photographer

• War Photographer by Carol Ann Duffy:

  • Brief Summary: A war photographer contemplates his job while developing photos, realizing the public's indifference to the issues he captures
  • Synopsis:
  • A man alone in a darkroom, calm but sombre
  • Conflict areas listed, he develops photos
  • Relieved in England away from violence
  • Photos come into focus, he recalls subjects' suffering, expresses vocation
  • Realizes photos only briefly affect readers
  • Setting shifts to an airplane, reflecting on English indifference
• Context:

  • Carol Ann Duffy, UK's Poet Laureate from 2009 to 2019, interested in war photographers' challenges due to friendships with them
  • Poem published in 1985, referencing the impact of war photos on the public
• War Photographer Poem Analysis:

  • Religious simile: photographer aware of photos' impact on the public, parallels job with a priest exposed to death and suffering, suggesting sombre mood
  • Photographer calm at conflict scenes but agitated while developing photos
  • Phrase "All flesh is grass" signifies life's transitory nature
  • "Places that are experiencing conflict" reference various conflicts: the Troubles in Ireland, the Siege of Beirut, and the Cambodian Civil War
• Structure and Form of the Poem:

  • Rigid form with six lines per stanza and ABBCDD rhyme scheme
  • Reflects the meticulous way the photographer works, maintaining normality or controlling thoughts and emotions
• The poem "War Photographer" describes the photographer's meticulous process of placing his photos into "ordered rows" as a way to maintain normality and control his thoughts, emotions, and memories
• The cyclic structure of the poem creates a sense of futile repetition and continuation of past mistakes, emphasizing the photographer's realization that his work has not changed anything
• The photographer struggles with reconciling his life in "rural England" with the horrors of conflict zones, feeling alienated and disgusted by the indifference of the English people to the suffering abroad
• The photographer's role is to raise public awareness of conflicts through his photos, aiming to offer solutions and potentially influence government actions to end them
• The poem juxtaposes violence-related lexis with religious imagery, highlighting the hypocrisy of people who claim to value peace but do little to prevent war
• Duffy uses sibilance in "spools of suffering" to convey the quiet nature of war's true horrors, showing how people often ignore suffering that doesn't directly impact them
• The poem establishes a sinister tone from the beginning, portraying the photographer as never truly safe from the horrors he witnesses, even in the solitude of his darkroom
• Asyndetic listing in "Belfast. Beirut. Phnom Penh" refers to a wide range of conflicts, emphasizing the extensive scale of war's impact on many people
• The half rhyme in "the tears" between "bath and pre-lunch beers" creates an unsatisfying sound, showing how quickly people return to their privileged lives after briefly acknowledging the suffering depicted in the photos
• Comparison with "Charge of the Light Brigade":

  • Similarities: Both poems depict characters feeling a sense of duty, whether towards their leaders or the victims of war
  • Differences: While Tennyson glorifies war, Duffy presents the harsh reality of war and the indifference of society to its atrocities