POPPIES

• POPPIES (Jane Weir)

  Ideassss

  1. Weir is showing us how war can tear or separate families apart. - showing the emotional damage caused by war.
  2. Weir is also showing us the futility of war.
• FORM

  The poem is written in the form of a dramatic monologue- this is when you express your inner thoughts and feelings (secrets).

  The mother is expressing her inner sadness and fear that her son will inevitably die at war.

  The readers will feel a deep sense of sympathy towards her as the dramatic monologue would strengthen our feelings towards her.

  • dramatc monologue with breaks to represent the painful emotions of lamenting her son (letting him go).
  • personal and emotive account - uncontrallable pain.
• IMAGERY 1

  "Spasms of paper red, disrupting a blockade of yellow bias binding around your blazer"

  • "spasms...red" -> at this moment in time, the mother is describing how she is pinning a poppy on to her sons uniform.
  • shedescribes this in an aggressive way with "spasms" and "red" which are associated to an uncontrollable movement of the body and "red" is associated to blood, in order to show how violent and dangerous war is and therefore her son is most likely to die during this war.
  • "disrupting" and "blockade"
  • "blockade" is a war like term meaning to create a barrier- this could symbolise the separation of the mother and son once he goes to war.
• IMAGERY 2

  "After youd gone i went into your bedroom, released a song-bird from its cage"

  • Weir uses a metaphor to compare the mother to "dong bird" as once the son leaves the house she exresses her emotion and weeps and cries at his going off to war- this reiterates the mothers fear that he will die.
  • song bird gives the impression of an animal finding freedom.
  • once its released it becomes vocal- this mirrors how the mother has tried to contain her upset while her son was present.
• IMAGERY 3

  "I traced the inscriptions on the war memorial , leaned against it like a wishbone"

  • "war memorial" -> reiterates the idea that her sons death feels inevitable - he will lose his life at a young age.
  • "wishbone" -> could represent her desperation of wanting and pleading that he returns back home.
  • "wishbone"-> fragile and easily broke. This could represent how upset and overwhelmed with sorrow the mother is now that her son has gone. It reiterates how war can have an emotional impact on families who are disputed by it.
• LANGUAGE

  Maternal and compassionate language: "graze my nose across the tip of your nose", "playground voice" , "playing Eskimos"

  War related language: "grave", "spasms of paper red", "bandadge"

  • Weir purposefully juxtaposes the violence with the compassionate, maternal language as a way of disrupting the maternal and caring tone of the poem. This could symbolise Weirs message regarding how war disrupts and separates families.
  • This could also represent the fact that the mother cannot stop thinking about the possibility that the son will die during war.
• STRUCTURE

  Weir uses a cyclical structure: first stanza focuses on war graves and the last stanza focuses on "war memorial".

  Weir uses this cyclical structurein order to show the inevitability of the sons death.-> thinking about her sons departure from life