War Photographer Analysis

• War Photographer


  A poem by Carol Ann Duffy about a photographer who documents the horrors of war
• The poem was published in 1985, ten years after the end of the Vietnam war
• A contemporary reader would be aware that the line "running children in a nightmare heat" is a reference to a famous photo of a girl in a napalm attack
• The poem


  • Written in the third person despite describing an emotionally fraught moment for the man
  • Uses a tight form of six lines per stanza as well as a constant ABBCDD rhyme scheme
  • Has a cyclic structure, ending with the photographer returning to the warzone he came from on "the aeroplane"
• The rigid form of the poem


  Is at odds with the chaos caused by conflict and perhaps reflects the order of "rural England"
• The structure of the poem


  Reflects the meticulous way in which the photographer works, as he places his photos into "ordered rows"
• The cyclic structure of the poem

  Creates a sense of futile repetition and continuation of past mistakes, leaving the listener with the photographer's realisation "he stares impassively at where he earns his living and they do not care"
• The photographer's internal conflict

  • He is struggling to reconcile his life in "rural England" with the conflict zones he has witnessed
  • He feels alienated from and disgusted by the English people, who live frivolously and are indifferent to the horrors taking place abroad
• The religious simile comparing the photographer to "a priest preparing to impart a mass"


  Suggests his work is as important as a priest's in connecting people to the suffering of others
• The sibilant alliteration in "solutions slop in trays" highlights the photographer's attempt to offer solutions to the conflicts he witnesses by raising public awareness
• The juxtaposition of lexis from the semantic field of violence and religious imagery


  Suggests people are hypocritical because in theory they are against violence but are doing nothing to stop it when it is actually occurring
• Duffy's use of sibilance in "spools of suffering"


  Creates the impression of the true nature of war being hushed and quietened so people can continue with their everyday lives
• The description of the dust as "foreign"


  Creates a distinction between the two places that the people of England can easily make
• The solitude of the photographer depicted throughout the poem


  Implies that he feels he is alone in dealing with the emotions he is feeling
• The asyndetic listing in "Belfast. Beirut. Phnom Penh"


  Refers to a wide range of conflicts, highlighting the extensive scale of conflict
• The half rhyme between "the tears" and "pre-lunch beers"


  Shows the horrific speed with which people return to their privileged lives after glancing at the photos, increasing the pace to contrast with the long, drawn out process of developing the photos