Half-past Two

• • “Once upon a schooltime“
  • evokes fantasy of fairytale which juxtaposes with the harshness of school
  • ”schooltime” - compound words = lack of understanding of time
• • “He did Something Very Wrong“
  • capitalisation - highlights the lack of understanding of the boy/authority of the teacher
  • simple language/ sentence structure = mirrors how a boy would think/speak - acknowledgment of how difficult it would be for the boy to understand - labelling things as right or wrong
• • “And she said he’d done Something Very Wrong”
  • capitalisation of She - fearing teachers
  • paints teacher in a God like image - great responsibility
  • this poem may be seen as criticising the education system and the teacher for being irresponsible
  • vagueness - the boy does not understand what he’s done wrong so punishment is ineffective
• “(Being cross, she’d forgotten She hadn’t taught him Time...”)

  • she is so angry at the boy that she has completely disregarded the fact that she hasn’t taught him time - her job
  • instead of doing her job, she is punishing people
• “he knew a lot of time: he knew Gettinguptime, timeyouwereofftime” - security in routine set out my parents/security

  • “Timeformykisstime“ - indicates loving family typical for a boy
  • concept of half-past two is intimidating for him “all of the important times he knew but not half-past two” - asked to leave his security to enter this concept
• • “He knew the clock face, the little eyes and two long legs for walking, but he couldn’t click its language“
  • personification = emphasises innocence and exposes how little he understands about time - time has an overpowering force over him
  • childlike - lack of understanding
  • onomatopoeia “click” - he doesn’t understand something and reflects the sound that a clock makes
• • “onceupona” ”timefors“ - going beyond it and out of the concept of times
  • ”knew he‘d escaped for ever” - triumphant tone = escaped the confinements of the teacher‘s punishment
  • solace from adult perspective (3rd person) = nostalgic tone because they entered timeless world - freedom from the deadlines from the stress of adult life
• • “Into the” - anaphora = timeless void - escaped time altogether and living in the moment/taking things outside of him
  • “silent noise” - paradox
  • “air outside the window“ - image of freedom
• • “And then, My goodness, she said, Scuttling in, I forgot all about you. Run along or you’ll be late“
  • use of the word “scuttling“ - criticising her movements - sounds like a beetle - bitterness towards their teacher
  • dismissiveness of teacher - no apology
  • teacher makes them return to conventional time when she says “run along or you’ll be late“ - unfortunate
• • “So she slotted him back into schooltime” - sibilance - sinister effect like a beetle
  • “slotted” - objectified as if he is a file that she can slot him - dismissive tone/ definitely not apologetic
  • “and he got home in time for teatime, nexttime, notimeforthatnowtime“ - compound words
• • “he escaped into the clockless land forever where time hides tick-less waiting to be born”
  • metaphor - “clock less land“- freedom of childhood
  • is it an adult envying their childhood or are they being bitter against the lack of care the teacher gave them?
  • repetition of “escaped” - nostalgia
• • structural techniques:
  • eleven tercets - structured - some regularity with number of lines = time but contrasts with everything else:
  • irregular line length/enjambement/free verse = inability to measure - memories are non-numeric - child struggling to confine to time
• • themes:
  • childhood
  • memory
  • punishment
  • time
  • criticism of education system