Winter

• Repetition: ‘goes’ – Reinforces the idea of the passage of time. Instantly opens with this, to emphasise how quickly time can slip past us also.
• Word Choice: ‘decay’ and ‘dies’ – Suggests ageing and eventually passing away. ‘Die’ also highlights the suddenness and the shock of winter as it destroys the warmth of summer.
• Word Choice: ‘Bingham’s pond’ – creates a sense of realism through specific detail.
• Metaphor: ‘a ghost’ – links with the idea of life ebbing away. Usually a swan is a beautiful creature that represents purity but here it is haunting, becoming a shade go itself.
• Repetition: ‘goes’ – Emphasising passage of time again. Even a

  ghost, a shadow of life leaves.
• Word Choice: ‘appears’ – Suggests sudden and shock at how

  quickly the season of winter can take hold.
• Word Choice: ‘surprised’ – Again suggests shock at winter.

  Also highlights that this is an unexpected loss for the gulls that

  they weren’t prepared for.
• Alliteration – Draws attention to this unexpected change.
• Word Choice: ‘gone’ – Emphasises the passage of time. They

  are both gone due to it being frozen over and having passed

  away.
• Synecdoche: ‘skates’ – Makes it seem as if they are controlled

  by the skates. Controlled by the time of year rather than own

  will.
• Oxymoron: ‘heavy light’ – While the light does illuminate it

  provides little warmth and is almost oppressive, brooding and

  unsettling. This faint light fits with the idea of life fading away.
• Metaphor: ‘summer dyes’ – Refers to summer’s abundance of colours.
• Contrast – The vitality and energy of summer contrasts with the cold,

  stillness of winter. The ice appears opaque, the absence of colour gives

  an impression of a scene that is drained of life.
• Word Choice: ‘not there’ – Suggests the colour has been drained from

  the scene that even blue is now absent. Appears bleak.
• Irony – He is a poet and even he can’t find it. It is as if winter is so bleak

  that it has depressed him and drained the poetry out of him.
• Word Choice: ‘stark’ – Suggests bleak and desolate. Makes the scene

  appear harsh.
• Word Choice: ‘cut,’ ‘cries,’ and ‘warring’ – All negative connotations suggesting violence and conflict. Winter is not a welcoming season.
• Onomatopoeia: ‘hiss’ – Has sinister undertones. All is not positive.
• Repetition: ‘fades’ – Emphasises the gradualness of the process and the draining of life from the scene. Gives the impression of things gradually breaking down and disappearing.
• Climactic list: ‘fall, decay and break’ – Each word suggests it is

  the natural order for things to gradually weaken and fail especially near the end of our life.
• Symbolism: ‘dark’ – Symbolises death and the disappearance

  from one world to the next.
• Personification: ‘the shouts run off into it and disappear’ – Here the blackness becomes the end of the spirit of life, swallowing all sense of lively energy. The shouts of the skaters run off and are silenced by death.
• Word Choice: ‘lamps go too’ – There is truly no life left. Even

  human might can not match the winter, therefore we cannot

  overcome death.
• Personification: ‘fog drives monstrous’ – The motion of fog

  becomes a malevolent and frightening movement. The fog is

  sucking out all light and life – appears hostile.
• Word Choice: ‘west’ - The direction of the fog links with the

  notion of a conclusion to life. Just as the sun and dawn emerges

  from the east the end of the day is marked by it slipping down

  to the west.
• Metaphor: ‘grey dead pane of ice’ – Referring to the ice in the park

  which represents death which is now still and empty. Could then

  represent the barrier between the living and the dead as death is

  viewed as a perpetual state of frozen animation.
• Repetition: ‘nothing’ – Emphasises the fundamental, cold reality of death: everything ends. Also highlights the inevitability and invisible nature of death, creating a bleak ending.