Word Choice
The plant used to convey the poet's anger.
What is 'grass'?
A quote with a simile comparing the old woman to an animal that raises questions about euthanasia.
What is 'As an old mare might droop across a fence'?
A theme explored through 'old mare'.
What is euthanasia?
The character who is the main focus of the poem.
What is the 'old woman'?
The technique where a character's feelings are attributed to nature, such as 'the grass was raging'.
What is pathetic fallacy?
An adjective describing God's angel symbolising the distance between the woman's suffering and the mercy she might receive.
What is 'foreign'?
A metaphor that highlights the poet's despair and sense of helplessness.
What is 'imprisoned in my pity and my shame'?
The theme explored through 'fed from a mashed plate'.
What is old age/ageing?
The character who shows total faith and trust in God with ongoing prayers.
What is the husband?
An example of enjambment used to show the ongoing prayers of the husband and the wait for them to be answered.
What is 'he prayed to God'?
An adjective used in the final stanza to convey the bitterness of life.
What is 'salty'?
What is 'the teeth tighten their grip around a delicate death'?
The theme explored through 'Pray God,' he said, 'we ask you, God,' he said.'
What is religion (blind faith in God)?
The character who witnesses the old couple's struggle but is not directly involved with them.
What is the poet/speaker/persona?
The conjunction used unusually in the first line to emphasise the ongoing nature of the suffering of this woman and others before her.
What is 'and'?
An adjective used to describe the old woman's head, indicating hair style or a decaying brain.
What is 'knotted'?
A violent image that uses personification to help emphasise the poet's feelings of resentment that the woman has no choice but to suffer.
What is 'pushed their bitter spears into a vein'?
A quote that highlights the theme of death in the poem.
What is 'half dead'; 'pushed their bitter spears into a vein'; 'decay'; 'delicate death'; 'nothing moved'; 'had died too many waves'?
An adjective used ironically by the poet to describe the god who allows the woman's suffering to continue despite prayers.
What is 'all-forgiving'?
The technique where an adjective is applied to a noun that it doesn't belong to, such as 'mashed plate'.
What is transferred epithet?
An adjective used to describe the seaweed that indicates the woman has lost any sense of purpose or ability to desire or hope.
What is 'wishless'?
A metaphor used to show how insignificant the woman's death is.
What is (salty waters where had died) 'too many waves to mark two more or three.'?
A theme highlighted by 'There I sat imprisoned'.
What is isolation?
A line that uses repetition to illustrate the poet's total despair at being forced to witness the unbearable suffering of the old couple.
What is 'wished to be away, yes, to be far away'?
The technique used to convey the issue of euthanasia by contrasting the Roman men able to take their own lives to the suffering old woman who cannot.
What is Allegory?