Iolaire Essay on the theme Loss of Faith

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2009 Q12

        “Iolaire” by Iain Crichton Smith is an emotive poem centralised around the main concern of loss.  This is conveyed through the persona’s emotional journey to complete loss in faith God.  Crichton Smith effectively uses techniques such as imagery, tone and word choice to develop the poem and the readers understanding of it.

        Crichton Smith uses passage of time to build up a climax to the point when the persona loses all faith in God.  The initial tone of the poem is confusion.  This is shown through the repetition of “it seemed”.  The persona is not sure what has happened and is bewildered by what he can see.  The poet then describes the waves coming in as “thin and white, unravelling towards the shore”. This is significant because it symbolises the lives of the community and how their lives will fall apart at the discovery of the deaths of their relatives.   The metaphor also hints to the reader that the Elder’s faith is unravelling.  It implies the persona’s faith in God is disintegrating as a result of these deaths.  This compels the reader to feel sympathy towards the Elder as we see how terrible it is to have your faith shaken.

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        The tone of the poem quickly changes to anger.  We are shown this through persona’s word choice when he describes the sun rising for a new day as “remorseless amber”.  This connotes that the Elder believes God is remorseless and does not care about his actions.  The persona doubts God and begins to question God directly, “Have we done ill, I ask?” This shows the persona does not understand what we, as humans, have done to deserve such a tragedy.

Moreover, when Crichton Smith uses the metaphor “cold, splayed insect bodies” to describe the men floating in the water, we ...

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