How are people presented in "Two scavengers" and "What were they like?".

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How are people presented in two scavengers and what were they like?

In two scavengers the poet explores the big differences in social class in san Francisco. It looks at four people specifically, Two bin and two rich architects who happen to cross paths at a traffic light. Whereas in ‘what were they like’ the poet writes about a wide range of people rather than just individuals. It is about the innocent people of Vietnam who were victims of the Vietnam war. Two scavengers is a drawn out poem about a very short period of time, whereas what were they like is almost about a whole history and culture.

     Both the poems have a unusual presentation. ‘Two scavengers’ is broken up randomly and unequal this could suggest the inequality of social class, and could also be saying something about how random it is that you can be born in to a rich or poor up-growing and society. The poem is almost set up in to 3 invisible sections, the first setting the scene of the poem and introducing the characters and where they are (lines 1-9) the second going into more detail like what they were wearing ect (lines 10-30) then the last one is making a statement about society and almost zooming out from the four main characters. ‘What were they like’ is set in (two) stanzas unlike two scavengers, the first one questions and the second one the answers. It is almost as if a future student is asking a historian. The questions are an insight into what the Vietnamese people were like before the war destroyed them and their culture.

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     The language in two scavengers is very vivid and descriptive, the appearances of the people tell us a lot about them, The ‘cool couple’ are dressed well with the man in a ‘hip three-piece linen suit’ and the woman with ‘a short skirt and colored stockings’ with her blond hair ‘casually coiffed’ this presents them as stylish and modern, whereas the garbage men are ‘grungy’ and obviously from a poor background. However the poet uses a lot of colour to describe the garbage men in their ‘bright yellow garbage truck’ and ‘red plastic blazers’, this contrasts with the ...

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