Betjeman purposely uses the oxymoron “with carefulness carelessness, gaily you won” to imply that Miss J. Hunter Dunn made it look like she wasn’t trying hard in the tennis match, when in actual fact she was. This suggests to the reader that Miss J. Hunter Dunn was trying to impress the Subaltern. The reader also sees that the Subaltern analyses every little detail of Miss J. Hunter Dunn, “the speed of a swallow, the grace of a boy”. This emphasizes how interested the Subaltern is in Miss J. Hunter Dunn. This also relates back to the emphasis of the feeling of affection the Subaltern has for Miss J. Hunter Dunn.
Betjeman creates an image of paradise for the Subaltern and Miss J. Hunter Dunn, ‘the scent of the conifers, sound of the bath, the view from my bedroom of moss-dappled path”. This phrase suggests to the reader that the two lovers are living desired lifestyles. The smells of ‘conifers’ are very nice and allow the reader to build up a clearer image of the surrounding scene. The fact that conifers last all year round also allows the reader to suggest that the Subaltern and Miss J. Hunter Dunn’s love will also last.
Betjeman also creates the image of Miss J. Hunter Dunn being angelic “and there on the landing the light on your hair.” This creates imagery of a halo on top of Miss J. Hunter Dunn’s head. The connotations of angels are happy and the colour white. The colour white is associated to purity, which relates the Subaltern and Miss J. Hunter Dunn’s relationship to purity, suggesting that is pure and genuine
Lastly, the poem was written during the Second World War, which was a time of misery and grief. However the poem presents a very happy theme throughout it, which suggests that the Subaltern and Miss J. Hunter Dunn’s love is stronger than the pain and sadness. The Subaltern was a soldier, yet there is no reference to this until the last stanza, “ominous, ominous dancing ahead.” This suggests that although the lovers don’t know what the future will bring, their love for each other is enough for them to forget about what the future may bring.
‘I am very bothered’ by Simon Armitage, displays ‘love’ in a very possessive and unhealthy manner. Armitage has written the poem in a very colloquial tone and has made it sound like the reader is eavesdropping in on a conversation. “I am very bothered when I think “. This engages the reader automatically as it is very personal so they are able to relate to the poet.
In the first stanza Armitage creates a disturbing image of ‘love’. “I held a pair of scissors by the blades and played the handles.” The word ‘blades’ has the connotations of sharp which could potentially be dangerous. Also the word ‘played’ suggests to the reader that Armitage enjoyed playing with scissors and the idea of danger, which again builds up a disturbing image. Unlike ‘A Subaltern’s Love Song’, which opened with a very happy theme of ‘love’, this imagery creates an abhorrent idea of love.
Armitage continues to create disturbing imagery by going on the say what he was planning to do to the little girl. “In the naked lilac flame of the Bunsen Burner.” The lilac flame is the hottest flame, which suggests to the reader that he intended on hurting her as much as possible. However this phrase also has a rather unpleasant imagery. The connotations of ‘lilac’ are girly and pretty associating it with the girls. The idea of the ‘naked lilac flame’ suggests sexual passion which tears up the innocence of a child this creates a very disturbing image of paedophilia. All of the images Armitage has built go against the traditional meaning of a happy, healthy love.
Armitage creates tension by having a line break between the stanzas signifying a time break, unlike ‘subaltern’s love song’ where quatrains a very predictable and upbeat. The line breaks emphasises the un-healthiness.
The second stanza begins with “O the unrivalled stench of branded skin”. The letter ‘O’ is a very old fashioned way of showing an emotional response, which sets a time frame for this poem. This reaction takes place when Armitage hands the girl the burning ‘blades’, which intensifies the girl’s negative reaction. The adjective ‘unrivalled’ suggests to the reader that Armitage’s actions cannot be erased meaning the girl has no escape. Armitage uses sensory language in the word ‘stench’, which allows the reader to have a clearer understanding of the disgusting smell his evil action has caused. The connotations of the word ‘stench’ are extremely unpleasant. This emphasises how evil Armitage’s plan really was as he was able to create hell out of a normal day. Lastly, the word ‘branded’ creates the idea of possession like he is marking her. The ‘brand’ also creates the idea of commitment because it is permanent. A possessive love is very unhealthy and therefore is not a good type of love.
In ‘A Subaltern’s Love Song” Betjeman displays the idea of love where a couple are both madly in love with one other, “her father’s euonymus shines as we walk, and swing past the summer house, buried in talk”. There is a sense of a loving romance between Miss J. Hunter Dunn and the Subaltern. Whereas, in ‘I Am Very Bothered’ Armitage is the only person in this relationship who says he feels a strong emotion towards the girl. This makes this type of love seem very unromantic and possessive. Although both poems are about love, the reader is able to understand that the idea of love has been interpreted very differently in each poem.
Armitage builds up a lot of negative imagery however; the idea of marriage is still present throughout the poem. “Couldn’t shake off the two burning rings. Marked, the Doctor said for eternity.” Here the idea of marriage is presented in the word ‘rings’. The idea that these rings were stuck on the girl’s finger suggests she was unable to take them off, even if she wanted too. This shows the idea of possessive love as the ‘rings’ were forced on to her. The word ‘eternity’ also relates to a wedding, as marriages are suppose to last until “death do us part”. Weddings are associated with happiness and joy but here Armitage presents a very disturbing and creepy image of a wedding.
‘Stop All The Clocks, Cut Off The Telephone’ by W H Auden, presents the idea of love through grief. The reader understands that the love the lovers shared was so strong that it makes it even harder for the poet to cope with the loss. The layout of the poem is very similar to ‘A Subaltern’s Love Song’. The poem has four quatrains, which again follow the traditional AABB rhyming scheme. However, ‘A Subaltern’s Love Song’ was very upbeat and had a fast pace where ‘Stop All The Clocks, Cut Off The Telephone’ is a very slow poem, which has a certainty of sadness.
Auden begins the first stanza in a very personal tone this engages the reader and makes them feel more sympathetic for the poet. Auden uses phrases, to present the personal tone, such as; “Stop all the clocks, prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone, silence the pianos. Many houses have ‘clocks’ ’pianos’ and ‘dogs’ so it allows the reader to relate to what he is saying. Auden also uses words, which have connotations of death, “Stop” “Bone” “Silence”. These all carry on the theme of grief and sadness and create a very negative image for the reader.
In the second stanza Auden uses personification “let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead”. This suggests to the reader that Auden believes that even objects should be crying out over the loss of the lover. This emphasises how sad Auden is, as he believes an object, which cannot show emotion, would be crying.
The poet emphasises the importance of their lover by using capital letters in the sentence “He is Dead”. The capital ‘H’ emphasises to the reader that the lover was very important therefore exaggerates the sadness. In ‘A Subaltern’s Love Song’ ‘Miss J Hunter Dunn’ is always referred to with capital letters, which allows the audience to see the subaltern’s respect he has for Miss J Hunter Dunn just as Auden portrays his respect for his lover. Auden also expresses in stanza two that the ‘locals’ should show respect for his loss too, ‘let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves’. Again emphasizing how great his lover was and how much Auden shall suffer from this loss.
The poet refers to his lover as ‘my working week’ which portrays Auden has a very strong emotional attachment towards his lover by the use of the possessive pronoun ‘my’. In ‘I am very bothered’ the poet describes a very possessive and unhealthy style of love, he says how he wanted to ‘brand’ the girl, which shows an evil type of possession. However, in ‘Stop All The Clocks, Cut Off The Telephone’ Auden still presents this idea of possession but portrays it as a very healthy relationship. The alliteration in ‘working week’ proves this by the repetition of the letter ‘w’ as it recreates the sound of the word ‘wow’. This allows the reader to see how amazing and almost breathtaking the lover is to Auden. This contrast shows that a possessive love is not always unhealthy.
Near the end of the poem Auden starts to demonstrate his anger by becoming more formal in his language and using orders, “Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun”. The connotations of the word ‘moon’ are magical and silver along with the connotations of the word ‘sun’ being bright, happy and warm. This builds up a very positive imagery for the reader, creating a very ‘bright’ picture. The fact Auden wants to ‘pack’ these things up intensifies his grief by showing that he would rather live in darkness than be without his lover.
Another order Auden gives is “Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood”. The words ‘ocean’ and ‘wood’ are both part of the universe and come in very large quantities. This intensifies the poets grief as in the first stanza he relates his grief to a much smaller personal scale, but as the poem carries on he starts to relate it to much bigger things until he eventually leads to the relation with the universe. This really emphasizes the amount of pain and grief Auden has gone through.
The very last sentence of the poem does not fit the overall rhythm, “For nothing now can ever come to any good.” This suggests to the reader that Auden has given up caring about anything good in the world. He has given up with the rhythm of the poem as he has realized that nothing else is important without his lover being with him. The overall theme of love throughout the poem has been extremely intensified as being great sorrow and causing lots of pain.
In conclusion, each of the three poems we studied explores a very meaningful idea of ‘love’. ‘A Subaltern’s Love Song’ presents love as being exciting and joyous, whereas ‘I Am Very Bothered’ presents love as being possessive and abhorrent. Lastly, ‘Stop All The Clocks, Cut Off The Telephone’ demonstrates love as being full of anguish and tragedies. Although all three of these poems explore the very different dimensions of ‘love’ they prove that ‘love’ is not always ‘a strong feeling of affection’ but can actually be full of sadness and can be quite threatening. Therefore, from the three poems the reader can see that ‘love’ is not always a positive and that it is an extremely powerful emotion.
