U A Fanthorpe writes powerfully about those who are most disempowered. Do you agree? And how does she manage to do this?

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Sam Budala

10 A4

Ms.Meads

U A Fanthorpe writes powerfully about those who are most disempowered. Do you agree? And how does she manage to do this?

I think U A Fanthorpe does write powerfully about people who she thinks are disempowered. She does this very subtly and cleverly. She always looks at things in two perspectives one is from a dominating person and the other from a weak person who she supports. She, like Shakespeare uses various techniques to convey sympathy towards the weak people and her ideas to the reader. She uses very emotive and powerful language. I don’t think that powerful writing just means strong language or words; the structure of the poem and the things she compares to could also reflect powerful writing. I think if people have confidence in themselves and who know what is right, would empower them. I think she is sympathetic towards the disempowered people. Writing about them shows this. In every poem she writes she uses italics to introduce new voices or characters.

             In ‘Old Man, Old Man’ the old man is the disempowered person and the narrator is powerful. This is poem is based on the theme of old age, “he left for himself when he saw better…”.   In the beginning the old man was in control of everything, didn’t need help but by the end he lost control and he felt helpless. “…and small things distress: I’ve lost the hammer”. It was also hinted that he was stubborn, disobedient and also had a short temper.”…no power to arouse your surliness”. There are a lot of techniques used by Fanthorpe to reveal what she thought about the old man. Fanthorpe uses alliteration to give the sentence a bit more meaning and punch, “ …garage and garden” these harsh consonant sounds give it a bit more emphasis to it. She also makes use of imperatives “let me find your hammer. Let me walk with you to drury lane. I am only a cloud”; the last stanza is a good example.

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            In ‘You Will Be Hearing From Us Shortly’ the interviewer is the powerful person and the interviewee is the disempowered one. This is based on a theme of middle age. At the beginning the interviewee has a bit a confidence but by the end of the poem he has lost it completely and he/she never gets a chance to speak.  In this poem the vocabulary used is quite sophisticated, words like adequate are used instead of suitable; perpetuate is used instead of continue etc. Fanthorpe ridicules the interviewer and she exaggerates the character’s villainous ...

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