Visiting hour

Visiting hour by Norman MacCaig is a poem in which MacCaig uses a variety of techniques to convey his emotions. In his word choice it helps us relate to his sadness in this event.

MacCaig starts the poem by setting the scene he is in a hospital visiting a friend. In the first stanza MacCaig is uncomfortable in his surroundings he is very apprehensive towards the hospital. For instance "The hospital smell combs my nostrils" this suggests the idea that the hospital smells but for MacCaig he can't just smell it he can feel it as if the smell was brushing his noise hair. MacCaig has started the poem with a contrast in a joke like manner this develops the idea of his light heartedness at the start.

MacCaig uses the technique of repetition to emphasis his feelings. For example "I will not feel, I will not feel". This makes us the reader more aware that he is in fact feeling something he is in denial and can't take the situation in. But he knows that he will have to soon have to let go and stop hiding it all inside.

When MacCaig reaches his relative he is feeling very sad and shocked as if he is just realizing how bad and ill his relative is. For instance "And between her and me distance shrinks till there is none left but the distance of pain that neither she nor I can cross". This tells us that MacCaig is overwhelmed by his emotions as if he can't cope with this amount of pain. Up until he sees his relative lying in the hospital bed he has been brave and preoccupied in trying to hide his feelings. But by writing this his individuality ...

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In visiting hour, then, MacCaig has very successfully conveyed his emotions. As he has expressed his feelings in various depths; the poet encounters the hospital smell and attempts to take his mind off what it means to him. He uses the metaphor “smell combs my nostrils” to make the smell seem more real to the reader and stand out. Also some humour is used to try to keep his emotions down a little as he walks, “bobbing along”. This word choice makes you think of a nose just bobbing through the hospital on its own.

However, he is immediately confronted by what hospitals are potentially about – death. This is when he sees the “corpse” on the trolley going into the lift. “Seems a corpse” is used to show uncertainty of if the being is alive or not, because it isn’t moving but is still unknown to be alive or not. “Vanishes heavenwards” is a metaphor used to try and make the thought of death more comforting to him that they are going somewhere good if dead.

He forces himself to keep his emotions under control. He shows this in stanza three when he uses repetition “I will not feel, I will not feel,” he tries to force himself out of feeling by repeating this over and over thinking that it would be inappropriate to do it then. But really he knows he will have to face up to it sometime and on the same stanza he says “I will not feel, I will not feel, until I have to.” He takes a new line when he says the “I” in his last line as if it is really difficult for him to admit this.

He tries to occupy his mind by watching the nurses –but this, too, only turns his mind to what their job involves – suffering and death. As he wonders how they can do all of this, coping with the all the death of patients, in this he uses the repetition of “So much” emphasising how hard is must be for them to handle all the pain, suffering and death and still run about without tears in there eyes.

He arrives at the ward where his friend or relative lies. He is shocked by what he sees – in a white environment, doped up with morphine and on a drip. He has difficulty making this fit with the woman he knows. He in this would never have thought of someone like this being in any state such like this. So it must be someone close that he has seen many times but never imagining them like this. In this stanza the first part is just a very small sentence saying “Ward 7” then taking a new line making this stand out to the other ones after it and also this will give you the point that he is there and is bracing himself for what he is going to face.

He comes closer to her, but realises that he can never cross the pain barrier that separates them. She is in too much pain to even her eyes because she is tired from it and she is stuffed with morphine that she cannot move much anymore. “Eyes move behind eyelids too heavy to raise.”

He sees himself from her perspective – an intruder who does not fit, is not coping with the situation, and leaves (when the bell rings) feeling useless having brought books and fruit which are useless to her. “Round swimming waves of a bell” is a metaphor but you can see that this is all that she can do now is hear the sounds, which travel in waves, of things about to determine what they are. “Growing fainter not smaller” is a paradox meaning that he is still there but she is drifting away from him, in life, and he is getting blurrier to her now as he stays.

In reading this poem I have learned that I am very apprehensive about hospitals. At the start of the poem MacCaig he tries to hide his feelings in his determination to stay strong for himself and his relative. He is very professional in trying to hide his feeling. As the poem progresses his feelings are harder to hold in and keep in.