Shooting Stars by Carol Ann Duffy Commentary

The lack of any specific rhythm or rhyme structure also contributes to this conversational feel, and the realism of the events the woman discusses. The lack of these two elements shows that the woman isn’t thinking about what she is saying, but rather is just saying all of it, uncensored. Just how she saw and remembered it.

However, there is an important shift in tone that occurs before the final stanza. The tone changes from conversational and dark to biblical. Words such as “mercy” “psalms” contribute to this feel. This shift in tone shows that despite all the hardships the woman has been through, at the end of that day she still has faith. She still believes in God, and knows that He is there. This shows the power and strength of the woman's faith, and even the faith of other Jews. That even though they were persecuted for their faith, they still stand by it and believe it whole heartedly. Even despite the thought that maybe their God abandoned them by letting all of these horrible things happen to them.

The title of the poem “Shooting Stars” seems to be a positive image and thought, because shooting stars are commonly viewed as a positive thing. However this irony is apparent when one understands what the poem is about, and that the title really is about killing Jewish people. “Shooting” literally referring to shooting the Jews, who are represented by the word “Stars” in reference to the Star of David.

The imagery in the first and second lines of the poem “break our fingers to salvage my wedding ring” can show that people would go about things with the Jews in the most brutal way possible. Rather that just taking her ring, they break all her fingers to do so, which is a very extreme action. The action of stealing the ring itself can represent the idea that the Jewish people in this time period were not viewed as being worthy of love, so the soldiers will take that from them too.

In the second and third lines, the listing of the peoples names without any punctuation groups all the Jewish people together. This serves to show that the whole group was affected, by the Holocaust not just individual people. This also draws the attention to the idea that so many people were effected that they all blur into one image, one group.

The simile at the beginning of the second stanza “daughters, upright as statues” shows that first, the Holocaust affected people of all ages, not just women. The simile itself however shows that people still stood up for their faith, despite any persecution. They were “brave” and stood tall and proud for what they believed in and what happened to them. This almost foreshadows the tone shift in the end, that expresses no amount of torture will cause people to forget or loose faith.

The visual imagery in the last line of the second and first line of the third stanzas is very emotionally rattling. The phrase “loosed his belt” refers to the woman being raped, and that is followed by a description of her peeing herself which is a very primitive reaction of fear. This shows how deeply she is affected by the fear the Holocaust, its affecting all of her deeply.

In the third and fourth stanzas there are descriptions of what the soldiers are doing such as “the soldiers laughed” and “smoking by the graves”. This imagery shows how the people performing these atrocities seem to be unaffected by the actions they perform. Which contrasts how much it affects the Jewish people, as voiced by the woman in the poem.

At the end of the fourth stanza, the short choppy sentences have an interesting meaning. The rhyme between the work “click” and “trick” connects the two ideas, but this connection is separated by a short sentence “Not yet.” This places a break between the ideas that makes the reader wait for something just like the woman is waiting for her death to come. The rhyme also incorporates a harsh “k” sound which sounds like the noises of a trigger.

The shortness of these sentences adds breaks when reading the poem which creates suspense when waiting for her death to come, just like she is. These breaks also make in uncomfortable to read, which is also a reflection on how the woman feels in the moments right before her death.

The entire fifth stanza uses the word “after” to describe that after all the terrible things that happen during the Holocaust life will go back to normal for so many people. After the “immense suffering” and “terrible moans” people will do things that is a part of their normal life. The world will still “turn in its sleep” and “spades shovel soil”. Everything will go back as usual and resume its normal purpose.

The specific example “after the history lesson children run to their toys” is one that also foreshadows what will happen after the Holocaust when it becomes a history lesson and after children learn about its atrocities they too will return to life as usual without giving is a second thought.

These connections are all followed by another list of names with no separation to draw attention back to the people that died and were affected by the Holocaust, turning into that blur that is indistinguishable and that no one remembers.

Carol Ann Duffy wrote this poem in order to shed light on how much the Holocaust affected some people so severely and others not at all. It also places emphasis on how powerful faith is, and despite so many hardships and atrocities people still keep faith and believe that God is out there looking after them.