Poetry uses stanzas instead of paragraphs.

For analysis:
 1. Title – provides information about the topic or the speaker – “I”. All other characters – refer to them by name or by “character”. 

2. Subject – Who is the speaker in the poem (Character traits?) What relationships are in the poem? What kind of attitudes (feelings towards something)?

3. Word Choice (Diction) – Why does the speaker use one word over another?  (i.e. using “devastated” instead of “sad”

4. Theme – central idea or topic of the poem. (i.e. love / family / violence) --> what is the general message about the topic (i.e. Family is an important part of lives.)

5. Literary Techniques - tools that the writer uses to get his/her message across

(a) Rhyme: similar end-sounds of words, usually at the end of the sentence. 
 (i.e. green / bean / spleen / queen; teacher / preacher)
 - helps with the rhythm (musical)
 - found in nursery rhymes – child-like quality to the poem

(b) Metaphor: a comparison tool, used to associate ALL or many qualities of one object
 to another. More intense than similes. 
 i.e. My teacher is a monster. (meaning: scary, fierce, ugly)
 My bed is a cloud. (meaning: very soft, fluffy)

(c ) Similes a comparison tool which uses words “like” and “as” to compare two objects.
 Usually comparing one or a few qualities of the object.

I.e. She is as gentle as a dove. 
He is like a tiger. (i.e. fierce, ferocious, fearless, defensive)
They are like ravenous wolves. (meaning: hungry, eager to get food)

 

All day long they lie on the
 straight rows of white beds or sit
 in the heavy-duty wheelchairs
 pushed out into the breezy sunshine
 of the gardens.
 
 Resigned to the prisons
 of their own failing bodies,
 they drift in and out of the haze
 of senility, half-forgetting
 themselves in the patient wait
 for death.

 

b. What is your impression of the people whom the speaker addresses? Making reference to a literary technique, give evidence and elaboration to support your answer. [5]

Miss Chia's Response: (** I've italicised extra notes and responses that I think bear consideration. If you are confused by the response, you can pass on it - you won't be required to produce something like that, but it is a higher-level of thinking which is good exposure)

The old folks that the speaker addresses are frail and trapped within their own weak, ailing bodies. This is seen by the metaphor, "resigned to the prisons/of their own failing bodies", which compares the frail, weak bodies of the old folks to being trapped in a prison. This comparison reveals that just as a prisoner cannot escape his or her entrapment, misery and anguish at being incarcerated, likewise, the old folks who have these old frail bodies cannot freely leave their pain, misery and hurt that their bodies have caused them. Their plight causes their misery to be showcased to the reader, but, ironically, not to the youth in the poem who visit them, as they seem oblivious to the old folks' pain and suffering.

Furthermore, the speaker describes that the old folks exist in a "haze/of senility, half-forgetting themselves in the patient wait / for death". Koh's genius at playing with language is deft and nuanced in this line. In this metaphor, he compares the elderly's tendencies towards dementia and forgetfulness to an existence in a haze. Just as a haze is blurry and affects the vision of those who exist within it, likewise, the elderly are trapped in a blurry fog of their own forgotten realities and memories. Being unable to even remember basic facts like their identities, names and possibly their current situation is a frightening and pitiful experience.

Koh thus uses the poem to raise uncomfortable and yet necessary questions within the reader about our own responses of empathy towards these elderly. It begs the question whether our own sense of pity is due to our very human desire to live, ourselves, as healthy individuals with full control over our bodies and minds, and to see that, likewise, be mirrored (i.e. the same) in others. Or, perhaps, whether our pity for them comes out of an equally human emotion of guilt and fear, that we, being only human, are unable to help these elderly out of their 'prisions' and 'haze' but are only able, like the youth in the poem, to be helpless change their reality. What is perhaps the most underlying fear is also the awareness that we, too, may come to be just like these elderly, trapped and imprisoned in our frail bodies and minds, when we grow old.