Compare And Contrast Lament And War Photographer

Lament by Gillian Clarke and War Photographer by Duffy portrays two different storylines and views on war. It also presents how the impact of war made them feel. Clarke identifies war as an expression of sadness and anger. As well as showing her grief towards the many deaths caused by the Gulf War in 1991. Whilst, Duffy perceives war as chaos and the choice being made whether to record the horrific events of war or help out with the problem. Both of the poems have a completely different approach towards war and how they express their perception. This is effectively described/interpreted by displaying their own use of literary techniques, use of language and structuring of the poems.

Clarke presents her thoughts and ideas extensively throughout

Clarke describes the persona passing through the horror of war, an example of this is when the poet mentions “For her eggs laid in their nest of sickness” in line three. Here she is talking about the green turtle and the phrase ‘nest of sickness’ gives a sense that war has reached so far that it isn’t safe anymore as the word nest should be a secure and warm place to be but here it is used as a dreadful place to be since the home (ocean) of the turtle is painted with filthy dirty oil. Another example is “The whale struck dumb by the missile's thunder” in line fifteen, as the poet used the word ‘thunder’ instead of ‘noise’ or ‘sound’. This metaphor creates a strong, bold effect in the line with the word ‘thunder’. This is a metaphor as the missile hasn’t literally stricken dumb the whale. This suggests that the poet might’ve used the word ‘thunder’ as a representation of the intensity and mass amount of sound created by the explosions the missiles made; hence deafened the whale. The poet also describes the impact of war in her poem as ‘the sun put out’, portraying that there is no longer peace or happiness on earth because the sun has completely blocked and extinguished life on earth since the sun is earth’s main source of energy and without it there is no life on earth. Lastly, “ashes of

Metaphors are used greatly throughout this poem. An example of this is the phrase “spools of suffering set out in ordered rows”, this phrase also contains alliteration as spools of suffering set all begin with an ‘S’. This metaphor represents the people pictured in the photographs suffering as it isn’t the spools which are suffering. The ‘S’s’ used in this metaphor also creates a sibilance effect as if the poet is whispering. Additionally, there is a paradox present in how he has organised suffering, the chaos of pain and war into neat ordered rows. This regularity/order also reflects how the poem is structured. Again ‘ordered rows’ suggests that the graves/coffins of the dead soldiers are neatly organised into rows. In stanza three it first starts off mysteriously and the half developed photograph is being described. An example metaphor from this stanza “a half-formed ghost” suggests that the vague features of the the man in the photograph may seem to the photographer, like the spirit of a soldier that he remembers while taking the