Divisions

Question 1

Structure

Answer 1

2x 16 line Meredithian sonnets

Question 2

Set in Newcastle

Answer 2

North, not a middle class area

Question 3

All aggro in tight clothes and skinhead crops

Answer 3

Appearance, feature of identity, stereotypical notions of appearance. Aggressive due to being oppressed by society. Harrison giving them a voice.

Question 4

I’m on the dole

Answer 4

Skinheads on benefits due to the thatcher era unemployment. Benefits suggest lack of identity due a job defining you in society

On the dole due to shutting of factories, mines and manual work.

Question 5

Mask of manhood drops

Answer 5

Suggesting when they are exposed in the public baths they can no longer hide their shame and lack of job/income.

Question 6

Decorated skins lay bare a soul

Answer 6

Suggests a distorted sense of beauty, allowing them to be viewed in a different way by the audience. Soul suggests they are people, humanising them, subverting stereotypical ascossiations.

Question 7

Dole wallah piss up, then tattoos

Answer 7

Once benefits come in they spend it on getting drunk and tattoos, suggests how life becomes repetitive and meaningless. Lifeless, simplicity.

Question 8

Teenage and boys description

Answer 8

Shows lack of growth, links to vulnerability, have no agency or control. Limitations of their lives. Also immaturity.

Question 9

Numbs their fright

Answer 9

Symbolic of how alcohol numbs their suffering in society as working class men.

Question 10

The tattoo of mother in colours of Union Jack

Answer 10

Showing national identity however their nation is not helping them, suggests a sense of sympathy from audience

Question 11

United loses a match

Answer 11

Limitations of their lives, identity relies on whether their football team wins or loses.

Question 12

He’ll aerosol the walls then go get pissed

Answer 12

Act of rebellion, yet it achieves nothing, suggests a lack of hope.

Question 13

But most, I hope for jobs for all of you

Answer 13

Suggests hopelessness as all Harrison can do is hope, he cannot actually make a difference to all these individuals. Self critical in his poetry. Irony.

Question 14

2nd sonnet

Question 15

Description of setting- sonnet 2

Answer 15

Not been in use for a long time, shows lack of care taken by the government.

Question 16

Tap room wall/ pensioners and the unemployed

Answer 16

Contrast between those who work and those who dont, to emphasise a lack of public identity.

Question 17

The brown ale drinkers

Answer 17

Identity is left only to what they drink, showing how they lack any significance to society. Limited identity.

Question 18

One front door orange in a row all blue

Answer 18

Orange and blue complementary colours.
Highlights difference Harrison feels between himself and the brown ale drinkers.
Metaphor for how Harrison belongs due to personal experience, but how he stands out because of his success and voice as a poet