Poetry: We Lived Happily During The War Flashcards
We Lived Happily During the War
protest vs boom
‘And when they bombed other people’s houses we protested’
- ‘they’ - indicates an undefined enemy which could apply to any era or nation
- ‘we’ - a plural pronoun presenting how the narrator is an onlooker identifies with the victims
- ‘protested’ - given it’s own line to show importance
- comaprison of ‘protest’ and ‘bombed’ - magnitude of bombed is much larger, fits into theme of poem of not enough
Line 1/2
We Lived Happily During the War
havent i given enough
‘protested/but not enough, we opposed them but not/enough’
- immediate negation of ‘protested’ but not enough shows anxiety and guilt the narrator is trying to supress
- repetition of ‘not enough’, which has been enjambed to suggest ongoing unease
- jump from ‘protested’ to ‘opposed’ and repetition of ‘not enough’ displays Kaminsky’s guilt
Line 2-4
We Lived Happily During the War
god bed the usa!
‘I was/in my bed, around my bed America/was falling:’
- ‘bed’ - connotations of comfort and relaxation presents the complacenet nature of Americans
- could also be seen as narrator trying to block out thoughts of violence and guilt by reverting to a comforting environment
- colon after falling creates a caesura or pause, reinforcing the significance of the word
Line 4-6
We Lived Happily During the War
invisible
‘invisible house by invisible house by invisible house’
- ‘invisible’ repetition puts emphasis on the complacency of the Americans as they are blind to their pain (includes narrator)
- ‘invisible house’ - can also represent the moral destruction of America (LNK ‘falling’ as America is falling in moral abyss)
Line 6
We Lived Happily During the War
sun and chair
‘I took a chair and watched the sun’
- transition from ‘we’ to ‘I’ shows the focus is now on the individual and individual responsibility
- ‘sun’ has connotations of light and life contrasting the ‘bombed’
- ‘watched’ - has connotations of being passive which further present narrator complacency
Line 7
We Lived Happily During the War
$$$
‘the house of money/In the street of money in the city of money in the country of money, our great country of money’
- use of ascending list shows how everyone is complicit, not just the government
- ‘money’ repetition shows the focus of America is on prosperity and wealth rather than moral fulfilness
- ‘house of money’ - shows the above and how it is the culture of America as each house is like that
- ‘great country of money’ - play on political slogan make America great again, mokcing the slogan as depicts America as greedy and selfish
Line 9 -11
We Lived Happily During the War
titlle of peom
’ we (forgive us) lived happily during the war’
- repeats title of the poem to reinforce ironic moral message, disregard of moral responsbility
- ‘forgive’ is in present tense comapred to ‘lived’ in past shows the guilt has remained long after the war ended
Line 12/Last Line
We Lived Happily During the War CONTEXT
- Ilya Kaminsky
- Ukrainian-American
- moved due to political climate
- written in 2009
