Hotel Room, 12th Floor

Question 1

like a damaged insect

Answer 1

• simile showing the sound it makes, can’t move properly,

vulnerable + how big the building is

Question 2

Empire State Building

Answer 2

• imagery showing materialism + capitalism

Question 3

dentist’s drill

Answer 3

• alliteration unsettling sound + feeling

Question 4

Panam skyscraper

Answer 4

• imagery showing materialism + capitalism

Question 5

midnight has come in

Answer 5

• personification comparing MIDNIGHT to a person

entering a room + suggests a frightening tone

Question 6

from FOREIGN places

Answer 6

• WC of FOREIGN
• suggests a sinister/unknown
  tone

Question 7

uncivilised darkness

Answer 7

• personification comparing DARKNESS to an
  unsophisticated person + suggests an evil, threatening
  tone

Question 8

SHOT at by a million lit windows

Answer 8

• metaphor has connotations of death + making us
  imagine gun violence + the American culture
• artificial light contrasts with Aunt Julia where its
  complete darkness showing a feeling of safety +
  a non-materialised way of living

Question 9

ups and acrosses

Answer 9

• metaphorical of Jesus dying on a cross + suggests that

violence can’t be shut out because of society

Question 10

But midnight is not,

so easily defeated

Answer 10

• metaphor linking back to the idea of progress and

civilising the American people

Question 11

radio and television set

Answer 11

• WC suggests the city
  never sleeps, a constant, unsettling sound
• symbols of progress + wealth + materialism in
  comparison with Aunt Julia

Question 12

the wildest of warwhoops

Answer 12

• alliteration of the ‘‘W, W, W’’ suggests a sound like a

battle cry from the American Indians

Question 13

ululating

Answer 13

- WC suggesting the sound the American 
  Indians made (without words) from western films

Question 14

glittering canyons and gulches

Answer 14

• alliteration

- gulches meaning deep valley

Question 15

police cars and ambulances

Answer 15

• WC shows link to warwhoops + replaces it as
  they are similar sounds but in modern day America
  instead

Question 16

broken bones

Answer 16

• alliteration of harsh ‘B, B’ sound emphasises the

violence, danger and pain

Question 17

screaming

Answer 17

• WC highlights violence, terror, shock, distress + people

in danger

Question 18

coldwater flats

Answer 18

• WC of ‘‘coldwater’’ suggests poverty +

contrasts with the Empire State Building

Question 19

glazed

Answer 19

• WC has connotations of spread
• makes you imagine dried up but sticky food
• suggesting some of it has been there for a while + the
  blood just keeps building up as more people get killed

Question 20

never + no

Answer 20

• WC of these harsh words
• showing poets opinion that,
  evil is still within us so there’s no sense of being better
  (poet feels negative about ‘civilised’ society)

Question 21

stockades

Answer 21

• WC has connotations of a barricade