First Flight by U.A. Fanthorpe Flashcards
Context:
- Fanthorpe worked in a psychiatric hospital, influencing her to write a lot of poetry, especially about the mind.
- Her poems often portrayed more than one voice - shifting perspective; this allowed her to express different experiences and emotions in the same poem.
- She wrote commentaries on social and historical issues, clearly explored within this poem in terms of the advancement of technology.
- She claimed to observe the reactions of different individuals in different situations.
Form:
- Free verse poem, allowing freer expression
- Dual narrative, allowing juxtaposition and irony to be set up, exemplifying the contrast between different points of view
- Structural point: frequent use of enjambment and interruptions highlights the contrast between the speakers.
Tone of inexperienced vs experienced flyer:
- INEXPERIENCED: Insightful, humble, observant, concerned
- EXPERIENCED: Condescending, arrogant, indifferent, nonchalant, dismissive, conversational
Irony:
- The second speaker attempts to establish their authority, but their speech only becomes more mundane and they create a dislikeable image of themselves.
- Instead, the first speaker, despite being inexperienced, shows true insight and deep thought about society.
KEY QUOTE: Ellpictical phrasing with short sentences and monosyllabic language and the start to depict the inexperienced speaker’s anxiety and fear (furthered by use of caesura):
“Plane moves. I don’t like the feel of it.”
KEY QUOTE: Use of sibilance increases pace, exemplifying anxiety; zoomorphism of earth highlights sudden movement, implying the speaker’s involvement in the experience:
“A sudden swiftness, earth slithers off at an angle.”
KEY QUOTE: Experienced flyer uses highly dismissive and arrogant tone; perhaps boastful about their familiarity with flights:
“This is rather a short hop for me”
KEY QUOTE: Inexperienced flyer uses highly metaphorical imagery to create a resplendent image of the clouds and sunset, portraying their mesmerisation and therefore their full immersion into the experience:
- “the broad meringue kingdom of cumulus”
- “the crinkled tangerine stain”
KEY QUOTE: Experienced flyer boasts their geographical knowledge about the seas, exemplifying their self-absorbed, ignorant tone acting as an antithesis to the insightful, substantial realisations of the first speaker:
“The next lot of water’ll be te Med”
KEY QUOTE: The inexperienced flyer makes what seems to be a symbolic comment on the very state of society in relation to the advancement of technology, using the flight as a means to communicate her message:
“We have come too high for history.”
- Humans overreaching themselves?
- A warning?
KEY QUOTE: Experienced flyer further develops their condescending tone by boasting about their knowledge about Chinese cities, to flaunt their well-travelled status:
“Peking is wrong. If you’ve been there you call it Beijing, like me.”
KEY QUOTE: The first speaker alludes to the tale of Icarus; perhaps a warning that rapid development will lead to a “cold[er]”, more detached society - consequences of humans overreaching themselves:
“Too cold. Too near the sun.”
Summary:
This poem is an interesting combination of varying experiences on a flight, with an inexperienced yet largely insightful first-flyer, acting as an antithesis to a well-travelled, boastful, arrogant persona that seems to condescend others to establish their power, but only ends up creating a more dislikeable image of themselves. The first speaker uses rich metaphorical language to exemplify their immersion in the experience and perhaps comments on the development of technology in society and its consequences on humanity.
