Hide And Seek

Question 1

Meaning

Answer 1

This poem is a comment on life’s challenges and disappointments. A childhood game is used to respresent the complexities of adult emotion, and can be seen as an extended metaphor for attempting to gain success, and if you do, what it might be like at the top

Question 2

Structure

Answer 2

Narrative structure
Enjambment
Monostazaic

Question 3

Narrative structure

Answer 3

The poem follows a narrative structure, with a clear progression from the innocence and joy of childhood to the loneliness and isolation of adulthood.

Question 4

Enjambment

Answer 4

Enjambment is used throughout the poem to create a sense of fluidity and continuity, mirroring the flow of time and the shifting emotions of the children.

Question 5

Monostanzaic

Answer 5

The continuous flow of language reflects the flowing and changing emotions of the child. He (if we assume it is a boy) doesn’t pause or consciously change thought processes, so nor should the poem.

Question 6

Imagery

Answer 6

-Him along at the end
-stiff legs
-gustatory imagery

Question 7

Alone at the end

Answer 7

-creates an image that mirrors some adults who reach immense success
-Standing alone at the top, victorious, but alone

Question 8

Stiff legs

Answer 8

-reader can imagine that he hasn’t moved, and we can be impressed by his resolve, but it also suggests that it was not worth it.

Question 9

Gustatory imagery

Answer 9

-Salty dark, continues sea side semantic field
-creates an unconfortable atmosphere

Question 10

Langauge

Answer 10

-personification
-assonance and consonance
-don’t breath don’t move stay dumb hide in your blindness
-push of the sacks uncurl and stretch that’s better
-rhetorical question
-sacks in the tool shed smell like the seaside

Question 11

Personification

Answer 11

-Bushes hold their breath
-as if in sadness,
-this boy has emerged an adult, and now it is as if her is a creature they fear

Question 12

Assonance and consonance

Answer 12

-create temporary, ephemeral patterns in a given line or phrase that dissipate as quickly as they emerge.
-out shout
-clever over

Question 13

don’t breath don’t move stay dumb hide in your blindness

Answer 13

-Four imperatives in one line emphasise the feeling of compulsion which the boys is experiencing.
- ‘Dumb’ and ‘blindness’ reflect the dimming of his childish senses. They are also a metaphor for his inability to comprehend the adult world.

Question 14

“Push off the sacks. Uncurl and stretch. That’s better!”

Answer 14

-There is an element of being born in these words and it is almost as if he is experiencing a second birthing, this time into the adult world.
-The irony is that it is not ‘better’; life is about to get much worse.

Question 15

Rhetorical question

Answer 15

-The rhetorical question ends the poem on a depressing note. Note that the last line sounds disembodied from the protagonist.
-Note the ambiguity of ‘they’ and the past tense of ‘sought’. Life has changed.

Question 16

“The sacks in the toolshed smell like the seaside.”

Answer 16

• The first image is domestic and rather grubby (reality).
• The simile is positively sensual and evokes childhood, holidays and joy.
-juxtaposition of sacks in a toolshed and the seaside