Hotel Room, 12th Floor Flashcards
(14 cards)
Key Themes
- Violence
-Humanity
-Society
-Lack of control - change
- setting
- the past
- Suffering
“a helicopter skirting like a damaged insect”
simile - hellicopter is small and insignificant amongst the buildings. modern invention seems to be inferior copy of nature
“jumbo sized dentists drill”
metaphor - speakers distain towards wealth and power, building represents the drill,
Wc “drill” - progress is unequal and left some parts of society left struggling
“But now”
tone - solumn, T.P switches from daylight to night
Midnight”
Personification - midnight is compared to a unknown stranger, suggests fear
“from foreign places”
Wc - strong fear of multi - cultural society
“uncivilised darkness”
transferred epithet, darkness hints the unknown, societies fear of its primal instincts - darkness is us
“but midnight” stanza 2
repetition of “but” - continues pesimistic tone
“wildest of warwhoops”
Extended metaphor - street violence to wild west,
word choice “wildest” lack of control,
“warwhoops” - ref to war cries of Native americans
“glittering canyons”
Wc - refers to reflected light of windows in buildings. polished appearnce hides true violence
“broken bones, harsh screaming”
synecdoche - reduces people to damaged bodily parts, violence is still present.
“cold water flats”
contrast - poverty with evident wealth surrounding it, materialistic values left parts of society suffering
“frontier”
extended metaphor - borde between settlers and indigenous people, compared to city streets. uncivilised acts are part of ALL societies
“can keep the midnight out”
metaphor - just as darkness is inevitable, so too the evil within us is inescapable
