opp house

Question 1

‘There’s been a Death, in the Opposite House, As lately as Today’
‘numb look’

Answer 1

Characteristically abrupt 1st line / clinical tone reporting basic facts of death +adjective ‘numb’ creates impassive tone -> reflects broader cultureal + human tendency to evade death’s pain and mystery through routine/ritual/ceremony

Question 2

‘the Neighbours rustle in and out’
‘mechanically’

Answer 2

3 clipped monosyllables + adverb mourners ‘in and out’ (monosyllables) + window opening ‘mechanically’ (adverb) indicate culture attempting 2 console itself through Ars Moriendi traditions confer increased clarity + control in the face of death

Question 3

‘flings’
‘They wonder if it died-on that-‘

Answer 3

verb connotations + pronouns ‘it’ + ‘that’ = caesura and dash
ED draws attention to death’s persistent Gothicism/ person whose died becomes increased abject for disposable / pronouns are dehumanising
punctuation increased sense of repulsion and fixation

Question 4

‘I used to- when a boy’

Answer 4

despite the speaker’s apparent power to express (thus to some extent control) death with language this implies speaker will one day die / draws equivalence between corpse and speaker (inevitable death)

Question 5

‘The Minister-goes stiffly in-
As if the House were His
-now-‘

Answer 5

connotations, simile + alliteration, adverb connotations
formality + fakeneess/ rigor mortis of corpse will one day apply to minister
Minister’s sense of power+ authority linked with Puritan cult of good death
ED implied min power = limited ED= critical religious custom, its assumption of mastery + certainty over death

Question 6

‘There’ll bee that dark parade’
‘Of tassels- and of Coaches’

Answer 6

concrete line break/ Oxymoron, Noun connotations
line breaks makes concrete with spatial break of coffin leaving house to join funeral procession in future
oxymorone= combines gothic gloominess + ostentatious display/ ED chastises religious + social customs for disguising death stark horror with beauty + trappings of ceremony

Question 7

‘It’s as easy as a sign’ similie

Answer 7

belies ED’s criticism ie: religious traditions obfusate death by reducing it to signs (ie. religious and social routines) therefore, as always ED preference = confront death unflinchingly / acknowledge the gothic realities of death will always haunt the domestic