Please Hold Flashcards
What are the themes in this poem?
Power and conformity to society - looking at the future of technology. Commenting on modern society and our lack of freedom to choose how we live
‘Please Hold’
Title uses robots voice/ hedged imperative - shows forceful tone of robot/ in control
What device is used throughout in regards to the speaker?
Heteroglossia - robot/wife/narrator - disoriented/chaotic
‘The robot is giving me countless options, none of which answer to my needs’
Extended metaphor for lack of life choices afforded as as a result of tech/new world/ restriction/ illusion of choice - antithesis shows ironic o societies attempts to fufill our needs as being futile
‘This is the future, my wife says’ ‘Your future, here, she says’
Caesura - wife uses tone which is seemingly robotic/ clipped language - emphasis on immediate passive acceptance of the system/modern life
‘I give him’ x2
repetition of verb show narrator surrendering power to robot
‘but I can find nothing to meet my needs’
volta/argument marker - have lots but has nothing - consumerism? - repetition of phrase shows the emptiness/pointlessness of interaction
‘I shout’
juxtaposes speakers previously controlled/polite communication with robot - verb emphatic growing frustration - powerless
‘This is the future.’
repetition shows inescapable future, almost dystopian - higher power in control - powerless lacking freedom/choice
‘Please say Yes or No / Or you can say Repeat of Menu …’
excessive list - suggests the speaker feels overwhelmed/frustrated/powerless
‘to someone real, who is just as robotic’
simile - humans completely overrun by tech - become products of our society
‘I scream’ ‘cut off’
suggestive of violence despite aggressive narrator being powerless
‘giving me no options in the guise of countless alternatives’
juxtaposition - robot is almost presented as spiteful/malevolent
‘Eine Kleine Nachtmusik’
high brow Mozart/ classical music is trivialised / cheaper as art is no longer individual expression but a means for technology
’ and the robot transfers me to himself’
humans become a salve to technology - inescapable continuous cycle
