Sunny Prestatyn

Question 1

Theme:

Answer 1

appearance vs reality, violence, women and that

Question 2

‘Come To Sunny Prestatyn’

Answer 2

-imperative ‘Come’
-resemblant of of the 50s and 60s adverts promoting British seaside towns
-italicised as its the title of an advert
-‘sunny’ is warningly deceptive and the beauty of the place
-visual imagery acts as a visual attack

Question 3

‘Behind her, a hunk of coast’

Answer 3

-alluringly sexual
-her body is encased
-double entendre ‘hunk’
-objectifying
-behind her foreshadows the later menace, violence and defacing

Question 4

‘Seemed to expand from her thighs and Spread breast-lifting arms’

Answer 4

-sexual imagery that objectifies her
-she is placed as an object that is only to be admired and used

Question 5

‘She was slapped up one day in March’

Answer 5

-violence
-places the violence/ threat as against a women (feminine problem)
-connotations to ‘slapping around’ (domestic violence implication)

Question 6

‘Huge tits and a fissured crotch Were scored well in’

Answer 6

-crude sexualisation

Question 7

‘Someone had used a knife Or something to stab right through the moustached lips of her smile’

Answer 7

-violence has escalated from childish pranks to real threat
-attacking female voice/power + acting as male retribution for female sexuality

Question 8

‘She was too good for this life’

Answer 8

-quiet un-larkin-like moment of vulnerability
-simple statement of almost regret
-humorous?
-unspoken excuses
-the apparent compliment hides the sharp joke and easy irony
-explicit use again of ‘she’ as he deliberately feminises the poster

Question 9

‘Now Fight Cancer is there’

Answer 9

-awareness of the harsh realities of life
-stark
-now has changed ‘Now’ and ‘Fight’ with the imperatives and aggression

Question 10

Context:

Answer 10

-Prestatyn became famous for its beach, clean seas and promenade for entertainers
-during WW2 the holiday camps were used as billets for the British soldiers (re-invention)
-adverts like the one the poem was based around was common during the 1950s and was seen as aspirational due to the advertising of a beautiful women
-Welsh seaside resort

Question 11

Summary:

Question 12

Critic: Edward Reiss ‘is about violence against women and also, more precisely,…

Answer 12

…about violence against images of women, especially man-made, mass-manufactured images. It is about masculinity and failed masculinity’

Question 13

Structure:

Answer 13

-has no specific, unified pattern of rhyme
-1st stanza: slant/hint of small rhyme
-2nd + 3rd: clear rhyme
-no pattern in meter
-man perspective

Question 14

Critic: Edward Reiss ‘The skill of the poem…

Answer 14

…is that it covers all this whilst commenting on none of it’