war photographer

Question 1

Written in third person?

Answer 1

deliberate structure choice, further reinforces how no one understands the vocation of a war photographer
she was friends with many war photographers and wanted to highlight the horrors of wars go beyond the battle field

Question 2

Why did the war photographer have no name?

Answer 2

to strip away his identity

Question 3

‘dark room’

Answer 3

a metaphor for his thoughts and the mental trauma a war photographer endures is further reinforced due to the hand that ‘tremble’ normally because of PTSD

Question 4

Who might this have been inspired by?

Answer 4

the suicide of Kevin Carter as a result of his work as a war photographer,

Question 5

‘ordinary pain’

Answer 5

there is a sense of disconnect between the photographer and the real world, ‘prick’ of the ‘readers eyeballs’, showing that we are so desensitised to war that we are only momentarily sad

Question 6

How does the poem explore the tension between the photographers duty?

Answer 6

‘do what someone must’ in his own emotional response, although by the end the adverb ‘impassively’ suggests that he has conditioned himself to be desensitised to the human cost of conflict