Author Question: The speaker tells the story of the minefield before letting us know that theother boy was her ... (Read 176 times)

roselinechinyere27m · **on:** Jul 20, 2018

The speaker tells the story of the minefield before letting us know that theother boy was her father. What is the effect of this narrative strategy?

What will be an ideal response?

Question 2

In the opening lines of the poem, a seemingly small decisionto take ashortcut and find something to eatleads to a horrifying result. What does this suggest about the poems larger view of what life is like?

What will be an ideal response?

sultana.d · **Reply #1 on:** Jul 20, 2018

Answer to Question 1

Beginning the poem with the family at dinner and the father narrating his boyhood experience would have placed the story in the distant past and muted its effect. Starting with the minefield gives the incident an immediacy of its own, which is then intensified by the shock of lines 1011a shock that is even further intensified by the calm of the fathers demeanor and of the writing itself.

Answer to Question 2

It would be easy to dismiss the incident as a hazard of war and deny any relevance to ordinary peacetime existence, but the poet doesnt take that view: the speaker says of her father and the minefields that He brought them with him . . . / He carried them underneath his good intentions. / He gave them to us . . . Despite the placid manner in which he tells the story, the incident has deeply scarred the father, sabotaging his finer nature, and communicating to his children a similar sense of lifes uncertainty and its capacity to erupt into violence at any moment, as is stated explicitly in the last five lines of the poem.