Giuseppe
Ford
Themes
Tone
Structure & Technique
Important Quotes
Poems of Comparison
Grief and Regret
- End-Stopped Lines - Allows reflection of wrongdoing
Disappointment
Masculinity vs Femininity
Men kill a mermaid (women) to 'cure' their starvation
- Throughout poem there is constant self reassurance of what they're doing was right and 'was only fish'
- Guilt shows the regret of killing the mythical creature
- Free Verse - Uncertainty the characters felt when killing the mermaid
- Caesura and Enjambment - shows the narrator wants the story to slow down
Transgression
- Not 'legal' but more 'moral'
- More of a relation to sin
Regret
- Imagery of Nature - 'Bougainvillea' - flower representing femininity
- Listing - characters involved in slaughter - doctor (saviour), fishmonger (butcher), certain others (unnamed)
- Alliteration - 'dry and dusty ground' - d's create violent imagery
Eat Me (masculine power)
'Priest who held one of her hands' (Biblical - juxtaposes priests position)
'the ring stayed on' (reflects humanity)
C Vs P (masculine power)
'she screamed like a woman' (simile - trying to make out that she wasn't a woman when really she is)
'Couldn't look at me in the eye' 'I thank God' - Biblical - guilt
'just a fish' - reassurance that they was 'innocent'