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Half Past Two - U A Fanthorpe - Coggle Diagram
Half Past Two - U A Fanthorpe
Summary
A child, unfamiliar with the clock time, gets stuck in detention and loses all sense of time - poem explores childhood innocence, adult authority and the contact between objective and subjective experiences of time
Key Themes
Childhood inncocence - misunderstanding of time and rules - highlighting naievty
Time
Auhtority and miscommunication - adult punishment appears harsh due to the gap in understanding
freedom and imagination - the boy escapes the constraints of time entering a moment of personal peace
Structure
11 irregular stanzas
Childlike voice
indirect narration
Tercet - three line stanza
Anonymous - free verse
Portmantella - shows childlike theme
Techniques:
Humour
irony - the teacher punishes the boy for a rule dioesnt fully understand
Capitalisation - (" Something Very Wrong")
neologisms - invented words - convey how the boy processes concepts in his own way
juxtaposition - contrast between Childs perception of time and adults structures
imagery - soft and dream like in the 'timeless' moment
Compare with:
Hide and Seek - (childhood lessons)
Piano ( childhood memory)
La Belle Dame - (distorted perception)
If - (growth and learning)
Speaker:
3rd person speaker
key things to remember:
temporal marker - "Once upon" - figurative language = imagination
Capitalised = " Very Wrong" enlarged the incident in his mind
personification of the clcok
times as a construct - time has no meaning without understanding - freedom exists beyond it
empowerment in immagination - boy finds comfort in being lost in a world without time
critique of education - suggests instituational rules don't always cater to individual needs