Havisham Poem

The theme of death is represented in similar ways throughout the six poems. In ‘A Mother in a Refugee Camp’ by Chinua Achebe, death is shown through the children’s life and the death of the relationship the mother has with the child. The poem ‘Havisham’ is filled with hatred and ‘War Photographer’ is about the death of thousands in a war and the narrator broadcasting these events in the newspaper. ‘Anne Hathaway’ is a contrasting poem and shows a positive attitude towards death, in comparison, ‘Afterwards’ is a very pessimistic and self-absorbed poem and the narrator talks about waiting for death. In contrast with ‘Afterwards’, ‘Do Not Go Gentle’ is a plea telling a father to not give into death.

‘A Mother in a Refugee Camp’, by Chinua Achebe, was written between 1967 and 1971 during a war between Nigeria and Biafra. The structure of the poem relates to the loss of control that the people had during this time, it is very irregular and awkward. It is written in one stanza in the order of Present, Past and Future. The use of ellipsis separates these phases and relates to how much time the child has left to live. It also …show more content…
The word ‘flesh’ suggests that they are no longer people and they probably don’t look like humans anymore due to missing limbs and mutilated faces. The third stanza, the first three lines, is describing a man that has just been killed. ‘He sought approval without words…must’ is relating to his job and the fact that someone had to do it. The word ‘approval’ suggests that the war photographer is trying to find someway of accepting what he does is right, taking photos of dying men and then broadcasting them on a newspaper, which only a few are going to react emotionally. He is almost trying to seek approval from a priest, which links back to stanza one “a priest preparing to intone a