Panic: ‘that terrible, profound emotion that stretches us beyond our ability to imagine any experience more horrible’ (Schmidt and Warner). This intense feeling has been known to man since the very beginnings of civilisation, and has been explored throughout time: prehistoric humans took advantage of it, using it as a hunting technique, whilst the Ancient Greeks delved into its origins, attributing it to the nature god ‘Pan’. The concept of panic is especially prevalent in contemporary works- psychological as well as medical developments has made investigating the nature and consequences of panic easier, and it has become a popular point of exploration in modern literature. One such work is the narrative poem ‘Out of the Blue’, which aims
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This image of ‘fire’ is at first described as a quiet threat, a ‘whisper’ which soon turns to a roar as it burns through lower floors, gradually reaching the floor upon which the poem’s narrator is stationed. Armitage uses propositions to build up the fire, describing it at first as being ‘beneath’ the floor, ‘under’ the door. This image of deadly flames below human feet connotes instantly with an image of hell, communicating the anxiety and fear felt by those experiencing this horrific situation, from which there seems no escape. Armitage subtly links this event to the idea of hell in other ways as well- whilst for the most part writing in prose, in the three stanzas describing the growing threat of fire Armitage structures his work in an inconsistent terza rima, a style characterised by sets of tercets in which the end of the first and third lines rhyme: ‘...floor/...door’, ‘...fear/...near’. This technique was originally used by Dante in his poem ‘Divine Comedy’, particularly within ‘Inferno’, the first part of the poem which describes Dante’s metaphorical journey through the underworld. This link to hell emphasises the overwhelming fear likely felt by the victims of this fire, who were forced to decide whether to stay and burn alive, or commit a mortal sin by jumping from the windows, and begins to touch on the …show more content…
From the very beginning he connects these two concepts, linking the ‘whisper’ of the ‘fire’ to the image of ‘wolves’ wild and dangerous predators often used to symbolise threat. The colour of wolf fur, though not mentioned, is commonly grey, a colour connecting to the ash likely to be filling the air as a result of the fire. In addition to the image of the wolf is that of the ‘bear’, a large, looming creature that, when provoked, is often uncontrollable- just as the billowing and toxic smoke is out of control. The use of these two powerful animals instills within the reader a strong sense of panic and fear, communicating to them the feelings experienced by those trapped within the buildings. Armitage uses a third example of animal imagery in order to communicate panic to the reader, however this animal is not associated with the fire- instead, it is linked directly to the people trapped inside the building. Switching suddenly from the pronoun ‘you’ to ‘I’, Armitage removes the reader from the situation, however keeps their interest through the use of short sentences describing the tentative movements of the desperate victims: they are described to ‘lean’, to ‘crane’. This word crane has multiple meanings- on the one hand, it depicts the careful elongation of the person’s body as they
This image of ‘fire’ is at first described as a quiet threat, a ‘whisper’ which soon turns to a roar as it burns through lower floors, gradually reaching the floor upon which the poem’s narrator is stationed. Armitage uses propositions to build up the fire, describing it at first as being ‘beneath’ the floor, ‘under’ the door. This image of deadly flames below human feet connotes instantly with an image of hell, communicating the anxiety and fear felt by those experiencing this horrific situation, from which there seems no escape. Armitage subtly links this event to the idea of hell in other ways as well- whilst for the most part writing in prose, in the three stanzas describing the growing threat of fire Armitage structures his work in an inconsistent terza rima, a style characterised by sets of tercets in which the end of the first and third lines rhyme: ‘...floor/...door’, ‘...fear/...near’. This technique was originally used by Dante in his poem ‘Divine Comedy’, particularly within ‘Inferno’, the first part of the poem which describes Dante’s metaphorical journey through the underworld. This link to hell emphasises the overwhelming fear likely felt by the victims of this fire, who were forced to decide whether to stay and burn alive, or commit a mortal sin by jumping from the windows, and begins to touch on the …show more content…
From the very beginning he connects these two concepts, linking the ‘whisper’ of the ‘fire’ to the image of ‘wolves’ wild and dangerous predators often used to symbolise threat. The colour of wolf fur, though not mentioned, is commonly grey, a colour connecting to the ash likely to be filling the air as a result of the fire. In addition to the image of the wolf is that of the ‘bear’, a large, looming creature that, when provoked, is often uncontrollable- just as the billowing and toxic smoke is out of control. The use of these two powerful animals instills within the reader a strong sense of panic and fear, communicating to them the feelings experienced by those trapped within the buildings. Armitage uses a third example of animal imagery in order to communicate panic to the reader, however this animal is not associated with the fire- instead, it is linked directly to the people trapped inside the building. Switching suddenly from the pronoun ‘you’ to ‘I’, Armitage removes the reader from the situation, however keeps their interest through the use of short sentences describing the tentative movements of the desperate victims: they are described to ‘lean’, to ‘crane’. This word crane has multiple meanings- on the one hand, it depicts the careful elongation of the person’s body as they