Visiting Hour Key Quotations

Front 1

Word choice. Something everyone is familiar with

Back 1

"Hospital smell"

Front 2

Metaphor. Compares smell with a comb brushing through nose hair. Establishes playful mood. Highlights how uncomfortable and overpowering it is.

Back 2

"combs my nostrils"

Front 3

Synecdoche. Not just his nostrils are moving along, as the image would suggest. This emphasises the powerful nature of "the hospital smell", since it has blocked out his other senses.

Exaggerates effect.

Back 3

"Go bobbing along"

Front 4

Word choice. Sickness, unclean and ill connotations. Further stresses the poet's discomfort in these surroundings.

Back 4

"Green and yellow corridors"

Front 5

Word choice. Poet uses enjambment to highlight words associated with death. He is thinking about the person he is visiting. Pessimistic view.

Back 5

"Corpse"

Front 6

Metaphor. Compares the rising lift to the journey upward to heaven.

Back 6

"Vanishes/heavenward"

Front 7

Repetition/ enjambment . Poet seems to be chanting to himself - trying to control his emotions. Shows how he is struggling to cope with the painful reality of the situation. He is trying to put on a brave face for the comfort of who he is visiting.

Back 7

"I will not feel, I will not / feel"

Front 8

Structure. The unusual word order is emphasising the number of nurses he sees and their activity. Suggests they are constantly on the move.

Back 8

"here and up and down and there"

Repetition of "and"

Front 9

Word choice. Helps us understand how surprised the poet is that they can carry out their difficult job when the look so delicate./Suggests he cannot understand how they do it.

Back 9

"Slender"/"miraculously"

Front 10

Repetition/parallel structure. Stresses frequency of nurses' unpleasant dealings. They function so efficiently even when they see so much pain and suffering.

Back 10

"So" / "So much pain, so/many deaths" "So many farewells"

Front 11

Structure

Back 11

Free verse used throughout poem in order to better convey poet's confused emotions

Front 12

Tone

Back 12

Changes. Begins nervously/humorously then shifts to sadness when faced with patient.

Front 13

Structure. A minor sentence draws attention to this turning point in the poem. The speaker has arrived at his destination.

Back 13

"Ward 7"

Front 14

Metaphor. Suggesting the white curtains or sheets are cave-like. This shows the isolation of the woman and the poets exclusion from her. Everything is functional but compact like a cave.

Back 14

"White cave of forgetfulness"

Front 15

Metaphor. Suggesting the woman's body is brittle and frail, by comparing it to a dying flower. Also hints at how full of life she was before.

Back 15

"Withered hand/trembles on its stalk"

Front 16

Word choice. Suggests the patient is close to death.

Back 16

"Withered" "Trembles" "Wasted"

Front 17

Metaphor/alliteration. Suggesting the intravenous drip is vampire - like. The horror in this image is shocking which shows the poet's grief. "Giving is the moment when he realises that whatever is in her arm is helping her.

Back 17

"wasted/of colour a glass fang is fixed,/ not guzzling but giving"

Front 18

Enjambment. Poet uses the gap between lines to emphasise distance between patient and visitor.

Back 18

"Distance of pain that neither she nor I/ can cross."

Front 19

Metaphor. Contrast in colours highlights distance between patient and visitor. "Black figure" could relate to grim reaper - returning to death theme.

Back 19

"Black figure in her white cave"

Front 20

Word choice. Bell rings to mark end of visiting hour. Suggests poet is struggling with emotions.

Back 20

"clumsily" "dizzily" "swimming waves"

Front 21

Pun. Suggests both that he is growing fainter in the vision of the patient but also that the poet feels faint.

Back 21

"Growing fainter"

Front 22

Paradox/oxymoron. The patients inability to eat the fruit and read the book establishes their utter lack of life. The paradox highlights how desperate and hopeless the speaker's situation is and ends on a sad note of despair.

Back 22

"Fruitless fruits"

Front 23

Key themes.

Back 23

Facing death (either the dying person or the relative)

Isolation surrounding death/illness

Front 24

Themes connect with...

Back 24

Assisi, Aunt Julia, Memorial, Sounds of the day.