Summary
Summary Poem Analysis: The Gun
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3 pages analysing ‘The Gun’ by Vicki Feaver. From ‘Poems of the Decade’ for Edexcel A-Level English Literature.
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The Gun (Vicki Feaver)Title and context
“Gun” – taboo and contentiousness regarding guns and killing, particularly the thrilling and
admirable quality of guns. Blunt title reflects abrupt honesty with which poem deals with
primitive human instincts and pleasures. Shock value
• Idea that the taking of life adds to thrill of being alive
• Juxtaposition of life and death, relishing control of it, base and primitive human
sensual/visceral pleasures of violence, sex, food
• Uncomfortable topic handled with audacity
Possible themes
• Control, thrill of power
• Dominance/submission
• Violence
• Base pleasures and human instincts (taboo of this)
• Compulsion
• Living vs dead
• Inanimate objects wielding power
• Change, flux of nature
Voice
Honest and unapologetic tone of poem regarding the uncomfortably base and primitive
human thrills and enjoyment of having power over life and death, fresh and raw
acknowledgement of this taboo. Honesty develops and increases across the poem
(progression, escalating compulsion, confidence and expression enhanced by gun).
Second person address (‘you’) – offers as a possibility for all human reactions, universal
thrill rather than that of an individual only. Note that the poet is female rather than male,
and it’s uncertain whether she is speaking from experience of shooting herself, on-looking,
or simply imaginatively – base instincts and pleasures associated with alpha
male/machismo, but experienced by everyone, and the strange, discomforting pleasure
the gun elicits isn’t limited to the individual who shoots it.
Harsh consonantal sounds – as though the gun’s explosive and destructive potential is
embedded in the very sound of the poem.
Form
Free verse rather than controlled rhythm, rhyme, syllables or punctuation – thrill in
unpredictability and vitality conveyed by the gun.
‘Bringing a gun into a house / changes it.’ and ‘A gun brings are house alive.’ are isolated
for emphasis, line breaks also used for emphasis or to create an ambiguity.
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