Summary
Summary The Lammas Hireling theme page
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A" level arguments, language analysis and themes regarding Ian Duhig's 'The Lammas Hireling' - from Poems of the Decade for A-level English Literature, Unit 3: Poetry.
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Topic:The Lammas Hireling – Ian Duhig
Key Points/Arguments
Themes Literary/Dramatic Devices Techniques of whole poem
Paganism ‘a light heart’ – juxtaposes end, oxymoronic - Dramatic monologue, based on
Magic ‘and a heavy purse / and cattle doted him’ – onomatopoeia creates chaos, questions authenticity Irish folklore’ – confessional
‘I grew fond of company/ that knew when to shut up’ – does he like authority, or does he like having a homoerotic affair - True story, or descent into madness
Mysticism ‘then one night’ – volta of poem, changes away from pastoral, idyllic opening of grief stricken man
Folklore ‘dear late wife’ – oxymoron, sinister tone, he swaps old object of affection for a new one - reliability? Transformation of
Consequence ‘I hunted down her torn voice to his pale form’ – aggressive masculine hunter, pronouns shows conflict between thoughts hare… attracted to hireling meant he
of late wife and hireling, ‘form’ dehumanises new hireling killed him as he knows it was sinful –
‘light from the dark lantern’ – juxtaposition, oxymoron, mystery to him hiding him, supernatural tries to justify his actions to himself
‘cow with leather horns’ – cuckold, did wife cheat?
‘the wisdom runs’ – mystical personification
‘levelled’ - thinks he is in the right pulling up the gun
‘blew the small hour through his heart’ – blew implies something easy, and heart is a place of love (WIFE)
‘the moon came out’ – personifies the moon to be a supernatural/pagan witness
‘his top lip gathered’ – noun focused on lips, sensual, romantic crime
‘I carried him’ – tries to highlight his masculinity, connotations of carrying a wife over the threshold of first house, shows
the innocence of dead person and wife creeping into conscious
‘carried him / in a sack that grew lighter’ – enjambement contrasts the last words where he expresses care as he ‘dropped’
him from the bridge,
‘I don’t dream’ – alliteration emphasises no longer thinking of wife, can’t sleep
‘casting ball from half-crowns’ – earlier in poem, had great value in money, now turns into bullets. Now lives in fear.
‘my days here’ – now going for daily confessionals in church, in current moment of confession as poem occurs
‘bless me, father, I have sinned.’ – caesurae emphasises the bad verbs/actions – fear of consequences
‘it has been an hour since my last confession’ – regularity, broken psyche or can’t be forgiven. Now has burden
(juxtaposes start)
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