War Photographer is a poem by Carol Ann Duffy. This poem was created for a person she was close friends with, Don McCullin, a famous “war photographer”. She emphasises the idea of the persona she talks about in “War Photographer” as a photographer for a newspaper, who takes his job very seriously, but falters when looking back. She also extend that through the talk about the wars and contrasting it to a casual Sunday in England.
The poem begins with a depiction of the war picture taker remaining solitary in his dim room. All the photographs that he had taken of the war are contained inside the moves which are sorted out into flawless lines, making him feel like a priest who is going to lead a mass burial service. He thinks about all the spots …show more content…
The expression “spools of torment” is an metaphor, as it isn’t the spools which are enduring yet the individuals envisioned in the photos they convey as such pain describes. Additionally there is a juxtaposition by the way he has sorted out misery, the bedlam of torment and war, into neat perfect rows. Once more “ordered rows” is a metaphor, contrasting the coffins of the dead soldiers which are flawlessly sorted out to such perfection it is eerie. The red light is stereotyped to the colour of blood that the photographer has seen, further pushing the extended metaphor of a priest in a church, making him feel like a priest getting ready for a mass memorial service. The symbolism of “blood stained into foreign dust” compliments Duffy’s past articulation that “all flesh is grass”. In the third stanza the half-created picture is portrayed as a “half formed ghost”. This either infers that the picture is ambiguous and faint, or the way that the photo demonstrates a dead man, whose soul is some way or another evoked by the creating photo. The fourth stanza depicts the photos to be in “black and white” This could mean both the way that the pictures are monochrome, without colour; or the complexity in the middle of great and …show more content…
The persona creates this strong contrast between the war zone and his home creating almost a second world to show how little they are affected by each other. Duffy bestows upon the reader an unimaginable shame as they read the poem, realising how personal and subjective it is towards
The poem begins with a depiction of the war picture taker remaining solitary in his dim room. All the photographs that he had taken of the war are contained inside the moves which are sorted out into flawless lines, making him feel like a priest who is going to lead a mass burial service. He thinks about all the spots …show more content…
The expression “spools of torment” is an metaphor, as it isn’t the spools which are enduring yet the individuals envisioned in the photos they convey as such pain describes. Additionally there is a juxtaposition by the way he has sorted out misery, the bedlam of torment and war, into neat perfect rows. Once more “ordered rows” is a metaphor, contrasting the coffins of the dead soldiers which are flawlessly sorted out to such perfection it is eerie. The red light is stereotyped to the colour of blood that the photographer has seen, further pushing the extended metaphor of a priest in a church, making him feel like a priest getting ready for a mass memorial service. The symbolism of “blood stained into foreign dust” compliments Duffy’s past articulation that “all flesh is grass”. In the third stanza the half-created picture is portrayed as a “half formed ghost”. This either infers that the picture is ambiguous and faint, or the way that the photo demonstrates a dead man, whose soul is some way or another evoked by the creating photo. The fourth stanza depicts the photos to be in “black and white” This could mean both the way that the pictures are monochrome, without colour; or the complexity in the middle of great and …show more content…
The persona creates this strong contrast between the war zone and his home creating almost a second world to show how little they are affected by each other. Duffy bestows upon the reader an unimaginable shame as they read the poem, realising how personal and subjective it is towards