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Compare Two Poems in Which the Poets Explore Attitudes to Death. How Do the Poets Use Language to Emphasise? These Attitudes?

Decent Essays

Defying Gravity by Roger McGough and Mort Aux Chats by Peter Porter are two poems that have death as a theme. Although they refer to death in different ways. Mort Aux Chats refers to death to convince you to dislike cats. Whereas Defying Gravity is about a mans “victory” with death. These poems rely on language to emphasise the attitude to death. Defying Gravity is told from the point of view of a dying mans best friend. It uses a lots of metaphors and I think this makes the poem very effective and clever. The first stanza of the poem explains about gravity and its significance to us. 'Gravity is one of the oldest tricks in the book' This explains that it’s been around for a long time and everyone knows about it and they will all …show more content…

The way McGough writes this makes it as if he is actually talking to us and it’s like reading between the lines. 'Soon now the man I love (not the armful of bones)' This shows how much the illness can affect someone and the way they feel about someone because clearly the speaker is distressed by seeing his friend in such a way that it then leads them on to say ' freeing himself from the tackle' Using terms which are used in rugby really gives that part of the poem impact because it shows that it is more personal towards the friend that he clearly cares about and the physic affects of the illness have left such obvious affects which reminds him so much of what the person has missed out on.
'A box of left over’s will be lowered into the space on loan from the clay.’ This idea is taken from the bible where humans where created from the earths clay. And now the dead man is being put back. As a dead body in a grave. 'Then, weighed down, the living will walk wearily away.' The last line use alteration and long words make it slower to say and gives it a slow depressive feel which makes you think about it. Mort Aux Chats translates to death to cats. This poem is rhetorical trying to persuade us to dislike cats. Mort Aux Chats is a political poem and it has a persuasive tone. ‘There will be no more cats’ this makes the reader want to read on as they want to know why there will be no more cats. “Cats spread infection, cats pollute the air, and cats

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