Power of Humans
Ozymandias
Ozymandias was a harsh dictator and the sculpture reflects his strong personality:
- ‘wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command’
- -‘The hand that mocked them’
- _‘words appear: ‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’ ’ _
London
The people of London are in a helpless situation, because of the decisions made by the government:
- ‘I wander through each chartered street’
- ‘mind-forged manacles’
- ‘Every black’ning Church appalls’
- ‘the hapless Soldiers sigh’
Extract from the Prelude
The young boy steals a boat and goes on a journey by himself:
- _‘Straight I unloosed her chain’ _
- ‘an act of stealth And troubled pleasure’
- ‘I fixed my view Upon the summit of a craggy ridge’
- _‘lustily I dipped my oars into the silent lake’ _
- ‘I struck and struck again’
My Last Duchess
The Duke aimed to control his wife and others; the messenger and the reader too.
- ‘Will’t please you look sit and look at her?’
- ‘(since none puts by The curtain I have drawn for you, but I)’
- ‘I gave commands; Then all smiles stopped together.’
Charge of the Light Brigade
Every person is fallible. Unfortunately, the decisions made by those with authority can result in calamitous consequences.
- ‘ “Charge for the guns!” he said.’
- ‘ “Forward, the Light Brigade!” ’
- ‘Someone had blunder’d’
- ‘Theirs not to make reply… but to do and die’
- ‘Boldly they rode and well’
- ‘Sabring the gunners there’
- ‘O the wild charge they made!’
Storm on the Island
Bayonet Charge
The soldier is questioning his role in the war:
- ‘Suddenly he awoke and was running- raw”
- ‘Stumbling across a field of clods’
- ‘The patriotic tear that had brimmed in his eye’
- ‘In bewilderment then he almost stopped-‘
- ‘In what cold clockwork of the stars and the nations Was he the hand pointing that second?’
- ‘King, honour, human dignity, etcetera dropped like luxuries’
Remains
The soldiers are performing their duty; they have been deployed to kill rebels:
- ‘we got sent out’
- ‘Well myself and somebody else and somebody else are all of the same mind’
- ‘Three of a kind all letting fly’
- I see every round as it rips through his life
- ‘tosses his guts back into his body’
- ‘his bloody life in my bloody hands’
War Photographer
The photographer is capturing evidence of the conflict that humans are causing in war zones. Humans have the power to stop such conflicts but some just do not want to:
- ‘spools of sufferings set out in ordered rows’
- ‘He has a job to do.’
- ‘his editor will pick out five or six for Sunday’s supplement
- ‘reader’s eyeballs prick with tears’
- ‘where he earns his living… they do not care.’
Tissue
People have passed on ideas through books and concepts:
- ‘written in names and histories’
- _ ‘see how easily they fall away on a sigh’_
- ‘a shift in the direction of the wind’
- ‘An architect could use all this’
- ‘with living tissue, raise a structure’
The Emigree
The speaker had to leave their country and their youth was disturbed, because she lived in a war-torn land:
- ‘There once was a country… I left it as a child’
- ‘It may be at war, it may be sick with tyrants’
- _ ‘I have no passport, there’s no way back at all’_
- They accuse me of absence… being dark in their free city.’
Kamikaze
Japanese pilots faced peer pressure from many sources: government, family and the community:
- ‘Her father embarked at sunrise’
- ‘a shaven head of full of powerful incantations’
- ‘journey into history’
- ‘they treated him as though he no longer existed’
- ‘till gradually we too learned to be silent’
Checking Out Me History
The speaker is angry that the government determine what is worthy of being studied:
- ‘Dem tell me Wha dem want to tell me’
- ‘Bandage up me eye with me own history’
- Blind me to me own identity’
- ‘dem never tell me bout…’