Day: September 3, 2015

Come on come back is a war poem reflecting the use of biologogical weapons and death camps used by the Nazi’s to inflict pain and harm people. By using imagery and the use of a character accepting death after a near escape the poet creates a story that visually describes the circumstances.

The overall subject of the poem presents a haunting realisation of a punishment not worthy of any man or woman. The overall feeling of the poem, in my opinion is bleak, a feeling of acceptance to death, dispair and mostly emptiness.

Semantic fields surrounding the piece provide the hidden and more complex meaning of the poem. ‘Sitting alone on a round flat stone’ has a mysterious and almost ritual like field- knowing what Vaudevue had to do. ‘A child’ and ‘an idiot’ strengthen the semantic field of acceptance and reflect back on her own life- something usually described to happen to people on death’s doorstep. She was once a child in her life and the idiot, anyone looking on the situation would think she was crazy to plunge into the ‘icy depths’ in her weakened state. They would not understand what had previously happened to make her want to do this to herself.

The authorial technique of hiding information from the reader is used and clues in the text have to be used to help the reader achieve the satisfaction- and self realisation (like Vaudevue’s) of what has happened.

Personification is used in my opinion to strengthen the thought that whatever is swallowing her up is human which could mean two things: either a religious being or that the living world have killed her, reffering to people in the world, although she wants it to be natural causes. ‘Seizing her in an icy amorous embrace’ presents the water as a being. The water is also described as ‘treacherous’ which could not be as it is non sentient.

The poem is written in the 1950s and at that point in history many war tragedys had just happened meaning we can devipher more of the text and understand the implications of terms such as M L 5 (a made up chemical) and Memel- being a coastal town in Lithuania, Nazism being popular with antisemitism apparent.

The book is titled from the main character’s name. You could call this self titling (the book being in first person) arrogant and self-centered- even before inserting the middle name of ‘God’ and plot-line of his accusation of mass murder. Already Vernon seems to be starting to become an antihero, backed by the reader but doubted by most people in the book.

‘Forget about before – even murderers are loved by their families, you know…’ Ma has the love hate relationship with her son. With absolutely unthoughtful attempts at reassuring her son (such as this one) she is a prime example of someone, even as close as she is with her Son, doubts the truth and believes the harsh allegations surrounding his involvement with the school shooting and mass murder his best friend was in. This alone could make her an antihero present in the Novel. She sticks the the main characters side all along but also doubts and gives in easily to her son’s supposed actions. Along with that she ignores Vernon’s cry for help and takes her priorities in a man making profit from broadcasting and portraying Vernon in a negative light for the public eye. Many selfish actions undertake her ability to be a hero in the story.

The Author uses speech, more particularly swearing to show Vernon in a light that is nowhere near perfect. Permanent complaints and pessimistic comments throughout the book bring the reader onto personal level with the character. Using the word ‘fucken’ (a colloquialism) a total of 407 times, a clean and idealistic view of a classic hero has simply gone down the drain. Other remarks and descriptions of ‘knife-turners like my ole lady’ use metaphors such as: ‘[spend their] waking hours connecting s*** into a humongous web, just like spiders.’ Comparisons like this show a huge amount of spite and anger towards others and portray Vernon as the antihero we are looking for.