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Analysis Of For The Fire By John Foulcher

Decent Essays

Imagery is used to portray the themes of For the fire by John Foulcher and The surfer by Judith Wright by a variation of literary techniques and contrasting imagery types such as natural, animal and sensory.

John Foulcher conveys the meaning of his poem For the fire by the use of literal techniques, especially imagery. In the poem for the fire there is a variety of natural imagery, sound imagery and violent vocabulary as this places the setting, time and specific event spoken of in the poem: “outside gathering kindling”. In the first and second stanzas of For The Fire the setting is placed in the forest with a male character isolating himself. This is shown by natural and sound imagery for example in the first stanza sound imagery is placed : “It’s singular, human thud” in this quote John Foulcher also uses onomatopoeia for a heightened sensory imagery effect. In contrast the second stanza uses natural imagery: “Wind through sparse leaves like clockwork” is a great example as it tells the audience about the isolation as a setting whilst using a literary device which is simile.

For the Fire conveys the themes the violence of nature or survival of the fittest. The Poems theme is displayed through the violent and aggressive descriptive language for example in the third stanza “kookaburra hacks with it’s axe-blade beak”. The language in this quote gives a visual image of the violence in nature that occurs. In the fourth and fifth stanza enjambment is placed to create a sense of violent imagery and emphasise the violence for example “ it’s legs arched; and claws clutching at the air”. In both of the quotes John Foulcher uses alliteration to focus the audiences attention to the more violent words generating further visual imagery.

In the poem there is also an idea of man verses nature, this relates to the survival of the fittest. John Foulcher shows this through the use of first person point of view. For example in the second stanza “Then above me the sound drops” this again possesses sensory imagery creating a deeper human aura throughout the poem. Foulcher further uses a human aura to build a sense of natural imagery for example in the last stanza : “I pick up these twigs and leave them” adding closure

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