War+Photographer+notes

'War Photographer' notes

 * DO NOT simply copy sections of these notes and turn them into essay paragraphs - they have been deliberately written in a style which is recognisably NOT that of an S5 or S6 pupil ** **These notes should not be seen as exhaustive, and reading them is not a substitute for studying!**

The poem describes the action of a war photographer as he develops the pictures he has recently taken. He seems to dread this task, and we soon realise why – as the photographs develop he is forced to relive the moments at which they were taken
 * Content**

There are a number of themes explored in the poem – the suffering of innocents, the guilt of survivors – but the primary theme is **isolation**.
 * Themes**

The poem begins and ends with the photographer being physically and emotionally isolated, and throughout we develop a sense that the photographers work has left him feeling isolated from the rest of us – he has seen things that no one would want to see, and this experience cuts him off from other people.

Of course, there is clearly come comfort in this isolation, as he is described in the first line of the poem as being ‘finally’ alone – it would seem that, have experienced the horrors of yet another conflict, he is initially thankful to be able to isolate himself and gather his thoughts. Quickly, however, the comfort of he initially gained from the room seems to be lost; the comparison between the darkroom and a church, with him as the one solitary person in a huge building, emphasises the feelings of loneliness.

He cannot relate to his neighbours when at home ( “Rural England.” and “ordinary pain”) as they cannot possibly understand his experiences. He views their grumbles about the weather with apparent contempt; he knows of people and places with real problems (such as those in the final lines of stanza two) and this knowledge isolates him.

Even when his pictures are developed his isolation cannot be overcome; indeed, as he is the only one who fully understands the images, and because they mean so much more to him than to anyone else, he is – if anything – further isolated by them.

The contrast between the “hundred agonies” that the photographer has experienced, and his editors task of choosing just “five or six” further confirms our impression of the photographer as a lonely and isolated individual. We realise in the final stanza that the greatest source of separation between the photographer and the public and the he cares passionately about the work that he does, while those who view his work “do not care.”

The poem develops in tandem with the development process of the photographs – as the pictures become clearer, the photographer’s thinking becomes clearer to the reader.
 * Structure**

All four stanzas share the same rhyme scheme: a,b,b,c,d,d. The strict, deliberate ordering of the poem is in stark contrast to the chaos and disorder that the photographer records (and that is becoming more and more apparent to the reader). The poet’s choice of rhyme scheme is designed to reflect this contrast.

It is also worth noting that the poem begins and ends with the photographer being physically isolated.

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