The speaker is not a persona, but an older version of the “I” in the poem.

Every stanza but the last includes three lines, usually of pentameter, and the last two lines form a rhyming couplet broken up by a stanza break.

The speaker describes every scene.

The use of enjambment is far more frequent, with many thoughts running over the end of poetry lines. The third line, and also the final two lines, are end-stopped.

Analysis:

The image can be read metaphorically, whereby the knelling bells might be compared to bells that toll at a funeral, and whereby the vehicle “classes” can be compared with the tenor “life”.

See, for example, most of the first stanza, as well as the reference to “ten o’clock [when] the ambulance arrived” (and 14), the “[n]ext morning” 916) and “the first time in six weeks” (18).

Also, many descriptions indicate the age of characters.

See “[s]nowdrops/[a]nd candles [which] soothed the bedside” (16-17).

Analysis:

(tenor = injury/bruise, vehicle = poppy, ground = the colour red, cause of forgetfulness, something small, yet powerful.

reinforcing the idea that the death of a child disrupts normal conceptions of the life cycle.

suggesting the way poem focuses on how to manage grief.

indicates the implicit perspective of an older speaker who is reflecting on a family tragedy from an emotional distance.

1. A set-up that draws attention to your analytical focus, or the context for your analysis.

2. An intervention, in which you draw attention to the way or ways in which the text warrants closer inspection (in the intervention you may want to provide some or all of the evidence topics you will use in the rest of your paper).

3. An argument, in which you state clearly why the evidence you will focus on reflects a significant claim you wish to make about the text (and, if you have not already done so, the argumentative statement should make note of the evidence topics you will use in the rest of your paper).

It contains all the conventions of a dramatic monologue, including a speaker whose persona is clearly distinct from that of the poet (a car mechanic), a silent auditor who listens to the speech (a woman who has brought in her car to have the brake fluid topped up), an occasion for the speech (the mechanic explaining to the woman how to top up the brake fluid), and – arguably – a sense of the ironic distance between author and speaker (Armitage’s tone is critical, as the mechanic’s manner toward the woman is patronizing, as is made most clear in the final words, “Tell your husband” [line 24]).

for example when the speaker says, “Go on, it won’t / eat you” (lines 4-5), or in the frequent reference to the silent auditor as “love” (lines 1, 10, 19, 22). Further, the rhythms of plain speech are reinforced by the consistent use of both enjambment and caesura throughout the poem. Finally, the speech of the mechanic seems realistic due to his use of technical language to describe the car parts, for example the “fan-belt” (line 5), the “spade connector” (line 7), and the “float-chamber” (line 13).

Each line is written in hendecasyllables (or, each line has eleven syllables) and the rhyme scheme for each stanza is ABBA, though many of the rhymes are slant rhymes (or words that almost rhyme, such as “fluid” [line 2] and “toolkit” [line 3]).