The Armadillo
Language and Style:
• Rhyming scheme in the beginning is a simple ABAB pattern:
.............. year (A)
………… night (B)
………… appear (A)
………… height (B)
• Rhyming scheme changes to CDBD in stanza 2, and continues to break down, echoing the theme of destruction.
• Use of alliteration and similes throughout
• Increased use of punctuation as the poem goes on could reflect the speaker’s ambivalence (uncertainty) towards the fire balloons
• Shift from the general to the specific in stanza 6: What begins with ‘This time of year’ (stanza 1) becomes ‘Last night’ (stanza 6)
• A beautiful and awesome sight becomes dramatic and tense.
• Extreme verbs are used (e.g. ‘whirling’, ‘shrieked’ and ‘splattered’)
• Contrast at the end between the rabbit that is ‘so soft’ (sibilance) to it being ‘ignited’ into ‘intangible ash’ – this violent image contrasts to the earlier beautiful spectacle of the lanterns.
• Italics are used in the last stanza – here, she takes a step back to give a moral response to the horror created by human superstitions.
Language and Style:
• Rhyming scheme in the beginning is a simple ABAB pattern:
.............. year (A)
………… night (B)
………… appear (A)
………… height (B)
• Rhyming scheme changes to CDBD in stanza 2, and continues to break down, echoing the theme of destruction.
• Use of alliteration and similes throughout
• Increased use of punctuation as the poem goes on could reflect the speaker’s ambivalence (uncertainty) towards the fire balloons
• Shift from the general to the specific in stanza 6: What begins with ‘This time of year’ (stanza 1) becomes ‘Last night’ (stanza 6)
• A beautiful and awesome sight becomes dramatic and tense.
• Extreme verbs are used (e.g. ‘whirling’, ‘shrieked’ and ‘splattered’)
• Contrast at the end between the rabbit that is ‘so soft’ (sibilance) to it being ‘ignited’ into ‘intangible ash’ – this violent image contrasts to the earlier beautiful spectacle of the lanterns.
• Italics are used in the last stanza – here, she takes a step back to give a moral response to the horror created by human superstitions.