Belfast Confetti (Edexcel GCSE English Literature)

Theme

Evidence

Poet’s intention

The violence of conflict

Long, irregular lines spill individual words and phrases over the ends: 

• For instance, in the line “All the alleyways and side streets blocked with stops and colons”, the word “colons” continues beneath the rest of the sentence 

This lack of normality in the form of the poem reflects the nature of the conflict:

• The disjointed lines convey the lack of order and the confusion of the situation

• Carson uses this method to create an additional sense of unfamiliarity and even discomfort for readers

Several lines contain more than one sentence:

• For instance, line 7 is made up of four sentences: “Why can’t I escape? Every move is punctuated. Crimea Street. Dead end again.”

This technique echoes the fragmentation surrounding the speaker: 

• The bomb is made of fragments, which break up and shower the area

• It seems as if reality itself is being broken up as well

• Breaking up the long lines is Carson’s way of physically representing this fragmentation on the page

The psychological effects of conflict

The first-person perspective adds to the directness and urgency of the poem’s tone: 

• For instance, comments such as “I was trying”, “Why can’t I escape?” and “What is/My name?” convey the speaker’s growing panic

Carson wants to illustrate the speaker’s situation very clearly and directly to emphasise the terrifying effects of violence and conflict:

• The speaker’s panic and confusion are made increasingly urgent to convey his disorientation and fear

Theme

Evidence

Poet’s intention

The violence of conflict

The poem starts in media res with the adverb “Suddenly”:

• It opens in the middle of the events it depicts

Using the word “suddenly” to start the poem also emphasises the unexpected and shocking nature of the violence the speaker is experiencing

The switch from past to present tense conveys the sense of mounting tension and fear:

• For instance, the speaker moves from “I was trying to” in the first stanza to “Why can’t I?” in the second stanza

Carson wants to emphasise the way that the violence gets closer and more threatening the longer his speaker is trapped in the frightening, unpredictable situation:

• The closer the threat comes to the speaker, the greater his sense of dread, until it has overwhelmed his ability to make sense of things

Enjambment is employed in the final two lines:

• “What is/My name?” shows the speaker’s loss of control over his thoughts and actions

Carson splits the question across two lines to convey the speaker’s mental fragmentation: 

• Additionally, the line is running on, or running away, just like the speaker is

• The line, like the violence of the conflict, is out of control

The poem ends on a series of questions: 

• These are the questions the police ask the speaker, but they also represent the speaker’s confusion and disorientation

Ending on a question instead of providing an answer shows how the violence has turned everything upside down:

• For the speaker, nothing makes sense any more

• The poem doesn’t even show him giving his name, suggesting his sense of identity has been damaged by the conflict

The psychological effects of conflict

Many lines are broken up by punctuation, which creates caesuras and conveys the disjointed nature of the speaker’s thoughts: 

• For instance, the line “Nuts, bolts, nails, car-keys. A fount of broken type. And the explosion.” conveys the quick succession of objects and events the speaker encounters

• The effect is created by the technique of not separating the objects in the list with the conjunctive “and”

Carson uses this technique to take us inside the speaker’s mind: 

• It emphasises the way everything happens very rapidly and confusingly for the speaker

• It makes his reactions to the violence feel immediate and urgent

• This helps to explain his shock and his inability to form a coherent sentence

The description of the bomb going off is broken up by punctuation:

• A full stop creates a caesura in the middle of “And the explosion./Itself” 

• The description is followed by a dash (-) 

• Placing a full stop in the middle of the description of the explosion illustrates the moment when everything seems to stop for an instant in the shock of the violence

• The following dash creates a pause, as witnesses draw breath and try to react to what has happened

Punctuation performs a second function in the poem, as an extended metaphor:

• It was “raining exclamation marks” and the streets were “blocked with stops and colons”

• These aren’t giant punctuation marks, of course – they are standing in for something else

Carson’s unique use of punctuation gives it a wider and more complex meaning than its usual function in writing:

• The exclamation marks could signify the shock and anger felt by the speaker

• At the same time, they could convey his inability to put his feelings into words; he can only use punctuation

• The “stops” (full stops) that block the streets could be the riot police with their full-length shields, or mental blocks caused by the speaker’s panic

• The “colons” that block streets suggest a growing threat

• This is because, in writing, colons usually introduce something 

• It is unlikely to be anything good, given the context of the poem, so this technique enhances the speaker’s sense of dread

Ending on a series of questions additionally shows the speaker’s inability to say what he means or needs to say 

The structure of the poem itself disempowers the speaker by describing the “fusillade” of questions, but not his answers:

• This emphasises the speaker’s lack of control in the situation

• It also ends the poem on a note of uncertainty, suggesting that the situation it depicts is ongoing and unlikely to be resolved

Theme

Evidence

Poet’s intention

The violence of conflict

The poem’s title is deeply ironic:

• Confetti is associated with weddings, which are happy events

• Instead, the confetti in the poem is the debris from the bomb that showers over the scene

The term “Belfast confetti” is Northern Irish slang for a home-made bomb:

• This is why the shrapnel from the bomb includes everyday items like “nuts, bolts, nails, [and] car-keys”, as well as (possibly) used metal type

• Carson wants to draw attention to the way that the violent conflict of the Troubles has inverted any sense of normality in people’s lives

• Normal objects have become weapons and normal events, like weddings, have taken on horrific associations

The sounds of the poem contribute to the overall effect of violence: 

• Hard plosives, especially “k” and “t” sounds, characterise many lines, such as “side streets blocked with stops and colons”, “Nuts, bolts, nails, car-keys. A fount of broken type” and words like “exclamation mark”, “asterisk” and “stuttering” add to the overall jaggedness of the language
  

The plosives evoke the sounds of violent impacts:

• For instance, the shrapnel falling all around, gunshots, or the batons of the riot-squad on their shields

• This technique emphasises the inescapable violence of the situation

• It also suggests the speaker’s anger, even though he doesn’t express it directly

• Instead, it is buried in the language Carson uses to describe his experience

The effects of the plosives are amplified by long, assonant “o” sounds: 

• In the lines “stopped with blocks and colons. // I know this labyrinth so well
  

The “o” sounds emphasise the horror of the violence:

• Because, in order to pronounce them, the mouth has to make an “o” shape

• This is the shape the mouth makes to express horror or despair

The lists of objects, places and people increase the sense of confusion and threat:

• The objects that are “raining” down on those close to the explosion convey the constant barrage of dangers

• The list of names associated with the Crimean War emphasises that this is also a devastating conflict

Carson uses the natural image of rainfall to emphasise the unnaturalness of the situation:

• The “rain” is unnatural because it is composed of everyday items that have been turned into weapons

• The links with the Crimean War also highlight the role of the British armed forces in the Troubles

• People on one side of the conflict believed that the presence of the British Army in Northern Ireland was unnatural

The psychological effects of conflict

The speaker “was trying to complete a sentence in my head but it kept stuttering”:

• This suggests that the speaker’s train of thought is subject to sudden stops and starts

Carson is conveying the speaker’s disorientation as his thoughts begin to lose any logical sequence:

• The “stuttering” also echoes the sound of gunfire, or metal debris falling, conveying the source of the speaker’s disjointed thoughts as well as the effects

• Normal communication in sentences seems impossible

• All the speaker has is punctuation, because he can’t find the words to express his extreme fear

The paradox of the statement “I know this labyrinth so well” conveys the speaker’s disorientation:

• A labyrinth is supposed to be difficult to navigate, but the speaker knows it well

The streets are like a maze, but the speaker usually knows his way around:

• However, now they seem completely unfamiliar to him

• They have become a labyrinth in the true sense: unknowable and impossible to navigate

• These changes are both external, because some streets are blocked, and internal, because of the speaker’s disorientation

The speaker’s alienation is shown by the description of the police at the check-point: 

• He uses the names of their vehicle and equipment to identify them

Carson wants to convey the speaker’s alienation by defamiliarizing and even dehumanising the police:

• Identifying them by naming their protective equipment also emphasises how unprotected the speaker is

• By presenting the unequal power relationship between the speaker and the police, Carson is demonstrating the speaker’s disempowerment

• This is also shown by the fact that the speaker can only repeat in his head the questions the police ask

• We don’t hear his answer

Topic sentence

Both poems depict the violence of war and how it destroys any sense of normality for people who experience or witness it

Evidence and analysis

'Belfast Confetti'

'War Photographer'

Carson depicts the violence of the conflict happening in the context of a normal life:

• From the title onwards, it is clear how violence has inverted and poisoned normality

• Even imagery associated with weddings has become linked to the conflict

Satyamurti also depicts life carrying on as usual:

• The “small girl” she sees is carrying a baby, her “hip thrust out” to balance his weight 

• This is a very normal, innocent image of reality

• The girl drops the baby and runs when the bomb explodes, showing how ordinary life is torn apart by violence

The setting for the poem is a city street:

• The speaker talks about “alleyways and side streets”

• This makes the violence more shocking when it happens, because it’s not on a battlefield

The violence in this poem also happens in a city, on “some devastated street”:

• The speaker observes the bomb going off “At the corner” of the street

• The impression is of a war zone, but the violence, when it occurs, is still shocking

Carson’s speaker is trying to describe and memorialise what he is experiencing:

• We see him trying “to complete a sentence in my head”

• However, he is unable to present a clear picture, because of his fear and disorientation

Satyamurti’s speaker is also trying to capture the scene: 

• She is trying to take a photograph in a war zone

• However, her record of what she sees is also incomplete and unclear, because it depicts the moment before the violence, and other people interpret it incorrectly

Carson uses hard plosives and jagged language to convey the harshness of the violence:

• Words like “stuttering”, “asterisk” and “broken type” suggest the destruction caused by the bomb

Satyamurti also uses harsh-sounding language to describe the devastation of the explosion:

• She describes how the bomb “shattered the stones”, using similar harsh plosives as Carson to convey violence

The poem evokes the speaker’s terror and dread at being caught up in the explosion:

• He asks, desperately, “Why can’t I escape?”

• His familiar streets become a “labyrinth”, transformed into something he cannot recognise or navigate

The terror and dread of violent conflict is also conveyed by the poem’s language:

• The young girl’s mouth is “too small for her dark scream” 

• The speaker describes how the violence has transformed the scene into “hell”, but her horror prevents her from being able to describe or define it

The ending of the poem shows the speaker’s loss of identity and ability to self-define:

• He can only repeat the questions he is asked: “What is/My name?”

• Reality has been made unreliable by his shock and fear

The ending of this poem also shows how violence has transformed the war photographer’s views:

•  The “boundaries” of this “hell”  are “as arbitrary as a blood stain on a wall”

• Reality has become unstable as a consequence of the violence she has seen

Both Carson and Satyamurti illustrate the difficulty of making any sense out of the horror of violent conflict, which undermines their perceptions of reality

Topic sentence

Carson’s speaker is completely immersed in the violence around him, while Satyamurti’s speaker is more detached and objective

Evidence and analysis

'Belfast Confetti'

'War Photographer'

The speaker is a bystander who is caught up in the sudden violence

The speaker is a war photographer who is there to record images of the conflict

The poem begins in the middle of the violence, which has already started with the riot:

• This means that the speaker’s shock is entirely in response to the violence

The violence in the poem doesn’t occur until halfway through: 

• This makes it shocking, because of the contrast with the previous descriptions of normal life

The speaker tries to record his feelings, but his fear and disorientation make this impossible: 

• He can only note that “Every move is punctuated” or blocked, and he can make no sense of his experience

The speaker is able to record an image just before the bomb goes off:

• However, the way the image is presented by other people makes it nonsensical and not a true reflection of her experience

The only other characters in the poem – the security forces at the check-point – are dehumanised:

• Carson shows the speaker’s alienation when he describes the police by their equipment

The other characters in the poem are distinct and human:

• For instance, the “sun-gilded girls” at Ascot, and the “small girl” who is carrying the baby

Carson’s speaker displays fear, horror and confusion, but also anger:

• This is shown in his frustration at being unable to escape and in his dehumanisation of the security forces

• He is angry because he feels trapped in an oppressive situation

Satyamurti’s speaker also displays anger, but for a different reason: 

• She is angry because the truth of the event she recorded is not recognised

• Instead, “Their caption” for her photograph presents it as a positive image of “the human spirit”

Both poems display anger about the violence of conflict, but while Carson shows how inescapable and overwhelming it is, Satyamurti gives her speaker the distance to make a more objective criticism at the end of the poem

Topic sentence

Both poems illustrate how violent conflict can devastate ordinary people’s lives and their perception of themselves

Evidence and analysis

'Belfast Confetti'

'What Were They Like?'

Carson illustrates the sudden, shocking nature of the violence and its aftermath:

• “Suddenly”, says the speaker, “it was raining exclamation marks”

• The suddenness of the violence affects the speaker’s perceptions of the explosion right from the start

Although Levertov’s speaker is discussing events in the past, she too shows how unexpected and devastating the violence was:

• “When bombs smashed those mirrors/there was time only to scream”, the speaker recalls

• The lack of time to react in any other way illustrates the suddenness of the violence

Carson uses the metaphor of punctuation to show how his speaker’s suffering has affected his perception:

• His speaker, trying to escape, panics that “Every move is punctuated”

• He is trapped by the situation in the same way that punctuation controls sentences

Levertov uses a number of metaphors to emphasise the suffering of the Vietnamese people: 

• The second speaker tells her questioner that “Their light hearts turned to stone.”

• This metaphor represents the sadness that the survivors of the war have to live with

The lists in the poem offer details that emphasise aspects of Carson’s message:

• The names of places highlight the role of the British in the conflict, while the check-point police equipment dehumanises them

The poem is a numbered list of details of ordinary people’s lives:

• The second speaker is responding to questions about the Vietnamese people’s way of life

• However, every detail she gives is followed by a statement about how it has been destroyed

The speaker experiences an inability to express himself in the aftermath of the explosion:

• “I was trying to complete a sentence in my head”, he says, but is unable to do so

• The poem ends with his silence when he does not answer the questions the police ask him

Levertov shows how the aftermath of the war has deprived the Vietnamese of their self-expression: 

• There is still an “echo” of their speech, “which was like a song”

• However, “It is silent now”

The poem ends with a series of questions:

• This creates a tone of uncertainty, which is reflected in the speaker’s state of mind as he cannot answer the question “What is/My name?”

The final line of the poem contains a question: 

• “Who can say?” shows the impossibility of knowing something that has been destroyed by war

• The speaker has shown that she cannot answer the question

Carson and Levertov both demonstrate the way in which self-expression and even self-knowledge are oppressed and silenced by violent conflict and its aftermath

Topic sentence

Although both poems address the horror and suffering of war, they use different techniques to get their message across

Evidence and analysis

'Belfast Confetti'

'What Were They Like?'

Carson’s poem focuses on his speaker’s direct experience and the effects that the violence has on him:

• The perspective is first-person and the speaker is able to relate his immediate reactions

• Carson takes us inside the mind of his speaker to show us how the experience feels to him

Levertov’s poem has two speakers; the first asks questions and the second responds to them:

• The perspective is third-person, and the second speaker relates the experiences of other people

• Levertov does not take us inside the mind of her speaker, but illustrates the suffering of the Vietnamese people through descriptions

The poem employs the extended metaphor of punctuation to represent the speaker’s internalised experience

The poem only employs occasional metaphors to represent experiences that are external to the speaker

The horror of the experience for the speaker is evoked by the pace and tone of the poem: 

• However, descriptions of the violence are not explicit

• Instead, the speaker describes the “raining exclamation marks” and roads “blocked with stops and colons” to express his mental state

The horrors of the war are evoked more directly in this poem:

• The second speaker relates how “their children were killed” and “All the bones were charred”

• Even the metaphorical statement that “laughter is bitter to the burned mouth” alludes to the American bombing of the Vietnamese with napalm

While Carson presents his speaker’s experience very directly, he relies on metaphor to convey his feelings. Levertov uses a more objective tone, but includes physical details to convey the anguish of the Vietnamese people