Wednesday 5 November 2014

Analysing 'The Death Bed' by Siegfried Sassoon

After choosing what poem I was going to do, I decided to start annotating the poem to see if it would help me come up with some ideas.

  

Here is what I found through analysing the poem:

After reading the poem there was definitely something eerie about it, mainly because I read it as if it was a journey of a soldier dying.

There were certain lines that caught my eye:

- ‘Aqueous like floating rays of amber light’ – reminded me of orbs

- ‘Queer blots of colour: purple, scarlet, green’ – like the person is blinking and seeing the different colours each time

- ‘But death replied: ‘I choose him.’ – I imagined ‘death’ in this part as a character, like the grim reaper taking his next victim

Maybe it was the way I was reading the poem, but the lines about ‘amber lights’ and ‘death’ came across quite paranormal to me. I really like the paranormal feel I was getting from this poem and would like to include it to my film, to add some creepiness.

There were also sections of the poem where I felt the person was in and out of reality/consciousness.

   - From ‘He drowsed and was aware of silence heaped’ to ‘Round him, unshaken as the steadfast walls:’ he/she is awake and in reality.

   - From ‘Aqueous like floating rays of amber light’ to ‘his groping dreams with grinding claws and fangs’, He/she is dreaming or we’re in his/her imagination.

   - From ‘But someone was beside him; rouse him; you may save him yet’ to ‘Then, far away, the thudding of the guns’, He/she goes back into reality.


Overall I didn’t realise how many ideas I would get just by analysing the poem. I have definitely found some useful information and will use some of it towards my film. I haven’t fully decided whether the person dying is going to male or female yet, hopefully after some more research I will make a decision.

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