AQA Power and Conflict poems.

Ozymandias

Power of: nature over human achievement/hubris etc, power of time over reputation

Conflict between: representation and reality, poet and the establishment, form and content (sonnet used ironically?) again, think of these with all of the poems. How does the FORM or STRUCTURE conflict with what the poem is saying?

London

Power of: institutions over free will, place over human relationships, power of sound, ideology/political power

Conflict between: humans and institutions, abstraction over reality, poet and the establishment (and this will re-occur)

The Prelude

Power of: nature over the human imagination (the sublime), power of reflection, power of the mountain

Conflict between: the memory of an event and its reality, phallic and feminine aspects of nature

My Last Duchess

Power of: men over women, status, rank, privilege, money, age, gender

Conflict between: the spoken and the unspoken, desire and its fulfilment, inner thoughts/outer actions, self-image and social image

The Charge of the Light Brigade

Power of: hope over reason, history, duty

Conflict between: sense of honour and fear, reality and legend, order and chaos

Exposure

Power of: nature over all else, death over life, fear, the unknown/unseen

Conflict between: hope and reality, here and there

Storm on the Island

Power of: nature over human endeavour, nothing/emptiness, fear and expectation

Conflict between: poet and history, familiar and the unknown, what is concrete and what is abstract, the 2 sides in the Northern Ireland political context

Bayonet Charge

Power of: time, the numinous (religion, the spiritual), fear, war etc.

Conflict between: action and inertia, duty/honour and reality, death and life, nature and war, mind and body, man and machine

Remains

Power of: memory, guilt, extreme situations in influencing decisions, morality etc., repressed emotion, the soldier or occupier over the occupied country or people

Conflict between: rational and irrational thought, memory and reality, language and reality, justice/injustice

Poppies

Power of: touch/tactile experience, loss, family, grief

Conflict between: past and present, outer/inner emotions, presence/absence, different sides in a war or political conflict

War Photographer

Power of: the image, the media, memory, isolation, suffering

Conflict between: job and ethics, morality and money, religion and secular beliefs, sites of conflict and peace, emotional and physical pain, conscience and action, then and now, the photographer and his audience

Tissue

Power of: paper over language, thought and history, tactility, nature, knowledge, the written word (or even the inadequacy of the printed word)

Conflict between: the word and its reality, humans and institutions, abstraction over reality

The Emigree

Power of: nostalgia, memory, one s heritage, guilt

Conflict between: image and reality, past and the present, place and identity, belonging and alienation

Kamikaze

Power of: duty, family, society, the value of life, life over death, ideology

Conflict between: honour, reputation and conscience, what is right and what is duty, self and society, narrative voice/interpretations of the truth

Checking Out Me History

Power of: language over identity, narratives in shaping identity

Conflict between: language AND identity, coloniser and colonised, culture and power, perspectives of education, light and darkness, knowledge and power