Human beings inflict suffering on other human beings and when events are forgotten, they repeat themselves. In the poem "Shooting Stars" , Carol Ann Duffy tells the shocking story of a prisoner held by the Nazis in a concentration camp at the time of the Holocaust. This is a poem in which human suffering is actively depicted. Duffy uses a cryptic title along with effective imagery that explores the theme of human suffering. The general connotation applied to the phrase "Shooting Stars" is that a star is falling or the beauty and brightness of fireworks representing the women of the Holocaust. Say no to plagiarism measure on “Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned”? Get an original essay “Shooting Stars” is written in the perspective of a Jewish woman killed during the Holocaust The woman talks to another woman about the atrocities they had to endure as Jews and how, despite all the difficulties, faith is still present. Structurally, the poem is in uniform. It has a title followed by six four-line stanzas. The poem is also placed exactly in the center of the page, which may express the uniformity of the war. Immediately establishing the darkness and horror in the first stanza, Duffy begins the poem with “After that I speak no more.” This triggers in readers a strong image of silence and death followed by even greater horror, "they break our fingers". Before using traditional Jewish names, use contrasting images of the wedding ring, a symbol of eternal love, trust and profit through juxtaposition. This exposes the courage that women calmly demonstrated when facing death. In the second verse, Carol Ann Duffy addresses women as "straight as statues." This represents women as individuals looking forward courageously waiting for the bullet of death. Intensifying the imagery of endless violence, the repetition of the word “Remember” has impact and addresses the reader personally. Furthermore, the repetition of "Remember" rings in our head like a guilty conscience, it can represent the last word of a human being in the hands of incompetent youth. The writer's request in this verse is to remember the losses she has suffered because she does not want the world to forget. Therefore, if we forget and do not change our behaviors, the world will be “forever bad”. Since the character in this poem is a victim of the Holocaust, the narrative given from the point of view of one of the sufferers allows the reader to appreciate the extent that inhumanity can inflict. Starting the fourth verse with a contrast of "getting ready to die" next to "a perfect April evening", it creates the atmosphere of a perfect evening as people grieve and others smoke beside a dead man's grave. The penultimate verse of the fourth verse includes the onomatopoeia 'drip' representing urine dripping down his legs as the ultimate sum of dignity. "Click" and "trick" represent the sounds of a gun. Perhaps, this is a "trick" for pretend to shoot but use an empty bullet chamber while playing with the lives of those already suffering. In the next stanza, Duffy constantly uses the word "after" to describe what happened after "the immense suffering". “terrible groans” and the holocaust will be over, people will go back to their normal lives before the holocaust and do the things they normally did. It reminds us that the enormity of the holocaust had little impact because in the present day human beings continue to savor the suffering of other people. Perhaps the purpose of Duffy adding “tea on the lawn” and “a boy washing his uniform” is to highlight and counteract the.
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