Poem - GIVE

SUMMARY

• A homeless person who sleeps in people's doorway every night

• The homless person (narrator) offers to entertain the reader for money - "can dance"

• Homeless person doesn't want extravangt gifts, he wants "just change"

• At the end, the narrator's tone changes as he has a break down and phyiscally starts begging "on my knees"

STRUCTURE

• Fragmented form - shows change in time and tone. First he is calm/ controlled, then becomes sarcastic, then desperate

• Opening and closing likes have couplet rhyme first two lines are welcoming introductory couplet while last two lines are asking audience to empathises

• Half Rhyme - "yours" and "stars" ( 4th and 5th stanza)

• Caesura -  splits up ideas into small chunks, to allow reader to absorb the whole concept

• Regular iambic tetrameter beat is used - giving the poem a steady consistent rhythm with regular pauses

LANGUAGE AND IMAGERY

• Regularly repeats words, phrases and he way line is constructed - gives a sense of monotony

• 3rd stanza - consists of entertainment imagery - shows narrator will do anything, however dangerous or degrading for money

• Final 22 lines use four single-syllable words combined will alliterative  words "big" and "beg" and repeats "you" - to emphasis on potential giver

• First person is used until the end when "you" is repeated to add dramatic and persuasive effect

• Uses colloquial (conversational) language

FEELINGS AND ATTITUDES

• Pride - intilaly the narrator seems quite prodeuc and doesn't wnat to ask for help directly

• Desperation - at the end, narrator becomes hopeless as he starts negging for help

• Bitterness - sarcastic tone could be hinting narrators anger at insufficients help

• Brings 2 seperate worlds together - rich and poor / lucky and unlucky

LINK TO CHRISTMAS THEME

• "stars" - represent the "Three Wise Men" who begged and kneeled in the Nativity scenes, they knelt before Jesus

• "Frankincese" and "myrrh"

KEY QUOTES

1)"Give" - caring, sharing, simple title, like a command, an instruction

2) "Copper" - narrator must be old as copper is an old fashion word

3) "Copper", "Silver", "Gold" - repeated reference to money

4) "Change" - homeless person wants nothing more but loose change

                  - indirectly asking us the reader to change our views on homeless people

5) "Dear" - sounds romantic and intimate but also hints sarcasm

              - gives an uncomfortable threatening atmosphere

6) "I beg of you" - desperate  - asking for symphathy / pity

AUTHORS PERSPECTIVE

• Line 10 - the use of the ambiguous words "change" is the author asking us to rethink about people who have to live on the streets ?

• We stereotypically think of homeless people negatively. Is that right?

• Does author want us to think about the reasons why people end up in the streets ?