GCSE English Literature Poetry (8)

Hitcher

• Description
• Dramatic monologue - first person
• about a hitch-hiker who commits a murder very calmly.
• A hitch-hiker picks up another hitch-hiker and murders him.
• The murderer is a mentally disturbed character, and gives an insight into his mind.
• Language
• "the ansaphone kept screaming" - He can't associate with people, sociopathic tendencies.
• "Fired" - could be a reason for why he killed the hitch-hiker, attempts to justify what is coming later in the poem.
• "Colloquial language all the way through such as "on the top road out of Harrogate" and "I let him have it" - this gives the poem a chatty casual tone.
• Casual tone contrasts with the brutality of the man's actions and thoughts. Also contrasts with the rhyme in "Fired. Hired".
• "Once with the head and then six times with the krooklok" - gives impression of him describing attack emotionlessly and calmly - makes him seem more mentally disturbed.
• "I picked him up in Leeds" - No names of people, he can't associate with them?
• The hitch-hiker is a hippy - "following the sun from east to west" he is freespirited. This contrasts with the murderer who is tied down with a job, murderer may be jealous of hippy, takes it out…