WHAT LIFE IS REALLY LIKE

BEVERLY RYCROFT

The Sharpener notes

Speaker: First person - Look at the pronouns my", I° and "me".

Theme: A father is trying to prepare his daughter to be strong enough to face
difficult circumstances when she is an adult. To "toughen up" and be able to "roll
with the punches".
Message: The message is contained in the last two lines of the poem. The father
knows that life can be hard and treat us badly. "Life's a bastard.” The definition of
bastard in this context would be someone vicious and cruel. Life is often vicious
and cruel. "Life is a fight for survival."
Mood: The mood in the first four stanzas reflects "terror". The father is described
with these words: "complain", "angrily", "fight', "punches*. The father seems to be
a frightening figure to the little girl and to the reader. The mood shifts from stanza
five. The daughter has grown up and waits anxiously for what life will throw at
her. When she comes home from hospital, the father tends to her gently and
quietly. He "dressed" the wound and "Eased" her. All of this is done in silence. We
are left with a feeling of loving care.
Tone: The tone reflects the mood. The speaker is the same throughout the poem,
but she remembers herself as a "small" girl and then in the second half of the
poem, speaks as an adult. As a little girl, she is afraid that she will have to watch
the chickens being beheaded.
Her heart would beat in fear in the same way that the pigeon's heart beats in fear
as the father stitches it up. in the second half of the poem, she sees a different
side of her father.
The anger is gone to be replaced with a quiet, gentle tone. The shouting turns to
silence, Words like "bitter" and "flinching* make her fearful. The last two lines are
not angry - the poet is determined that she will beat her illness.
Look very carefully at how the poet uses pronouns to describe herself. In the first
verse she refers to herself as "I”, in the third verse she is I - the pronoun is written
in bold with italics to create a double emphasis. She is the one forced to hold the
pigeon. In verse five, the poet uses ‘I’; the lower case makes her seem young
again and vulnerable.
Sound devices: alliteration: The repeated ‘t’ sounds make a harsh, angry sound "to
toughen up' and 'to take". "Having their heads" is also alliteration. In the second
half of the poem, the sounds on the 'W’ and "y” letters draw out the words and
slow down the pace of the poem: "waited and waited" and "years and years".
onomatopoeia: The "ch" sound on "chicken" and "chopped" creates the chopping sound of
an axe.
Imagery: For a small girl, the thought of being forced to watch a chicken being beheaded is
violent and frightening. It is a very strong image and a picture that the poet has not
forgotten.
The image in the second stanza is of a terrified or injured bird returning home. By the end
of the poem, the poet becomes the terrified and injured bird helped by her father. Look at
how these words work to create an image of fear: "crazed", "mad", "terror", "mutilated",
"wire" and
"beak". The images in the third stanza show the girls fear as she is forced to hold the
frightened and injured bird. She "clenches" her palms. The bird has been "garroted".
In stanza four the father is shown as an angry man. Look at the words "fight", "survival",
"shout" and "punches". In stanza five, the woman becomes the pigeon of stanza two. Life
circles her in the same way that the hawk circled the pigeon. She is just as helpless in the
face of her diagnosis. Stanza 6 is a single line but the "and" at the start of the line
connects it to the rest of the story. Life will change and it did. The image here is intimate
with the repeated use of "my" as her father cleans her wound and changes the dressing. It
is as if they are caught in this intimate moment together. Stanza seven has a mixture of
images.
There is the violence of the "bulldozer" balanced against the gentleness of the father's
hands and the silence in which he works to help her. Stanza eight reminds us that life is a
"bastard", hard and cruel, but the image we are left with is of the poet fighting for her life.
Metaphor: "Life is a fight for survival" compares life to a fight.
With "that bitter roughness to spy me", life is being compared to a spy.
The "bulldozed chest" compares the damage caused by the surgery to what a bulldozer
would do to land.
Personification: You will often find more than one figure of speech in the same line; in "that
bitter roughness to spy me", life is turned into a spy.
"breathing silence" - silence can't breathe.
Punctuation: bold: Although the use of bold is not punctuation, it is placed in this category
as there is not a figure of speech for it. Bold is used for emphasis. This is what life is
"really" like; shows how life is. "I" stresses that the poet was the one responsible; she had
to do it.
Italics are used instead of inverted commas to show when the father speaks. This makes
his words part of her memory - not separated from her by the punctuation. The italics also
make the words seem more filled with emotion.
Outer structure: Modern free verse. There are no poetic structures or rhyme schemes.
Inner structure: The poem is written in a combination of longer stanzas and single lines.
The single lines are separated out in order to emphasise their meaning.
Enjambment: Most of the poem is a series of run-on lines. This speeds up the poem and
creates a breathless feeling as there is little time to stop.

Questions
1
1.1. Title
The title repeats the father's words (without the bold used in line 8) and sums up the
theme of the poem. Why do you think bold has not been used in the title?

By the end of the first stanza, the poem gives

examples to show that life is really hard. The
example emphasise the word hard
2. Stanza 1
2.1. Look at the word "ought" in line 4. Why is this word important?

The father doesn’t really take the girl

to see the heads of the chickens
being chopped off
2.2. Why would taking a small girl to watch chickens having their heads chopped off teach
her about life?

Own answer... it might teach her that

life can be hard and very violent and
death is part of it.
2.3. Find one example of alliteration and explain its effect.
 “to toughen up” and “to take” make
hard chopping sounds like the heads
of the chickens being chopped off
“waited and waited” makes the sound
long and drawn out. “Years and
years” has the same effect as above –
long sound
3. Stanza 2
3.1. Why does the speaker use the image of pigeons coming home?

The pigeons come home to find safety

and to be healed – she will do the
same when she comes home from
hospital and is tended by her father.
3.2. What two things are the greatest danger to the father's pigeons?

Hawks and the hunter’s snare

3.3. What do the short lines at the end of the stanza tell you about the movement of the
injured pigeon?

The pigeon is out of control and falls

in the same way the lines fall
3.4. Why has the poet used the word "mutilate" instead of cut?

“Mutilate” is far more graphic and

terrible than cut.
4. Stanza 3
4.1. Why has "' been written in bold and italics?

She emphasises that she was made to

hold the injured pigeons. This would
have been frightening for a little girl.
4.2. How do you know that the poet is being forced to hold the bird? Find one word that
tells you this.

made
4.3. Why do you think the poet includes the detail of the father's hairy fingers?
 To remember details is a sign of
trauma. She remembers every detail
of this experience. The ‘hairy’ fingers
sound rough and unpleasant.
4.4. What does the word "garroted" mean?

Strangled / cut with a wire.

4.5. What does it mean to put something "to rights"?

To fix it. To restore it.

5. Stanza 4
5.1. Do you think the father is angry when he shouts? Explain your answer.

No, the shouting is a sign of his

passion. He desperately wants to
warn people about how difficult life is.
5.2. What does the father do for a living? How do you know this?

He is a lecturer. He lecturers his

students.
6. Stanza 5
6.1. What is the "bitter roughness" that the poet is waiting for?

The hard events that life will bring –

difficulties.
6.2. What two things are being compared in the metaphor in the first three lines of this
stanza?

The speaker is waiting for life to

circle and hunt her down, the same
way the hawk circled the terrified
pigeon.
6.3. What figure of speech is "years and years"?

Alliteration or repetition
6.4. Why is "¡" written in lower case in this stanza?

The bold “I” of stanza 3 has reduced –

the girls feels small and vulnerable.
6.5. Why has the poet been to hospital?
 She had an operation for breast
cancer.
7.1. Stanza 6
What does this line tell you about the relationship between the poet and her father?

Just as the girl is prepared for the

toughness of life, the father is
prepared to heal her. He loves her
and is there to help her to heal
8.1. Stanza 7
Is the father different in this stanza? Use your own words to explain your answer.

Yes, he is not shouting or seemingly

angry. He works in gentle silence to
tend to his daughter.
8.2. Do you think "bulldozed" is a good word to describe the poet's wound? Explain in your
own words.

Own Opinion Understanding of how

she feels maybe violated

8.3. True or false: "breathing silence" is an example of personification.

True (being silent is a human

characteristic)
8.4. In your opinion, why does the father not speak?

The time for lecturing is over. The

moment for which he has prepared his
daughter has arrived.
9 Stanza 8
9.1. What do you think the tone of these lines is? Is it sad, angry, or determined?

Determined
9.2. Why has "Up" been written with a capital letter?

It emphases the word and we know

that the woman will get up from this.
 She has been made tough and this
will not defeat her.

Are you sharp enough?

1. What do you think about the way the father tries to teach his daughter to be tough?
Do you agree with his actions?
2. What do you think it must feel like to be a pigeon being hunted by a hawk? Try to
explain the pigeon's feelings in detail.
3. Do you agree that life is a "fight for survival"? Explain your opinion.
4. In stanza eight, the poet uses the word "renewed" instead of replaced. How does
this word give us hope for the poet's recovery?
5. The word "bastard" is not a polite word. Should the poet have used it here? Give
your
opinion.