Saturday 28 March 2009

Mitigation

Question -

Write about a poem which made you think about an important issue.

Kate Clanchy’s harrowing lyric poem ‘Mitigation’ forces the reader to dwell upon the issue of human evil. It is a take on the murder of Jamie Bulger by two young boys, Thomson and Venables. The poet uses a first person narrative to change the reader’s perspective, along with the use of word choice and style.

The poet’s choice of words emphasizes the horror of the Bulger’s death which occurs in the ‘swooping railway tracks’. This gave me the impression of a bird capturing its prey. This gives the impression of extreme speed and efficiency, but also suggests that the murder was part of a ‘natural’ animal instinct. It is shocking enough to contemplate two children killing a younger child, but this suggests that it was nothing strange in their minds. They are unaware of the moral implications to what they have done.

Clanchy employs stanza structure to create jarring contrasts. The ‘swooping railway tracks’ occur in the first line of the last stanza, where the reader might become aware for the first time that the poem is about the Bulger murder. The first stanza describes childish games and fantasies in nostalgic locations like ‘The Den’. This changes with the break between the first and second stanzas:

and loved the tender ticking throat

of panicked bird or retching child

This makes the poem take a sinister turn and shows how the killers are unaware of the suffering of their victims. The ‘tender ticking throat’ is a pleasant, fragile expression; the alliteration of the slight ‘t’ sound emphasises the vulnerability of the bird and ‘loved’ is a reminder that Venables and Thomson are children. Yet the bird is ‘panicked’ – the boys clearly love the heartbeat because the bird is in their power and it is equated with a ‘retching child’ who we then learn is Bulger. Clanchy uses bird symbols as they represent both the defenceless, with the bird in their hand, and the bird of prey, a natural predator. This gave me a new perspective on the mentality of the young murderers – still children but capable of adult crimes.

The poet’s use of first person throughout allows the reader to see through the eyes of Venables and Thomson. The boys talk directly to the reader and accuse them of having the same mindset. ‘That doll of yours whose head came off’ is about an experience of theirs, yet they address the reader - quite plausibly, the reader could have had the same experience while playing. The poem makes the reader examine their own life and see where they have acted in the same way as the killers.

Clanchy’s use of symbolism also helps the reader to understand the issue of murder. The doll represents the torture Bulger went through and the desire for power – it is buried behind a ‘fort’, a symbol of military power as if the boys are playing soldiers. Yet the difference between the boys and the adults with ‘signet rings’, in their own eyes, is that they went through with an actual crime rather than by sticking to make-believe. They claim to speak on behalf of all young boys:

We heard your hands, the short wet slap
Of adults clamouring to get back

I was horrified by the suggestion that everyone would do as they did if they had not ‘bottled’, but this is why the poem is effective. Clanchy shows how murderers might have the same experiences as the rest of us but implies that they do not understand the lines which we can’t cross as adults. The adults outside the van want to kill the boys – to ‘get back’ to the time when they could be violent without taking responsibility for their actions.

The title of the poem suggests that there are ‘mitigating’ circumstances for why the boys killed Bulger – the boys simply didn’t know right from wrong. While I didn’t feel any sympathy for the boys, it made me think about the important issue of murder, and this is why it is a successful poem.

No comments:

Post a Comment