November Simon Armitage

1. November Simon Armitage

2. The winter of her life First person plural shows narrator is part of the experience. November We walk to the ward from the badly parked car with your grandma taking four short steps to our two. We have brought her here to die, and we know it. Shows emotion of situation – not neat and tidy. Demonstrates how old and frail she is.

3. To ‘pare’ = to trim. Personal belongings. You check her towel, soap and family trinkets, pare her nails, parcel her in the rough blankets and she sinks down into her incontinence. Horrid image of woman with no control of bodily functions. As though she is an object.

4. It is time, John. In their pasty bloodless smiles in their slacked chests, their stunned brains and their baldness, and in us John: we are almost these monsters. John is the grandson. Alliteration highlights miserable effects of ageing. Emotive and shocking. ‘Almost’ because they will get old too, or almost monsters for leaving her there?

5. You're shattered. You give me the keys and I drive through the twilight zone, past the famous station to your house, to numb ourselves with alcohol. Emotionally and physically. Unreality of situation. Escapism through getting drunk.

6. Inside, we feel the terror of dusk begin. Outside, we watch the evening failing again, and we let it happen. We can say nothing. As night falls they are left with nightmares of the hospital. Near the end of the day, like November is near the end of the year. Like life slipping away. ‘Failing’ implies it is a negative situation. Inevitability of death.

7. Sometimes the sun spangles and we feel alive. One thing we have to get, John, out of this life. Momentary pleasure and sense of worthiness of life. Glittering sun = beauty of nature, highlighted by alliteration. Ambiguous final line.