I often get emails like this:
Hi Sir,
I was wondering if you could possibly quickly mark this essay I wrote. It would be so helpful as I have important mocks coming up and my teacher has never said we are allowed to send them anything we write!
Also ,by the way, I find your videos so helpful, especially the Macbeth ones!
Thanks again,
Lily
Usually, I don’t have time to respond, or the essay has too many mistakes, and it would take even longer to explain them! But, now I’ve started a newsletter, so I can make a bit more time. Pay attention to what Lily does and doesn’t do, and you can get a grade 9.
Compare how poets presents the effects of war on people in Poppies and one other poem in the Power and Conflict anthology
Both poems, ‘Poppies’ by Jane Weir and ‘Remains’ by Simon Armitage, explore how war affects an individual. However this is done in different ways, with ‘Poppies’ describing a mother’s experience whilst ‘Remains’ shows the impacts of war on a soldier, who seemingly has no one to care for him.
This is a good thesis statement, laying out the structure for the essay. Even better if it includes what the author intends us to think about these characters or the issues. What are we supposed to think, feel or predict about the mother’s experience, or the impact on the soldier?
In Poppies, a mother is consumed by the overwhelming grief over the death of her son. She constantly replays her memories of him, stuck in the past, no longer having a life of her own without thoughts of war and violence.
After your thesis statement, get into analysing a quotation. Which one would you use to back up these arguments?
The entire poem is written without structure, and feels incredibly intimate.
How is the lack of structure intimate? This is a really interesting idea, but you have to explain it.
Weir also structures the poem around personal pronouns such as ‘I’ and ‘You’ throughout, which creates the sense that the poem is an eulogy and a collection of memories that the loving mother continuously replays in her head.
Brilliant – you have a convincing reason to mention this structure, as it is leading to really interesting interpretations of the mother. So this earns a high AO3 mark.
However, these memories may actually have taken over her brain, as they have become violent and each is tinted with threatening imagery. Embedded in the memories of her son leaving home is a semantic field of military language, with words such as ‘spasms’, ‘bandaged’, ‘blockade’ and ‘blackthorns’ being used. The word ‘spasms’ ,being used to describe an ordinary object such as paper, highlights how the mother sees the world as dangerous, and may even reflect the constant worry of her son- her fear of his horrifying death.
You link a huge range of references together, for a very high AO1 references mark. Examiners love a semantic field! They are also linked to an interpretation of the mother, for a high AO2 mark.
The nouns ‘blockade’ and ‘blackthorns’ again highlight how she is demonising her day-to-day life, as a ‘blockade’ being a military tactic and ‘blackthorns’ reflecting the barbed wire along trenches.
Demonising her own life is an interesting idea, but you need to explain it, for example ‘so that we imagine…’
The mother’s life seems to have been remade, as she no longer has any time frame other than from when her son left. This is shown as the poet uses vague time frames such as ‘before’ and ‘after’, which show the only focus in her life is the time her son leaves, and how nothing else is now important.
This gets a high AO2 mark, it’s a clever analysis of time. Even better if you tell us how we might react to it.
This overwhelming impact of war is also felt by the soldier in the poem ‘Remains’. Simon Armitage describes a soldier in Iraq who has shot someone (who was ‘possibly’ defenceless), and now cannot escape the memory of it. His mind forces him every day to see the ‘blood-shadow’ of the man he killed on his patrol. This is a metaphor for the stain left by the man's insides on the street, but the word ‘shadow’ reflects how the image is haunting the man like a shadow, as we can never get rid of them.
This is a good comparison of the topic of each poem. But you also need to compare the methods – were any of your quotations from Poppies metaphors too? Now would be the time to make the connection.
Similarly, you have also noticed that this is a memory he cannot leave, which is similar to what you argued about the mother – but again you should make the direct comparison.
Even when the soldier has returned home he is plagued by memories of the murder: ‘and he bursts again through the doors of the bank’. This is the memory the soldier keeps replaying of the looter leaving the bank, but also metaphorically bursting through his mind; he has tried to keep his mind locked and separated but the man violently ‘bursts’ through it each night.
This is a good AO2 analysis as you focus on the implications of a particular word.
Eventually, the soldier recognises his mind as the true enemy when he says that the man is ‘dug in behind enemy lines’. ‘Dug’ reflects the permanence of the man in his brain and by calling his brain ‘enemy lines’ he shows how memory and his consciousness have consumed and ruined him- much like what has happened to the mother in ‘Poppies’.
This is the same length as the previous paragraph, but an excellent example of how to link your analysis of individual words to interpreting the character. This is top notch AO2.
Armitage has written a poem, describing what it is like for soldiers away from the battlefield, which is untypical of war poems, to contrast with readers' ideas of soldiers' lives being glorified and highlight the support that they actually do need.
You’ve written about the poet’s purpose here, which you didn’t about Poppies. You skilfully link to it in the next paragraph, for a comparison. This will improve your AO3 mark.
In ‘Poppies’, the son seems to have fallen for this glorified propaganda that Armitage challenges. Weir describes him as ‘intoxicated’, viewing war ‘like a treasure chest’. This simile reflects how the government and the media glorify war, presenting it as something that can be easily won, like a child's game of pirates, and the honour or ‘treasure’ that can be gained from it.
This is top level AO2 for your interpretation of quotations, and the way you link them across the poem. All your references have been linked to interpretations, so the AO1 references mark is really high too.
However, the mother does not seem to hold these patriotic values. Despite this, she voluntarily put herself in place of a soldier. She describes herself as ‘without reinforcements’ and also as ‘reaching the top of the hill’. These terms both show how she is imagining herself with the soldiers, with her son; ‘‘Reaching the top’ is similar to soldiers going over the top ,leaving their trenches, in war.
This is a brilliant analysis of semantic field that I have never paid attention to. Top AO2. But tell us what we are supposed to think, feel or predict for the top AO3 mark.
Although the mother in ‘Poppies’ wishes to be able to support and aid her son, the soldier in ‘Remains’ feels no support from neither friends nor social services and is left alone to attempt to cure himself with ‘the drink and the drugs’.
If there is a weakness in the structure of your essay it is that you don’t deal with the endings of the poems. Writing about the ends of texts always allows you to write about the author’s ideas, so always gives you high AO3 marks.
But, it also shows you are dealing with the whole text, which gives you high AO1 Task marks, too. So, ALWAYS write about the ending!
In conclusion, both poems explore how war has consumed and destroyed the lives of two different individuals. These individuals remain unnamed throughout each poem, as both poets leave the reader to be able to relate to either protagonist, as they are universal experiences. One is a mother, whose life is plagued with thoughts of her son, who the reader questions may or may not be alive, whilst the other is a soldier experiencing war first hand.
My guide to Power and Conflict Poems includes 11 grade 9 essays, comparing every poem.
The Mark Scheme
Level 6: Convincing, critical analysis and exploration. (26-30 marks)
Level 5: Thoughtful, developed consideration (21–25 marks)
All examiners are likely to agree that the answer has all of Level 5.
Then they might argue about how much it is “convincing” in Level 6. It would probably score in the 28-30 mark range for most examiners. I would be stingier because of the weaknesses I’ve pointed out. Also, you haven’t shown much understanding of Remains (and clearly haven’t watched my video on it!).
I’ve written an answer to the same question and am wondering what I would get if you would be so kind to read it?