'Shooting Stars' by Carol Ann Duffy

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Recommended: The holocaust thematic essay

"Shooting Stars" by Carol Ann Duffy is a poem in which we are presented with several complex ideas. This dramatic monologue recounts the last moments of a Jewish woman's life, who was tortured in a concentration camp during World War II. This poem presents us with the simple ideas of genocide, the attempted extermination of Jews by the Nazis, and how the Holocaust has been a history lesson for us. However, when we look beneath the surface of this text, the difficult ideas of the scale of human loss and suffering, the Nazis capability to take part in this atrocious act, and our inability to learn the lesson history has taught us are revealed. The narrator is a Jewish woman who spends the last few years of her life in a concentration camp. The genocide the narrator had consume her life is more complex beneath the surface. We all know the Holocaust killed millions; however, the sheer amount of human loss and suffering is unfathomable. This is first made evident when the narrator lists just a few names of those who have lost their life: "Rebecca Rachel Ruth Aaron Emmanuel David" The Holocaust is so often seen as a tragic event which took the lives of millions, predominantly Jews. The writer is reducing this genoice to the individual casualties. These six names represent just six lives: this shows us how incomprehensible it is to imagine millions upon millions of dead individuals. The alliteration of the letter 'r' in these names brings our attention to this list and suggests it will go on and on. The poet's use of listing and alliteration engages us in the poem and makes us think more about genocide, and how hard it is to truly understand it. The narrator directly addresses us and confronts us with a provocative and uncomfortable q... ... middle of paper ... ...plex idea that we do not learn from past mistakes, and makes us wonder if the narrator died for nothing. In conclusion, what seems to be a poem about a Jewish woman suffering during the Holocaust is quickly revealed to be about more. The simple idea of genocide we are at first presented with shows us we cannot comprehend the scale of human loss and suffering. The simple idea of evil Nazis killing Jews raises a question: how could the Nazis be capable of such crimes? The straightforward idea that the Holocaust has taught us a lesson is more difficult to understand than at first seems: we haven't used the knowledge we learned from the Holocaust. The poet uses alliteration, irony, euphemisms, contrast and questions to present these complex ideas to us. The writer approaches these subjects by directly addressing us and using contrast between description and reflection.

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