How does “Nettles” and “I am very bothered” portray strong emotions?

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Nettles and I am very bothered portray strong emotions, both through grief, regret and childhood. By portraying emotions through characters that are young, it shows that pain inflicted on children is helpless and can’t be prevented. There are a lot of hints of regrets and rhetorical questions in I am very bothered, whereas Nettles is just a father’s pain over safeguarding his son. They both relate to a real life situation in which someone they love is hurt. The main difference is in nettles the pain could not be prevented but in I am very bothered he is the one to inflict pain.
Nettles by Vernon Scannell uses lots of words like “spears, regiment, parade, recruits, wounds” and the “fallen dead”, the theme of war, which makes you depict an image of this loving father trying to fight a battle against evil and pain to protect his son. The last two lines of the poem show that the plant had grown, “called up tall recruits” and that he understands he can’t always protect his son “my son would often feel sharp wounds”. The father is angry for the plant inflicting pain on his son, but then he realises pain is life and he cannot continually protect his son from the evil of the world. This portrays strong emotions because the father loves his son and wants him to be happy and safe not sad and hurt.
I am very bothered portrays emotions but doesn’t go as deep, and is more of a light-hearted but meaningful poem. The poem has a theme of marriage and love; “middle finger, rings, eternity” and “marry me”. The emotions are portrayed through this naïve boy’s first crush in which he hurts and ruins his chance of loving. The rhetorical question title contradicts itself because in some parts of the poem, “buttered fingered way” seems like he did no...

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...elings which make the reader feel what they writer wants them to fell and create empathy for both of the situations. I am very bothered uses language techniques like rhyme “name” and “flame” when he hands the scissors over. This is the only rhyme in the poem and I think Armitage does this to show that when he burnt her it all happened so fast, name and flame rhyming makes the poem flow faster and gather a pace. Nettles use lots of similes, personification and metaphors to exaggerate the pain the boy went through, for example “blisters beaded”, “green spears”, “regiment of spite” which makes the nettle bush sound like some big evil plot about to destroy the world. I am very bothered puts you in the shoes of the person who has inflicted pain on another, which is quite a different concept because normally the author would, chose to write about the person who was hurt.

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