Essay on Compare Two Poems in Which the Poets Explore Attitudes to Death. How Do the Poets Use Language to Emphasise? These Attitudes?

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Defying Gravity by Roger McGough and Mort Aux Chats by Peter Porter are two poems that have death as a theme. Although they refer to death in different ways. Mort Aux Chats refers to death to convince you to dislike cats. Whereas Defying Gravity is about a mans “victory” with death. These poems rely on language to emphasise the attitude to death. Defying Gravity is told from the point of view of a dying mans best friend. It uses a lots of metaphors and I think this makes the poem very effective and clever. The first stanza of the poem explains about gravity and its significance to us. 'Gravity is one of the oldest tricks in the book' This explains that it’s been around for a long time and everyone knows about it and they will all …show more content…
Its well knows that cats and dogs are enemies. Dogs are a mans best friend so cats are typically a lower class to them in society. This makes the prejudice easier to see. ‘Cats were worshipped in decadent societies (Egypt and ancient Rome)’ this poem also uses cats to refer to women as in Ancient Egypt because cats were worshipped at the time when Queen Cleopatra and Queen Nefertiti ruled. Also my view the poem is like a man pointing out the faults of women. ‘Perhaps there are all right in their own country but their traditions are alien to us’ This could mean all the cleaning and cooking women do is normal to them but to men they hate it and think it’s a women’s job. Prejudice is a key theme as it can lead death and discrimination. Another sort this in the poem is Nazi’s and Jews. ‘Cats sit down to pee (our scientists have proved it)’ this is one of the references in the poem to what Hitler said about the Jew’s. He said that they had scientific proof that they were bad. ‘They stabbed us in the back last time’ Hitler said this about the Jews when they lost world war two.

There is also a reference to the rich and poor ‘Cats watch too much television they can sleep through the storms.’ The dogs have to sleep outside whereas the cats get to sleep inside.

'I blame my headache and my plants dying on to cats’ this is satiric and the points are exaggerated and ridiculous.

The final line 'Death to all cats! The rule of Dogs shall
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