IN THE SNACK-BAR

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IN THE SNACK-BAR 6Morgan sums the man up as ‘Long blind, hunchback born, half paralysed.’ACTIVE LEARNINGFind quotations in this stanza to prove each of the three details in the above description.Stanza 2 - ‘It is down two flights . . . hear where he wants to go.’Changing perceptionsStanza 1 gives quite an unsympathetic, inhuman, picture of the old man. He is described, evenjudged, only on the basis of his looks. We might get the impression from reading it that Morgan,or maybe his narrator, is not a very nice or sympathetic person. At the start of stanza 2 though, weget a better impression of our speaker when he tells us ‘It is down two flights of stairs, but we go.’He helps, despite the inconvenience of those ‘two flights’. He joins himself to the old man byusing ‘we’. He willingly and helpfully makes human contact: ‘I take his arm.’Our perceptions of the old man are challenged too. Stanza 1 made him sound helpless. Now wesee that he can take charge and give instructions: ‘Give me – your arm – it’s better.’ Perhaps it iseasier for him to be confident like this with someone who has been kind enough to help him.The journeyMorgan’s word choice makes a normally simple visit to the toilet seem like a complicated anddangerous mission, all because of the old man’s disabilities. The fact they ‘drift’ makes it sound asif they are both slow, and also helpless, and not in control of their movements, like a ship adrift atsea. The repetition in ‘inch by inch’ shows how slowly they must go, and what tiny, careful stepsthey must take. The simile ‘A few yards of floor are like a landscape’ emphasises how long it allseems to take.A phrase in lines 28 and 29 is so important that it almost sums up the whole poem and everythingMorgan is trying to do in this piece of writing:‘I concentrate/ My life to his’.The writer, or the narrator, becomes totally focussed on the old man, on what he needs, on howfast he can move. He so completely concentrates his life to the old man’s that he almost starts toexperience life as the old man does.How do we know this? By the way Morgan uses senses in this part of the poem. Remember, theold man is blind and cannot use his sense of sight. You may have heard it said that if someoneloses the use of one sense, their other senses become more heightened, sharper and more aware.This is what happens here as we get details from all the other senses.© Jane Cooper, 2013, by permission of the authorDownloaded from www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/learnJane Cooper’s National 4 & 5 English is available from Hodder Gibson.
IN THE SNACK-BAR 7ACTIVE LEARNING Look again at lines 23 to 34, from ‘It is down two flights’ to ‘inches to thestairs.’ Find and quote details from this section to show Morgan using other senses. HINT Someof his word choice allows him to deal with more than one sense at the same time.Find 3 details for the sense of touchFind 3 details for the sense of hearingFind 2 things the narrator can smellBy the way, these sensory details also help Morgan to keep adding to his realistic and increasinglyvivid description of the snack bar.ACTIVE LEARNINGThis is an optional task, and will work for you if you are a more visual learner, or if you enjoydrawing. Looking again at these lines 23 to 34, and also at the first three lines of the poem, drawthe snack bar. Then label details of the scene with appropriate quotations from the poem.As well as being time-consuming, their journey across the cafe is hazardous. There are many risksin these ‘slow dangerous inches to the stairs.’ACTIVE LEARNINGQuote details from ‘I concentrate’ in line 28 to ‘inches to the stairs’ in line 34. Beside each one,explain how this could be a danger to the old man. For example, he could slip and fall because ofthe ‘slidy puddle from the night’s umbrellas.’ Try to find at least two more like this.The phrase ‘dangerous inches’ is an oxymoron, a pair of words whose meanings seem to clash andcontradict each other. How can something as tiny as an inch be dangerous? The poet shows ushere that it can for this old man.There’s something sad about the journey across the café too. Morgan mentions ‘voices andlaughter’ which are things that the old man is left out of.They reach the top of the stairs and have to work out how to get down them. The old man mustbe right-handed, as when the narrator puts the man’s right hand on the banister rail he has totake his stick away from him for a few seconds to do so. Morgan’s word choice of ‘clings’ hereshows that this is a scary moment for the old man. Then he gets his stick back, but has to use itwith his left hand.The word choice of ‘probing’ shows how carefully he feels his way down. He needs two othersorts of help too, as the narrator both guides the man’s arm and also tells him the steps. FinallyMorgan’s repetition in line 39, ‘And slowly we go down. And slowly we go down.’ emphasises justhow slow and repetitive that journey is, and how long it all takes.© Jane Cooper, 2013, by permission of the authorDownloaded from www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/learnJane Cooper’s National 4 & 5 English is available from Hodder Gibson.
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Page 3 and 4: IN THE SNACK-BAR 3Painful ages to c
Page 5: IN THE SNACK-BAR 5If you can find a
Page 9 and 10: IN THE SNACK-BAR 9We already saw on
Page 11 and 12: IN THE SNACK-BAR 113 ‘Dear Christ

IN THE SNACK-BAR

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