Intermission

Question 1

What purpose does the title play?

Answer 1

• By occurring near the middle of the collection it falls in the place of an intermission in a film or play.
• By having the poem about a powercut however, the ‘intermission’ has a heightened meaning as an intermission in their lives.

Question 2

What is the implication about electricity?

Answer 2

The implication here is that the ‘action’ of their lives cannot continue without electricity so the characters have to simply take a break from what they would have been otherwise doing.

Question 3

What are the positive and negative aspects of this intermission?

Answer 3

+ 2 characters are allowed to relax and converse

- people are unable to function without electricity in modern society

Question 4

Describe man’s lack of defence against nature in this poem.

Answer 4

We have here a poem about a power cut caused by a tree in the wind – once again, the work of men is thwarted by forces of nature.

Question 5

Describe the parallel here between ‘L’ wanting to learn Oboe before she dies and the fly making a ‘small victory’.

Answer 5

The point here is that flies live very short lives, and so escaping out into the outside world will have drastically improved the ‘quality’ of that particular fly’s life.

Question 6

What is the significance of ‘I think I understand’?

Answer 6

• Already used in ‘Y Gaer’.
• By re-emphasizing this phrase, Sheers is showing us that his writing is a way to help him make sense of the world, and that the only way to come to terms of the larger issues in life is to draw parallels between the lives of humans and the natural world.

Question 7

Analyse ‘from the shore of the other chair.

Answer 7

• This illustrates the emotional gap between he and ‘L’ which can be bridged because they do not have the distractions of modern technology to divert them from each other.
• Sheers gives us an indication here that modern society has robbed us of an ability to communicate with those closest to us.