The Colossus

Question 1

Key points

Answer 1

• Another father poem, drawing on the legend of the Colossus of Rhodes, a giant statue that tumbled into the river
• The first- person speaker describes her efforts to reassemble fragments of him as a way of exploring memories of her father and a lack of closure about his death
• Composed of six unrhyming quintets
• Electra complex in evidence
• Motif of body parts, especially mouth (link to Electra complex)

Question 2

Key quotations

Answer 2

• ‘I shall never get you put together entirely’
• ‘Mouthpiece of the dead’
• ‘Nights, I squat in the cornucopia of your left ear’