The Couple - Transtromer (Analysis)

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Transtromer uses imagery to explore the aspect of privacy in relation to the human condition. By likening the transition between light and darkness to a tablet dissolving in ‘a glass of darkness’, Transtromer contrasts the light and darkness, commenting on the link between darkness and privacy. In addition, by having the ‘hotel walls rise into the black sky’, Transtromer is linking the intimacy of love making to have a looming sense of privacy Intimacy is explored by Transtromer throughout the second stanza. Transtromer evokes an image of intimacy by describing the union of two lovers to be ‘as when two colours meet and flow into each other’. This adds a sense of surrealism to the poem as wells as being Transtromer’s method of commenting on the abstract nature of the human condition and showing that true intimacy transcends the physical level. He further describes human intimacy by extending the simile of the meeting of ‘two colours’ by stating that they meet ‘on the wet paper of a school school’s painting’. This is used by Transtromer to show the chaotic and sloppy nature of intimacy in relation to the human condition. The third stanza of the poem explores the judgmental nature of society towards privacy and intimacy in relation to the human condition. Transtromer description of town as ‘pulled closer tonight. With quenched windows’ invokes a claustrophobic feeling to both the intimate lovers and the responders. The description underlines the judgmental and intimidating nature of the human condition, as society bemoans the lovers’ privacy and intimacy. Transtromer further strengthens society’s judgemental view through his use of caesura when stating ‘a throng, waiting’. This extra pause emphasises the power of social expectations and the pressure exerted by society on the individual to conform to certain behavioural patterns. He then continue to describe the crowd

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