Summary of Poem
• • Contrary to the title, the poem isn’t actually focussed on vultures; although the poet does go into them in some detail. • He describes the vultures with graphic imagery, depicting their disgusting aesthetics and way of life. • The poem also uses a Nazi Commandant, as well as vultures, as a point of focus. • The actual theme of the poem is oxymoronic emotions, the fact that in all Love there is the potential for Evil, and in all Evil there is a tiny bit of good. • For example, the two vultures are in love. And another example used is the Nazi Commandant, buying chocolate for his children and being a good “daddy” after he has slaughtered people in a concentration camp.
Imagery
• The opening is dark and the heavy alliteration of:
“…drizzle of one despondent dawn”
is harsh and creates negative images.
Horror and Death
• Also there are metaphors of horror and death e.g: the “dead tree” and “broken bone”
• The vulture is also described with these sorts of metaphors; its “bashed in head” is a “pebble on a stem” and its body is a
“dump of gross feathers”
Love and Affection
• The imagery then changes into contrasting images of love and affection • The vulture “nestled close to his mate” and his head “inclined affectionately” • Love itself is personified as a woman looking for a place to sleep. She is “in other ways so
particular” and hard to please.
• Love chooses to sleep with the vultures “in
Love
charnel house”
that
• However Love is ignoring the horror of the poem and sleeps with “her face turned to the
wall”
• Love is also described as a “germ of that kindred love” that should grow but is stopped because in it “is lodged the perpetuity of
evil”
Contrasting imagery
Vultures feeding off a dead carcass.
Vultures nestling together on a tree.
Vultures feed off dead animals which is seen as grotesque, but they also have a very strong sense of companionship. This is a good example of the contrasting images in the poem.
A commandant at Belsen Concentration Camp who killed many Jews.
He was also a father and is described as “daddy”.
His children would have perceived him completely differently than people that were affected detrimentally during the war.
Structure
• Poem is written in free verse with lines of different lengths • Where there are ellipsis eg. “cold telescopic eyes… Strange indeed”, the perspective changes and the structure is broken up • Most lines are short so that the reader can appreciate the full horror of the poem • There are 4 stanzas each marked by an indented line to emphasise the logical flow of ideas
The main theme
• The main theme of the poem is that there can be goodness within evil and also there is evil within goodness.
• “… that grants even an ogre a tiny glow worm tenderness” • “…encapsulated in icy caverns of a cruel heart or else despair”