1. Kelso High School English Department
Norman MacCaig
Visiting Hour

2. Points of Interest Situation Structure Narrative
Detailed analysis of poem
Themes

3. Visiting Hour The hospital smell combs my nostrils
as they go bobbing along
green and yellow corridors.
What seems a corpse
is trundled into a lift and vanishes
heavenward.
I will not feel, I will not
feel, until
I have to.
Nurses walk lightly, swiftly,
here and up and down and there,
their slender waists miraculously
carrying their burden
of so much pain, so
many deaths, their eyes
still clear after
so many farewells.

4. Ward 7. She lies in a white cave of forgetfulness
Ward 7. She lies in a white cave of forgetfulness. A withered hand trembles on its stalk. Eyes move behind eyelids too heavy to raise. Into an arm wasted of colour a glass fang is fixed, not guzzling but giving. And between her and me distance shrinks till there is none left but the distance of pain that neither she nor I can cross. She smiles a little at this black figure in her white cave who clumsily rises in the round swimming waves of a bell and dizzily goes off, growing fainter, not smaller, leaving behind only books that will not be read and fruitless fruits. .
from The Many Days: Selected Poems of Norman MacCaig (Polygon 2011)
Reproduced by permission of Polygon, an imprint of Birlinn Ltd

5. The Situation
Visiting hour in a hospital. The poet is making his way along hospital corridors to ward 7 where his seriously ill relative lies.
The reader accompanies the poet on his journey along corridors and into the ward.
The poet is unable to communicate with the patient, but she seems to know that he is there.
At the end of the visit he stumbles out in a very emotional state.
The patient smiles: suggests that when time comes one is ready to die or is she trying to reassure him?

6. Structure Follows the NARRATIVE structure:
Stanzas 1-3 introduction / setting / character in setting /
Stanza 4 – further development / detail
Stanza 5 – Climax
Stanza 6 - ending with a kind of Epilogue

7. Structure
The overall structure contributes to the mood and atmosphere. Content of verses helps us to place the poet and accompany him on his journey.
Stanzas 1-3 short, staccato. Create sense of place, atmosphere and poet’s feelings
Stanza One – entering the hospital. Uneasy in hospital setting
Stanza Two – passing the lift. Morbid thoughts of death & about what he will find.
Stanza Three – refuses to allow himself to feel. He is trying to save himself from the pain of feeling, but knows that he will have to face it eventually.

8. Structure
Stanza 4 – sense of bustle in a busy hospital. Passing stairs and wards populated by nurses going about their work.
Stanza 5 – the ward. Main action / Climax. Sense of hush in presence of dying woman.
Stanza 6 – back in corridor. Bell ringing. Post-action verse. Opening of floodgates of poet’s emotions in face of his inevitable loss.

9. Structure / Narrative
The structure of the poem also allows us to follow the build-up and gradual release of the poet’s feelings.
First person – poet expresses his feelings from the inside. An observer would have been unable to detect these feelings. Feelings therefore come across as more genuine.
In Stanza 6 when he has lost control of his feelings he writes in THIRD PERSON.

10. Narrative The STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS – why effective:
1. Style lends immediacy and gains
our sympathy.
Helps us to put ourselves in the poet’s
position.
Helps us to identify with his feelings as we arrive
with him, walk the corridors and then leave
with him. It increases the poem’s emotional
impact.

11. Analysis – Stanza One Lines 1-4
Scene is set by reference to poet’s senses
Smell – ‘’The hospital smell /
combs my nostrils”
Mood and atmosphere is established through LEXICAL CHOICE line 2 ‘ combs my nostrils’
Idea that smell is so pungent and unpleasant to him
that it reaches the roots of the hair in his nostrils.

12. Analysis – Stanza One Line 4 “ green and yellow corridors”
Again creates mood & atmosphere.
IMAGERY – colours of vomit ; pus.
Suggests unpleasantness and his discomfort and unease in the hospital.
He finds the visit distressing.

13. Stanza One - analysis Line 3 - “as they go bobbing along”
SYNECDOCHE - A figure of speech in which a part is used to refer to the whole.
His whole body is moving along the corridor, not just his nostrils.
Use of synecdoche focuses attention on the nostrils in order to emphasise the idea of the hospital smell being so overpowering that all other impressions are blanked out, thus intensifying his unease in the situation.

14. Stanza Two - Analysis Lines 5-7 contributes to mood and atmosphere.
Line 5 word choice – “What seems a corpse” – he immediately assumes that it is a dead body – “vanishes heavenward”.
The patient is being taken up in the lift, but the poet thinks it is on its last journey.
Reflects his thoughts about his sick relative – has he come too late?

15. Stanza Two - Analysis Use of ENJAMBMENT throughout this stanza.
Why effective?
Emphasises last word on line. Focus on 5/6/7 is on “corpse” and “vanishes”
This is in line with his thoughts on death and its finality.

16. Stanza Two - Analysis Line 7 “trundled”
LEXICAL CHOICE – implies lack of care by the porter. Does it suggest that the poet thinks there is no point in taking care as the person is dead.

17. Stanza Three - Analysis
Lines 8 – 9 “I will not feel, I will not / feel”
Repetition – poet appears to be talking to himself. Repetition intensifies the control he is trying to impose on himself. He is denying his feelings because they are too painful.
Atmosphere of tension is heightened in this stanza through staccato rhythm of short verse, its monosyllabic words and the enjambment of lines 8-10.

18. Stanza Three - Analysis
The remainder of the stanza “until / I have to” uses word choice and enjambment to show the poet making a conscious effort to be detached. He knows that he will have to face up to the situation eventually, but not yet.

19. Stanza Four - Analysis Lines 11-18
Creates mood and atmosphere by recording details of the nurses –
how they walk “lightly, swiftly” appearance “slender waists”
expression “eyes…..clear”

20. Stanza Four - Analysis Line 12 – “here and up and down and there”
SYNTAX – grammatical arrangement of words within their sentence / line.
Unusual word order as we would expect ‘here and there’. Suggests that the nurses are everywhere, both upstairs and downstairs, at once.
Repetition of “and” emphasises the distance the nurses cover. Gives impression of speed.

21. Stanza Four - Analysis
Contrast between reaction of poet and reaction of nurses.
Comment on “slender waists” suggests young women.
Word choice “miraculously carrying their burden” shows that he marvels at the way they cope compared with the struggle he, a mature man, has with his feelings.

22. Stanza Four - Analysis Contrast continues:
Word choice / connotations of “burden” conveys the extent of his anguish.
Word choice “Farewells” anticipates the last unbearable goodbye to his dying relative.
The nurses, however, seem to be able to deal with so many deaths. Word choice “their eyes still clear”.

23. Stanza Four - Analysis
Repetition of “ so much pain, so / many deaths…so many farewells” emphasises the extent of the burden that the nurses carry.
The enjambment of the second “so” further strengthens the contrast between the response of the nurses and himself to the situation.

24. Stanza Five - Analysis
Line 19 Caesura – a break or pause in a line of poetry often marked by punctuation.
“Ward 7”. Pause is unexpected. He has arrived outside the ward and comes to an abrupt halt. He has to stop, take a deep breath and pull himself together.
Caesura signifies that he is steeling himself for the ordeal ahead.

25. Stanza Five - Analysis
“Ward 7” – the use of the number means that it stands out from the surrounding words. This is a visual reminder to us all of exactly where the poet is.
We can clearly see how it would appear on the actual door. We can therefore share what he sees and share his dread as he reads it.

26. Stanza Five - Analysis Lines 19 -20
“She lies / in a cave of white forgetfulness” - provides an IMAGE of the bed being screened off by a white curtain. It is “ a cave of forgetfulness” because she is barely conscious.

27. Stanza Five - Analysis Metaphor – “cave of white forgetfulness” –
Appropriate metaphor as patient is cut off from rest of ward as though she were in a cave on a side of a cliff.
Because she is in a coma, she cannot communicate with the poet, nor he with her.
Image of “White” adds to feelings of inaccessibility as if she is seen through snowstorm.

28. Stanza Five - Analysis
Connotations of other cultures in the past where old people, when they became a burden, were left in caves on hillsides to die.

29. Stanza Five - Analysis Lines 21 – 22
“A withered hand / trembles on its stalk” – imagery / connotations.
“withered” – appropriate to dying woman.
“stalk” – suggests thinness / weakness of her arm. The flower image gives sense of her fragility and her beauty in the eyes of the poet, who looks on her with love.
Her trembling hand and eyes moving behind eyelids are her fluttering, uncontrolled attempts to reach him.
She cannot reach him, so he is alone with his pain.

30. Stanza Five - Analysis Lines 24-26
“..Into an arm wasted / of colour a glass fang is fixed,/ not guzzling but giving” - IMAGERY
The vampire image intensified by the use of alliteration conveys his disgust at the sight of the drip feeding blood into her veins.

31. Stanza Five - Analysis
He sees the needle as a fang biting into her arm. Suggests intrusion. Both “giving” and “arm wasted” suggest blood is being taken out rather than being put in.
This conveys his pity for the suffering of the patient, his distress and the feeling that the whole process is intrusive and pointless.

32. Stanza Five - Analysis Lines 27-30
“And between her and me / distance… / ..that neither she nor I / can cross” – imagery.
He bends to kiss her, but she does not respond. She is alone with her pain which has formed an invisible barrier between them; he cannot reach her. Image conveys his feelings of desolation and hopelessness at this inability to reach her.

33. Stanza Five - Analysis
His isolation is emphasised by use of ENJAMBMENT - “I”
The fact that this is poised at the end of the longest line, intensifies his isolation and the lack of communication between them.
The imagery in this verse monitors the gradual opening of the floodgates to the feelings that he was trying so hard to control earlier.

34. Stanza Six - Analysis Lines 31-38
Line 34 – “clumsily rises / in the round swimming waves of a bell” - metaphor. When the bell rings at the end of visiting hour, he leaves in a highly emotional state. He escapes from his distress like a drowning man trying to reach dry land.

35. Stanza Six - Analysis
“Round” and “Swimming” - SYNAESTHESIA – the mixing of sensations, an appeal to more than one sense.
Both “round” and “swimming” are visual images unusually here describing a sound. “round” signifies the intensity of the effect that the ringing bell has on him; “swimming” suggests his eyes are filled with tears, his head swimming with the emotion of the experience. Confirmed lexical choice “dizzily”.
His self-control has collapsed as he stumbles “clumsily” out of the ward.

36. Stanza Six - Analysis
Line 35 – “growing fainter” – pun – poet would grow fainter with distance from the patient; he is so upset he feels faint.
Line 37 “books that will not be read” – paradox – apparently self- contradictory statement - signifies that the patient is beyond his reach. He has brought books, but she is past reading.

37. Stanza Six - Analysis
Line 38 – “fruitless fruits” – oxymoron – figure of speech in which two words with opposite meanings are brought together to form a paradoxical statement – the patient is now beyond eating.
Both paradox and oxymoron together – signify he has gone through motions of visiting, but knows his presence has made no difference to the final outcome.
Alliteration of “fruitless fruits” emphasises futility of the situation.

38. Theme : Death and Dying
Facing death from the point of view of the dying person:
Isolation – death is something we must
do alone, even if family is
present / failed attempts at
communication – eyes
moving behind closed
eyelids, fluttering hands

39. Theme : Death and Dying
Facing death from the point of view of the surviving relative:
1. Worrying about condition of relative
before he gets there – still alive or
too late?
2. Denies situation in an attempt to
control feelings for sake of sick
person as well as his own.

40. Theme : Death and Dying
Facing death from the point of view of the surviving relative:
3. Feelings of inadequacy in dealing
with the situation.
4. Upset at seeing sick person
attached to drips, machines etc.
5. Impossibility of making contact with
patient; her smile is no comfort to
him.

41. Theme : Death and Dying
Facing death from the point of view of the surviving relative:
6. Finds situation so abhorrent that he
rises as soon as the bell rings
for the end of visiting.

42. Theme : Death and Dying
Taking both points together, he seems to suggest that death is more of an ordeal for those left behind than it is for the dying person.
Reminder that we are not given the dying person’s point of view.