“Visiting Hour”
by Norman MacCaig
Stanza One
The poem is about a visit to a dying relative in hospital. For most of the
poem, MacCaig creates a mood of despair, relating to the impending death.
• He evokes several of our senses, beginning with the smells of the hospital,
“The hospital smell/combs my nostrils/as they go bobbing along,”
this example of synecdoche (describing one part of him - his nose), as
bouncing up and down along the corridors could at first seem humorous.
However, there is a sense that there is no escaping the clinical smells as they
“comb” or bristle in his nose. Any idea of this being a jolly outing is soon
dismissed with the contrast shown by the opening line of verse two,
“What seems a corpse….” We are sharply reminded that this is a place of
death and dying.
Stanza Two
• MacCaig uses enjambment to emphasise the end and beginning of his
lines,
“…..a corpse/is trundled…” and “….vanishes/heavenward.”
• The poet’s use of the word “corpse” at the end of the line draws
attention to the idea of death. There is a touch of humour with the
mysterious word “vanishes” at the end of the line, while
“heavenward” is set on its own to symbolise that not only is a body
being removed upwards in the hospital lift, but this is the start of this
unfortunate person’s journey beyond life.
Stanza Three
• Repetition –
The poet repeats the words, “I will not feel” to himself, like a chant. We
begin to realise how difficult it is for him in this situation of being about
to lose a loved one, to keep control of his emotions. He acknowledges
that it will not always be possible to do so, “until I have to.”
Stanza Four
• The word order describing the nurses’ movement is unusual,
“here and up and down and there”.
The usual phrasing would be “here and there and, up and down”. By
mixing up the words in this way, it suggests the busy nature of the
nurses’ jobs and how they are darting about everywhere in every
direction.
• The contrast of “their slender waists” and “carrying their burden of so
much pain” shows how difficult he thinks it is for the nurses to
complete their duties and remain so in control.
Stanza Four
• Repetition –
• “…so much pain, so/many deaths, their eyes/still clear after/so many
farewells”.
By emphasising the amount of suffering and loss that the nurses have
to experience, MacCaig shows his wonder and admiration for them. He
finds it hard to reconcile how they can still maintain their emotional
detachment, “their eyes/still clear…” after witnessing so much death
and suffering.
• The idea links back to verse three – while the nurses are calm and
professional, he doubts whether he will be able to control his own
emotions.
Stanza Five - Structure
• The stanza begins with a short, minor sentence, “Ward 7”. The poet
uses the numeral “7” rather than the word. It is like the sign that
would appear outside the ward in the hospital – we know that he has
arrived at his destination. The sense of movement in the previous
verses has come to a stop.
Stanza Five - Imagery
There are several effective uses of imagery in this verse,
“She lies,/in a white cave of forgetfulness.”
The bed, screened off by a white curtain, looks like a cave surrounding
her. It is a “cave of forgetfulness” because she is barely conscious. It is
an appropriate metaphor because just as a cave surrounds you and
cuts you off from the outside world, so she is cut off from the rest of
the ward. They cannot communicate with each other in any meaningful
way.
Stanza Five - Imagery
• “A withered hand/ trembles on its stalk.”
The image of a rotten flower, barely clinging on at the end of its stem is
used to describe the feeble movements of the patient’s arm. The
metaphor links again to the theme of decay and dying.
“…a glass fang is fixed,/not guzzling but giving.”
The metaphor of “fang” suggests that the drip she is attached to is in
some way preying on her, almost like a vampire sucking the life from
her, when in fact it is there to sustain and help her. The suggestion is
that, at this stage, medical intervention is almost pointless. Nothing will
save her.
Stanza Five - Structure
• “And between her and me/distance shrinks till there is none left/but
the distance of pain that neither she nor I/can cross”.
The repetition of “distance” stresses how far apart they are in their
situations. While he is physically in close proximity to her, he cannot
experience her suffering with her, as shown by the juxtaposition of
“distance shrinks” and “distance of pain”. The enjambment at the end
of the line which sets the words “can cross” on their own, shows that
there is the void of life and death between them. He cannot follow her
and she is unable to come back from the brink of death.
Stanza Six
• The juxtaposition of, “this/black figure in her white cave,” again shows
how out of place he is in the situation she faces. She is surrounded by
impending death, separated from the world in, “her white cave”
(refer to previous explanation of metaphor), while he must remain in
the world of the living.
• “…the round swimming waves of a bell”, as the bell rings for the end
of visiting time he is surrounded by the sound, which seems to
pulsate through the ward. There is a pun on the idea of “swimming
waves” as the “waves” of sound fill the ward, he likens this to the idea
of water that has to be dived through, adding to his confusion and
feelings of being overwhelmed.
Stanza Six
• Oxymoron – “books that will not be read,” there is a contradiction in
his gesture of leaving books at her bedside. She will never be able to
read them and he knows this, he just wants to feel that he is doing
something for her.
• Paradox – similarly, “fruitless fruits” again suggests that the fruit he
leaves will actually serve no purpose. It will not be eaten but will
wither away, echoing the imagery of decay that he earlier used to
describe her “withered hand”. Both these items, the books and the
fruit, have been rendered pointless and void by the fact of her dying.
So MacCaig ends the poem with a tone of finality and the emptiness
of death. His view of death is similar to the nihilism shown in
“Memorial” and “Sounds of the Day”.