Text 2 – Eating Out
by U A Fanthorpe
Lesson Objective:
To apply literary terms to the poem
To analyse the writer’s views
The first time you ate in a restaurant...
• What are your memories of eating out as a
child?
Eating Out by UA Fanthorpe
• The narrator in the poem recalls being taken out to
dinner as a child
• The parents instilled good behaviour and etiquette
• The father, in particular, teaches the narrator how to
eat and introduces her to new food
• The narrator skips forward to her parents’ old age –
and recalls the last meal she ate with her father before
he died at which he still took control despite being ill
• As her mother grows old, she becomes passive, which
is a shock to the narrator – in many ways the narrator
has taken on the parent role.
Structure
• How many stanzas are in the poem?
• What is the effect of the narrator using
enjambment?
• Is there a rhyme pattern? What is the effect
that is created?
• What is significant about the final stanza?
• What does this symbolise about the narrator’s
feelings?
Lexis
• Is the language formal or informal? Find
examples.
• Is the language prosaic or poetic? Find examples.
• What is significant about the adjective ‘heavy’ in
the phrase ‘He leaned heavy on my arm’
• Find all the words in the lexical field of
restaurants. Why has the writer used these words
and what does it tell us about her relationship
with her parents?
In Conclusion
• Write a summary of the attitudes and values
that are illustrated in the poem ‘Eating Out’.