Introduction
• ‘In the Snack-bar’ is a gritty poem – its details feel exact and what
he describes is not romanticised, not made to seem easy or happy.
The details he uses to describe the cafe, the disabled man, and the
encounter, feel exact and factual. This poem feels real in a much
harder and sadder way than the ways in which ‘Trio’ and ‘Good
Friday’ seem real.
• As quickly as you can, get ready to explain, in your own words, five
details in the poem that seem realistic, but not pleasant. Share your
answers with the rest of the class.
Structure
• The poem is divided into 3 stanzas (verses)
• Stanza 1 - ‘IN THE SNACK-BAR . . . go to the – toilet.’
• Stanza 2 - ‘It is down two flights . . . hear where he wants to go.’
• Stanza 3 - ‘Wherever he could go . . . to be born for this!’
Stanza 1 - ‘IN THE SNACK-BAR . . . go to the – toilet.’
• Effective opening:
EFFECTIVE OPENING
Provides setting (time and place)
Uses present tense (immediacy)
Realistic details
Active verbs
• A cup capsizes along the formica,
• slithering with a dull clatter.
• A few heads turn in the crowded evening snack-bar.
Realistic Details: The tabletops are ‘formica’ – easily
wiped clean. This, and the fact there are no
tablecloths, suggests it’s the kind of café where the
clientele are in the habit of spilling things. The old
man’s seat is ‘a low round stool fixed to the floor’.
Customers can’t move the stools to get more
comfortable. It’s not an unwelcoming place – he
says it is ‘crowded’ – but that very noise and
busyness, and the fact that nobody can move the
furniture out of the way, might make the environment
more of a problem for the old man.
ALLITERATION the hard’c’
sounds in ‘cup capsizes’ and
‘clatter’ mimics the hard,
clashing sound the cup
makes as it falls. Grabs our
attention and make us focus
on the sound, in same way
sound of cup capsizing
grabs the narrator’s
attention and makes him
focus on the old man.
transferred epithet (when a word
(an epithet) that describes one
thing is transferred across to
describe another one. It is not
actually the hump that is dismal:
rather, the man’s life has become
SIMILE:
dismal because of
the hump.
dehumanises
• An old man is trying to get to his feet
him in two
• from the low round stool fixed to the floor.
different ways.
• Slowly he levers himself up, his hands have no power.
To say the man
• He is up as far as he can get. The dismal hump is like an ‘animal’
makes him non• looming over him forces his head down.
human. Calling
• He stands in his stained beltless gaberdine
him ‘monstrous’
makes him seem
• like a monstrous animal caught in a tent
not even natural,
• in some story. He sways slightly,
somehow
and ‘Caught in abut
tent’
• the face not seen, bent down
and
suggests the sortgrotesque
of
gruesome.
• in shadow under his cap.
travelling circus that
used to exhibit
The dehumanising
effect
him to
Personification:
of hump
- itofiscomparing
‘looming’ over
the old man, and that it ‘forces’ his
bearded ladies, giants
a monster/animal
carries
on when
wethan
are told
head
down. The hump
has more
power
the man does. This power is literal - the
and other so-called
that
the cannot
man’s face
the
aspect
of any
man
really
look–up
– key
but also
metaphorical
– he cannot keep his head up in
freaks.
being
- ischeerful
‘not seen’.
thehuman
sense of
being
and positive
Descriptive detail: The more we learn about
the man, the more we see the difficulties of
his situation. First we learn that he is ‘old’,
then that ‘his hands have no power’, then
that he has a ‘hump’ that ‘forces his head
down’, and eventually that he is also ‘blind’.
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
the stick is ‘hanging’ - shows
us how vulnerable the man is:
he does not seem to have the
strength to use the one thing
he has that might help him.
Even on his feet he is staring at the floor
or would be, if he could see.
I notice now his stick, once painted white
but scuffed and muddy, hanging from his right arm.
Long blind, hunchback born, half-paralysed
he stands
Disability is described in blunt detail
fumbling with the stick
word choice of ‘sways’ and ‘fumbling’ in this
and speaks:
stanza emphasises the man’s unsteady
‘I want - to go to the - toilet.’ movement.
speech is unsteady too. The dashes show him hesitation as he
talks. Maybe disabilities affect speech as well as movement/
may be nervous–hard strangers for help when you can’t see/
may be embarrassed–even harder for an adult to have to ask
for help in going to the toilet.
SIMILE emphasises how long it
all seems to take
First impressions of narrator
might be that he is not very
nice but here he willingly help
the man.
• It is down two flights of stairs, but we go.
• I take his arm. ‘Give me - your arm - it's better,’ he says.
• Inch by inch we drift towards the stairs.
First impressions of man – he
• A few yards of floor are like a landscape
is helpless – but here he gives
instructions
• to be negotiated, in the slow setting out
• time has almost stopped. I concentrate
word choice makes simple
• my life to his: crunch of spilt sugar,
visit to the toilet seem
• slidy puddles from the night's umbrellas, 30 complicated and dangerous:
Narrator
completelyfeet,
fixated
shows how slowly they must
• tablebecomes
edges, people’s
on needs of disabled man – poet
go, and what tiny, careful steps
•
hiss
of
the
coffee
machine,
voices
and
laughter,
uses SENSES to show how their two
they must take
worlds
becomes
one –hamburgers,
how he
• smell
of a cigar,
wet coats steaming,
shares
awareness
of a worldinches
that to the stairs.makes it sound as if they are
• andanthe
slow dangerous
he can’t see, only hear/feel/smell etc
both slow, and also helpless,
and not in control of their
movements
Details emphasise
awkwardness of journey and
dependence of man on narrator
•
•
•
•
•
I put his right hand on the rail
and take his stick. He clings to me. The stick
is in his left hand, probing the treads.
I guide his arms and tell him the steps.
And slowly we go down. And slowly we go down.
REPETITION: emphasises just
how slow and repetitive that
journey is, and how long it all
takes
Emphasises how long it has
taken to get to bathroom
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
White tiles and mirrors at last. He shambles
uncouth into the clinical gleam.
I set him in position, stand behind him
and wait with his stick.
His brooding reflection darkens the mirror
But the trickle of his water is thin and slow,
an old man’s apology for living.
Clumsy/awkward
CONTRAST
powerful and threatening
-almost menacing
versus weak, frail and
dependent.
TONE of slight impatience –
fed up with how long it’s taking
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
WORD CHOICE shows man aware – not
sure if he’ll be allowed to wash hands
Painful ages to close his trousers and coat TONE of sympathy
increases – WORD
I do up the last buttons for him.
CHOICE
He asks doubtfully, ‘Can I - wash my hands?’
demonstrates
I fill the basin, clasp his soft fingers round the soap. kindness and
patience
He washes feebly, patiently. There is no towel.
As does the fact that
I press the pedal of the drier, draw his hands
he doesn’t just
gently into the roar of the hot air.
touch his coat but
his actual skin.
But he cannot rub them together,
drags out a handkerchief to finish.
He is glad to leave the contraption, and face the stairs.
WORD CHOICE suggests the return journey is
yet another challenge for the man – the word
suggests that they are confronting a difficulty.
ALLITERATION used to draw attention to
the message of the poem
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
REPETITION tells us how long the return
journey up the stairs takes them
He climbs, and steadily enough.
He climbs, we climb. He climbs
with many pauses but with that one
TONE – attitude of great
persisting patience of the undefeated
which is the nature of man when all is said. respect for the man – stays
dignified in face a potentially
And slowly we go up. And slowly we go up. embarrassing/humiliating
experience
The faltering, unfaltering steps
take him at last to the door
across that endless yet not endless waste of floor.
I watch him helped on a bus. It shudders off in the rain.
The conductor bends to hear where he wants to go.
CONTRADICTIONS – man/narrator – or is man cofident as he has help?
Seems endless as it takes so long, but not actually.
In last verse the narrator reflects on the
experience and his meeting with the man
And the life he must lead.
dark/trust – suggests how frightening
and uncertain it must be to always have
to trust in people you can’t even see.
He can't afford to feel these emotions –
Wherever he could go it would be dark
his need for help is too great
and yet he must trust men.
Without embarrassment or shame
both literal and metaphorical –face is
hidden because of hump but also no
he must announce his most pitiful needs
one ‘sees’ him – gets to know him –
in a public place. No-one sees his face.
emphasises the loneliness of his life
Does he know how frightening he is in his strangeness
under his mountainous coat, his hands like wet leaves
stuck to the half-white stick?
Effective ending - an exclamation
His life depends on many who would evade him.of sympathy and pity AND
mixture of anger and compassion
But he cannot reckon up the chances,
for the old man, and the way he
having one thing to do,
must live. Mention of ‘Christ’
might be asking why God would
to haul his blind hump through the rains of August.
put someone on eath to suffer
Dear Christ, to be born for this!
like this.