Casehistory: Alison (head injury)

ContextThe Poet: U. A. Fanthorpe (1929−2009) was an English teacher for many years before changing her career to work in a neuropsychiatric ward of a hospital in Bristol.

It was here that she also began to write the poetry for which she achieved huge critical acclaim. ‘Casehistory: Alison (head injury)’ is from Side Effects, her first poetry collection published in 1978, and is part of a pair – the other part being ‘Casehistory: Julie (encephalitis)’.

The poem allows the reader to consider how fragile life is and gives a voice to those who suffer an unexpected accident – in this way there is a sense of a universal message as such an accident can happen to any of us.

Before you start, annotate the following… Autocratic = an autocrat is someone

who is a dictator and who rules by his own power. An autocratic knee means that before her head injury she could control her physical movements

Before you start, annotate the following… A Degas dancer’s =

Degas was a 19th century French painter whose paintings of ballet dancers show them as graceful and slim. The allusion in the poem suggests that Alison was like one of them before her head injury

Title

Casehistory: Alison (head injury)

The title is ironic seen as Alison cannot remember anything about

her past

The title makes it sound like the poem is her medical record, the

way her injury is in brackets seems clinical and heartless – as if this is now part of her and it defines her.

Fanthorpe gives her back her voice.

The character in the poem

AboutAbout: The poem is about Alison, a woman who has suffered brain damage after an accident. Her memory has been badly affected. Alison looks at a photograph of her younger self and talks about the person in it as if she were someone else. Although her memory has been affected, her vocabulary and understanding are still impressive. However, the narrator is far removed from the woman in the photograph taken before the accident. The Alison of today has one advantage over the Alison of the past: today's brain-damaged woman knows what lies ahead for the woman in the photograph.Themes: loss, bitterness, the fragility of life, appearance Vs realityTone: wistful, bitter and confused, downcast but fond of her former self and she admires her, pathos (a quality that arouses feelings of pity, sympathy, tenderness, or sorrow)

As you annotate, colour co-ordinate…

StructureFormLanguage features

The subheading

(She looks at her photograph)The poem is a dramatic monologue and this tells

the reader it is from a female perspective – we assume ‘she’ is Alison a character created by the

poet who narrates the poem.

She can’t remember the

person she used to be

The poem is set out as nine three line stanzas and closes with a single line – the many short

sentences show Alison takes her time and speaks slowly. The three line stanzas could mimic the stuttered speech and thoughts of Alison now.

Stanza one

I would like to have knownMy husband’s wife, my mother’s only daughter.A bright girl she was.

Alison is talking about herself. The use of the third person demonstrates her

sense of loss.

‘was’ in the last line sounds awkward. This is so that we

recognise that Alison is struggling to remember the past and her

own identity.

These lines are puzzling and

cryptic, she play with her sense of identity as if it is

a struggle

Stanza Two

Enmeshed in comfortingFat, I wonder at her delicate angles.Her autocratic knee

In the past, it is clear in this stanza that she was dainty

‘delicate’ and that her joints did what she wanted. The mention of the ‘autocratic

knee’ suggests that Alison had power over her movement.

In the present, Alison is a changed person. The words ‘enmeshed’ and ‘comforting’

suggests emotional and physical pain.

The are examples of juxtaposition throughout the

poem. Additionally, her mental dysfunction is shown through

the way she refers to her former self in the third person – using ‘she’ and ‘her’ . The poet wants to show the difference

between her past and present.

Stanza Three

Like a Degas dancer’sAdjusts to the observer with airy poise,That now lugs me upstairs

Simile to compare the way she looks now to

before – shows she was graceful this contrasts

with the word ‘lugs’ which gives the impression she has to drag herself up the

stairs now and is no longer in control of her body. The contrasting

images are also an example of juxtaposition.The use of enjambment

suggests grace and fluidity of the remembered movement.

In contrast the use of enjambment in line 9 and 10

highlights the difference between then and now.

Stanza four

Hardly. Her face, brokenBy nothing sharper than smiles, holds in its smilesWhat I have forgotten.

A metaphor is used here to show that Alison feels broken now. The words ‘broken’ and ‘smiles’ are another example of juxtaposition which show

how Alison has been affected by the accident

Enjambment delays the word ‘hardly’ which emphasises a tone of bitterness but also represents her fragmented

thought process

The repetition of smiles suggests she is fascinated

with the expression

Stanza five

She knows my father’s dead,And grieves for it, and smiles. She has digestedMourning. Her smile shows it.

Alison talks about her father’s death. It seems to have happened before her own injury because she detects in the smile in the photograph a sense that she had ‘digested mourning’, or got

used to the sadness she felt

A metaphor is used to show the Alison in the

photo has dealt with her father’s death. It

suggests the present Alison can’t she is

trapped in an endless cycle of grief. There is a

sense of envy here.

The poet uses language of loss ‘grieves’,

‘mourning’, ‘dead’ to show that Alison grieves for the loss of her family members, her former self

and the loss of her happiness.

Stanza six

I, who need remindingEvery morning, shall never get over whatI do not remember.

The word morning links with the homophone ‘mourning’ suggesting a connection,

perhaps as she mourns from waking.

She will never get over – or be healed from her accident – which she can’t remember – this adds to the pathos of her

situation.

Stanza seven

Consistency matters.I should like to keep faith with her lack of faith,But forget her reasons.

This could suggest that she has to live a heavily

structured life now because she can no longer think for

herself.

Faith is a word we associate with religion. This seems to suggest

that Alison’s younger self did not believe in God. This is appropriate as

this kind of injury is what forces us to question our

belief in God.

Stanza Eight

Proud of this younger self,I assert her achievements, her A levels,Her job with a future.

Her younger self had enormous potential – a future which has now been lost as

she no longer has that sense of self.

The longer line often describes her past self, showing she feels

that her past self is more interesting and worthy of

notice.

Stanza Nine

Poor clever girl! I know,For all my damaged brain, something she doesn’t:I am her future.

This stanza is ironic because the one thing the speaker does know is that her former self will have to live with a head injury.

She will remain trapped

like this forever.There is a tone of

acceptance here and regret.

This oxymoron intensifies the pathos of her former self’s

ignorance at what the future has in store for her.

Stanza Ten

A bright girl she was.

The last line stands isolated at the end of the poem like Alison

is isolated from life by her brain damage. The line is strongly foregrounded and made more powerful by the

knowledge of what Alison used to be.

The are contrasts throughout the poem, her mental

dysfunction is shown through the way she refers to her

former self in the third person – using ‘she’ and ‘her’ . The

differing tenses are confusing and give an insight into how

Alison feels.

QLSFT – find a space and add this…

Q Alison is a patient recovering from an head injury. She is suffering from loss of memory. There is a sense of pathos and wistfulness as she looks at a photo and remembers her former self.

L Examples of juxtaposition; simile; language of loss; oxymoron; metaphor.

S Contrasts throughout shown through use of 3rd and 1st person; enjambment; balanced and regular structure; tercets; longer line in the middle of the tercet; repetition of final line.

F Dramatic monologue; narrator is Alison

T Sense of irony in the title; medical reference; clinical wording suggests Alison has been reduced to a head injury.

Links to other poems… Dramatic monologues/ Change:‘Medusa’

Sense of personal identity:‘The Clown Punk’ ‘Checking Out me History’

Sense of isolation:‘The Hunchback in the Park’

Sense of loss:‘Medusa’‘LGS’‘On a Portrait of a Deaf Man’