What Were They Like edexcel 4-The-Poetry-Anthology

‘What Were They Like?’

Each poetry anthology in the GCSE contains 15 poems, and in the poetry question in the exam you will be given one poem on the paper – printed in full – and asked to compare this given poem to one other from the anthology. As this is a “closed book” exam, you will not have access to the other poems, so you will have to know them very well from memory. Fifteen poems is a lot to learn. However, understanding four things about each poem will enable you to produce a top-mark response:

• The meaning of the poem and the story it tells 

• The ideas and messages the poet wanted to convey

• How the poet uses poetic techniques to convey their ideas and messages

• How these ideas compare and contrast with the ideas and themes of other poems in the anthology

Below is a guide to Denise Levertov’s ‘What Were They Like?’, from the Conflict anthology. It includes:

• Overview: a breakdown of the poem, including its possible meanings and interpretations

• Writer’s methods: an exploration of the poet’s techniques and methods

• Context: an exploration of the context of the poem, relevant to its themes

• What to compare it to: ideas about which poems to compare it to in the exam

The poem has been taken from Pearson Edexcel’s poetry anthology, the full version of which can be found here (opens in a new tab).

Overview

In order to answer an essay question on any poem, it is essential that you understand what it is about. This section includes:

• The poem in a nutshell

• An explanation of the poem, line-by-line

• A commentary of each of these lines, outlining Levertov’s intention and message

‘What Were They Like?’ in a nutshell

‘What Were They Like?’ is about the aftermath of a war and its effects on the people who experienced it. The poem is split into two stanzas; the first lists six questions and the second provides responses to them. This question-and-answer structure conveys the impression of a fact-finding interview conducted by a historian or a journalist. Although Levertov wrote the poem when the Vietnam War was still in progress, it is set in a future when the war has ended. The poem portrays the complete destruction of the Vietnamese people and their culture to emphasise Levertov’s clear anti-war message. The war has devastated Vietnam to such an extent that the second speaker, who tries to provide answers to the first speaker’s questions, can’t offer any solid information. Instead, a series of metaphors and repetitions evoke the terrible losses suffered by the Vietnamese people, who are “silent now”. 

‘What Were They Like?’ breakdown

Lines 1–9

“1) Did the people of Viet Nam 

use lanterns of stone? 

2) Did they hold ceremonies 

to reverence the opening of buds? 

3) Were they inclined to quiet laughter? 

4) Did they use bone and ivory, 

jade and silver, for ornament? 

5) Had they an epic poem? 

6) Did they distinguish between speech and singing?”

Explanation

• The first speaker asks a series of questions about the Vietnamese people, their culture and their beliefs 

• The questions focus on different aspects of Vietnamese people’s lives:

  • Practical: did they use stone lanterns, or items (“ornament”) made of bone, ivory, jade and silver?

  • Cultural: did they celebrate (“reverence”) the opening of buds in spring with ceremonies, or have an epic poem?

  • Personal: did they have the habit (“were they inclined”) of laughing quietly, and did they recognise the difference (“distinguish”) between speaking and singing?

Levertov’s intention

• Levertov mixes questions about objects, beliefs and behaviours to demonstrate that all these aspects of pre-war Vietnamese life have been lost:

  • If they hadn’t been lost, the speaker would not need to ask the questions

  • The information about the people and their society has also been lost

• The first speaker’s tone is objective and their questions are like a series of research proposals:

  • The numbering of the list supports this impression

  • The speaker refers to “Viet Nam”, an old name for the people of South Vietnam, showing that their knowledge of the country comes from books rather than direct experience

• Many of the speaker’s questions suggest that they regard Vietnam as an alien culture:

  • The stone lanterns convey their perception of Vietnamese culture as undeveloped and superstitious

  • The question about distinguishing between speech and singing demonstrates their perception of Vietnamese people as being strange and odd 

• The focus on their verbal habits, such as laughter, singing and speaking, emphasises the silence that has replaced these habits

• However, the first stanza also contains imagery evoking a gentle, beautiful, rich culture:

  • The “quiet laughter” and the song-like speech suggest gentleness 

  • Bone, ivory, jade and silver are precious materials, suggesting beauty and cultural richness

  • The stone lanterns, the spring celebrations and the epic poem suggest ancient customs and cultural traditions 

  • This makes the devastation depicted in the second stanza even more heart-breaking

Lines 10–12

“1) Sir, their light hearts turned to stone. 

It is not remembered whether in gardens 

stone lanterns illumined pleasant ways.” 

Explanation

• The second speaker’s response to the first question turns the word “stone” into a metaphor: 

  • It uses the heaviness of stone to represent the way that the war has made people’s “light hearts”, or carefree happiness, turn into emotional suffering that is metaphorically heavy

• The first use of the phrase “It is not remembered” emphasises something that been destroyed and therefore forgotten:

  • The speaker cannot say whether stone lanterns lit up (“illumined”) pleasant paths through gardens, because these things are all lost

Levertov’s intention

• The speaker addresses the questioner as “Sir”, implying the questioner’s authority over them:

  • “Sir” can also be read as sarcastic, as many of the first speaker’s questions are inappropriate 

  • This is especially true of the question about laughter, which the second speaker refers to indirectly by describing the “light hearts” of the Vietnamese people

• This first thing that is “not remembered” begins a list of what has been lost:

  • Levertov’s listing technique creates a cumulative sense of an entire society’s destruction

• Levertov draws attention to a lack of light to convey the metaphorical darkness of lost knowledge:

  • The speaker can’t illuminate, or shed light on, the subject for the questioner, who remains “in the dark”

  • Everything “pleasant” about pre-war Vietnamese society – gardens, lovely walks – has been destroyed along with any knowledge about it

Lines 13–15

“2) Perhaps they gathered once to delight in blossom, 

but after their children were killed 

there were no more buds”

Explanation

• In response to the second question, the speaker speculates that people used to get together to celebrate the blossom, which showed that spring was starting: 

  • “Perhaps” signifies that this information is not certain

  • Spring buds, which symbolise new life, are used as a metaphor to represent the children killed in the war

Levertov’s intention

• This response demonstrates uncertainty about what Vietnamese customs might have been like:

  • This shows that seasonal celebrations are another thing that has been lost

• Levertov combines the very direct, shocking description of the children being killed with a metaphor representing them as “buds”:

  • The natural imagery used in this metaphor promotes a sense of seasonal cycles and new growth

  • The fact that there are “no more buds” indicates the way that the war has destroyed the children, but also natural cycles

  • This depicts the war as unnatural as well as heartbreaking for the parents who have lost their children

Lines 16–18

“3) Sir, laughter is bitter to the burned mouth. 

4) A dream ago, perhaps. Ornament is for joy. 

All the bones were charred.”

Explanation

• The metaphor of laughter having a “bitter” taste represents the bitterness of emotions in the aftermath of war:

  • The “burned mouth” evokes the horrific injuries inflicted on the Vietnamese people by the US Army’s practice of using napalm bombs

• The speaker can’t be certain about the materials used to decorate the environment: 

  • The repetition of “perhaps” shows that certainty isn’t possible

• The speaker uses the metaphor of a dream to represent what life was like before the war:

  • Things before the war feel so unreal that they might as well be a dream

• Ornament, or decoration, is for happy times, which no longer exist

• Referring to the first speaker’s question about bone (from animals) as a material, the second speaker presents a horrific image of charred human bones:

  • This is the second reference to the burned bodies of the Vietnamese people

Levertov’s intention

• The terrible suffering of the Vietnamese people is conveyed physically and emotionally:

  • The references to burned mouths and charred bones evoke the physical injuries inflicted by napalm

  • The emotional bitterness reflects back onto the poem’s tone, making it increasingly bitter in its portrayal of the effects of the war

• The caesura after “perhaps” creates a break that reflects the disconnection between the pre-war past and the the post-war present:

  • The two short statements that follow juxtapose decorative objects with charred human bones

Lines 19–26

“5) It is not remembered. Remember,

most were peasants; their life 

was in rice and bamboo. 

When peaceful clouds were reflected in the paddies

and the water buffalo stepped surely along terraces, 

maybe fathers told their sons old tales. 

When bombs smashed those mirrors 

there was time only to scream.”

Explanation

• The speaker repeats the phrase “It is not remembered” in response to the question about an epic poem

• They evoke the gentle, rural life of the pre-war Vietnamese people: 

  • The description of “most” of the people as “peasants” isn’t meant to be insulting; it just means their way of life wasn’t technologically sophisticated

  • This is emphasised by reference to their lives, which revolved around growing rice and bamboo 

• The speaker evokes this way of life with natural imagery conveying peace and calm:

  • The calm water of the rice paddies (fields) reflects the “peaceful clouds”

  • The water buffalo walk slowly and with certainty (“surely”) along the rice terraces

  • Again, the speaker signals uncertainty by saying that “maybe” fathers told their sons old stories like epic poems in these pre-war days

• The peaceful imagery of pre-war life is then contrasted with the image of bombs, which “smashed those mirrors”:

  • This refers to the bombing of the rice paddies, which had acted as mirrors to the sky

  • When this happened, there wasn’t any time to tell stories, only to scream

Levertov’s intention

• The repetition of “Remember” as a figure of speech, rather than a description of memory, creates an oxymoron: “not remembered. Remember”:

  • This emphasises the loss of memories associated with pre-war culture in Vietnam by focusing on the act of remembering

• The description of the peaceful lives of the Vietnamese emphasises their simplicity:

  • It makes them seem childlike and vulnerable, especially compared with the military power of the American forces

  • This conveys Levertov’s implicit criticism of America as a global bully, which has “smashed” an entire nation of defenceless people

Lines 27–31

“6) There is an echo yet

of their speech which was like a song. 

It was reported that their singing resembled 

the flight of moths in moonlight. 

Who can say? It is silent now.”

Explanation

• In response to the final question, the second speaker replies that there is a still “echo” of their speech:

  • This description evokes something which is far away and not clear

• Their speech sounded like singing:

  • This may explain the first speaker’s question about whether the Vietnamese people recognised a difference between speaking and singing

• A further metaphor employing natural imagery is used to represent their singing: 

  • The “flight of moths in moonlight” is an image of softness, gentleness and fragility; moonlight also represents purity

  • The speaker is conveying the qualities of their peaceful way of life once again

  • However, even this comparison is uncertain, as it is merely “reported”

• The final line reinforces the lack of certainty:

  • The singing is silent now, either because the singers are dead, or because the survivors do not sing

Levertov’s intention

• The speaker’s response to the final question reinforces the sense of loss that runs through the poem:

  • The echo shows how distant and faint the sounds of Vietnamese speech are now that the war has destroyed them

  • It also reveals how ridiculous the question is; the first speaker asks it because they can’t distinguish between Vietnamese speech and song, not because the Vietnamese didn’t do so

  • The second speaker corrects the questioner by saying that their speech was “like a song”

  • The fact that this correction is indirect reinforces the sense of a power imbalance between the two speakers

• The metaphor of moths flying in the moonlight conveys the defencelessness and vulnerability of the Vietnamese against the American bombs

• The caesura that splits the final line gives greater emphasis to both sentences:

  • The first sentence, a question, is a final expression of uncertainty, while the second is a final, poignant declaration of loss

• Levertov ultimately presents the Vietnamese people as silenced by oppression: 

  • Their losses, and the injuries inflicted on them, have left them “silent”

Writer’s methods

This section is split into three areas: form, structure and language. Instead of treating these technical areas as separate, you should demonstrate your understanding of the poem by linking them together. Think about how Levertov combines her language, structure and form to get her ideas and message across in ‘What Were They Like?’. 

You will gain far more marks by focusing on Levertov’s themes than on individual poetic techniques. Therefore, the analysis in the following sections is arranged by theme, and explores Levertov’s use of:

• Form

• Structure

• Language

Form

‘What Were They Like?’ employs a very unusual form, in which the first stanza is presented as a series of spoken questions and the second presents the responses to them. The free verse form of the poem makes the speech sound natural and direct. The first speaker, who asks the questions, demonstrates their ignorance of the Vietnamese people and their lives; the second speaker describes the terrible losses suffered by Vietnam as a consequence of the war. The questions themselves illustrate the devastation of the war; the first speaker wouldn’t need to ask them if any evidence was available. 

Structure

Levertov uses enjambment extensively in the poem, as each question and response is usually presented as a single sentence that runs over two or more lines. When she uses caesuras to create pauses or breaks in these sentences, she draws attention to certain words or phrases for dramatic or thematic effect. The poem also employs repetition and metaphors to unify the poem around the themes of loss and the horror of war.