Shooting stars
Poem
After I no longer speak they break our fingers
to salvage my wedding ring. Rebecca Rachel Ruth
Aaron Emmanuel David, stars on all our brows
beneath the gaze of men with guns. Mourn for the daughters,
upright as statues, brave. You would not look at me.
You waited for the bullet. Fell. I say, Remember.
Remember these appalling days which make the world
Forever bad. One saw I was alive. Loosened
his belt. My bowels opened in a ragged gape of fear.
Between the gap of corpses I could see a child.
The soldiers laughed. Only a matter of days separate
this from acts of torture now. They shot her in the eye.
How would you prepare to die, on a perfect April evening
with young men gossiping and smoking by the graves?
My bare feet felt the earth and urine trickled
Down my legs until I heard the click. Not yet. A trick.
After immense suffering someone takes tea on the lawn.
After the terrible moans a boy washes his uniform.
After the history lesson children run to their toys the world
turns in its sleep the spades shovel soil Sara Ezra …
Sister, if seas part us, do you not consider me?
Tell them I sang the ancient psalms at dusk
inside the wire and strong men wept. Turn thee
unto me with mercy, for I am desolate and lost.
General Analysis
- Global issues:
- Power, justice, and politics
- Current issues where humans are stripped of their dignity
- Racial discrimination
- Farmer’s suicides in India
- Extreme poverty
- Refugee crisis
- Some prisons in certain countries
- Related texts:
- The Stanford Prison Experiment
- Title
- Shooting stars could signify wishes that are forgotten
- Bright image contrasts with the bleakness of the poem
- Literal meaning: shooting ‘stars’, representing Jews
Line-wise analysis
After I no longer speak they break our fingers
to salvage my wedding ring. Rebecca Rachel Ruth
- Objectifying the people as resources that are salvaged
- Dehumanises the guards
Aaron Emmanuel David, stars on all our brows
- The names are just listed; permeates a feeling that these people don’t have identities
beneath the gaze of men with guns. Mourn for the daughters,
- the girls are getting killed and therefore there is no one to bring forth children to continue the line
upright as statues, brave. You would not look at me.
- Shows self-respect, human dignity
- Looking at each other would induce more emotional pain
You waited for the bullet. Fell. I say, Remember.
- They feel that death is preferable to this situation
- Varied sentence structure using caesura raises the impact of “Fell”
Remember these appalling days which make the world
Forever bad. One saw I was alive. Loosened
- Addresses the permanence of Holocaust
- It cannot be undone
his belt. My bowels opened in a ragged gape of fear.
- Does not give complete details, leaves reader to imagine horrors
- Choice of words creates strong effect:
- ‘ragged’ - rough, visceral
Between the gap of corpses I could see a child.
- She is trying to suppress her emotions -> shows that she has been desensitized to suffering.
- Matter-of-fact language.
The soldiers laughed. Only a matter of days separate
- ‘laughing’ of the soldiers shows their inhumanity
this from acts of torture now. They shot her in the eye.
* Shifts in time - describes past incident from memory, says that this was days ago from ‘now’, and goes back into the past.
- Shots through the eye aren’t always lethal; they are trying to prolong her pain
- Takes marksmanship to shoot someone in the eye -> shows supremacy of the soldiers’ ability
- Destroying her vision
- Destroying all future prospects for the child
- Destroying her window into the world
- Shows the mercilessness of the soldiers
How would you prepare to die, on a perfect April evening
- April is symbolic of life and rebirth - beginning of spring
- Second person pronoun, communicating how impossible it is to prepare to die in this situation
with young men gossiping and smoking by the graves?
- No regard for human life
- Indoctrination of the nazi guards: they are doing this to appease their Nazi leaders
My bare feet felt the earth and urine trickled
- Very realistic and uncensored
Down my legs until I heard the click. Not yet. A trick.
- The rhythmic quality suggests repetitiveness
- Rhyme suggests that the soldiers find this amusing and view it as a game
After immense suffering someone takes tea on the lawn.
After the terrible moans a boy washes his uniform.
- The boy is a guard
- Refers to him as a ‘boy’ rather than a ‘man’ or a ‘soldier’:
- He has been brought up in this violent environment, violence is all these people and children know
- Does the murder even affect them?
- There is no visible psychological effect of all of this violence on the soldiers
After the history lesson children run to their toys the world
- Anaphora - ‘after’
- Children are unaffected by the knowledge of this
turns in its sleep the spades shovel soil Sara Ezra …
- Shovel soil - connotations to bodies being buried
- Sibilance and ellipses show continuity
Sister, if seas part us, do you not consider me?
- Speaking to the rest of society, asking them why they are indifferent to her condition
- Almost speaking to the reader
- “Sister” shows feeling of oneness
Tell them I sang the ancient psalms at dusk
inside the wire and strong men wept. Turn thee
unto me with mercy, for I am desolate and lost.
- Bibilical allusion
- Striking, direct end
- Ends with depressing tone
Further analysis
Stanza 1
- “After I no longer speak”- Euphemism for death. There is a sense of finality to this line. The person speaking knows she will die and also what will happen to her when she is dead. The use of 1st person “I” is very personal and makes what will happen even more shocking as this person is speaking of/dealing with the horrors that she will have to endure. The phrase also shows the woman’s strength. It is clear that she has accepted her fate and faces it head on.
- “they break our fingers” – the word ‘break’ is very effective here. It has an onomatopoetic effect and sounds very harsh. It emphasises brutality. We also begin to wonder who ‘they’ are.
- “to salvage my wedding ring” – this line is very significant. The word ‘salvage’ normally means to find something useful from rubbish. It is horrific to think that the gold band is what is being saved and the body that wears it is what is being disposed of. There is a juxtaposition here when we think of the love and devotion portrayed by a wedding band and the harshness of the theft. Overall, it clearly shows what the Nazi soldiers thought of the Jews.
- “Rebecca Rachel Ruth… David” – These names are Jewish names which give us the first indication that this poem is depicting the Holocaust. There is no punctuation between the names, they all run into each other to emphasise that their individuality has been stolen from them. They are now only regarded as the collective, the Jew.
- “stars on all our brows” – this is referring to the Star of David that all Jews would have had to have worn. The stars are not literally on their forehead, this is just to indicate that the Jews were a target.
- “Beneath the gaze of men with guns” – The word ‘beneath’ can have two meanings – it is ambiguous. The speaker is literally beneath the soldiers as she is on the ground. Also, consider that the soldiers could believe the Jews are worth less than them just because they are Jewish. There is also the idea that the torturers are men. It is clear that the speaker is a woman and she seems to blame men for the horrors.
- “Mourn for our daughters” – this is written from the perspective of someone in a women’s camp, which is why she is concentrating on ‘daughters’. Here, we are being asked to mourn for these women. The word ‘mourn’ is very strong and it makes it clear that most women in the camp die and that our speaker will also inevitably die.
Stanza 2
- “upright as statues, brave” – the women refuse to show fear. They are sitting up and facing their death. They do not want to give the soldiers the satisfaction of seeing their terror.
- “Fell” – A single word on its own. It is a euphemism for the fact that they are now dead. This understatement makes the horror of what is happening in front of us seem even more intense.
- “Remember / remember” – split over 2 lines (emjambment), this emphasises the word in 2 ways due to repetition and the line break. This shows that the speaker is begging us not to forget about the horrors they had to endure in the concentration camps.
- “those appalling days which make the world forever bad” – the word appalling emphasises the horror of the Holocaust. The ‘forever bad’ extends this idea of horror. The fact that human beings have proved themselves capable of such horrific abuse means that the world will always be a worse place because of it. It gives a clear indication that the speaker feels evil is omnipresent (always present).
- “One saw I was alive” – this makes it clear that death is the norm in the camp and that anyone alive is clearly noticeable.
Stanza 3
- “Loosened / his belt” – Enjambment creates a pause and highlights that the woman seems shocked as he does this. There is the possibility that he is removing his belt to beat the woman, but it is then indicated that the reason is more sinister.
- “My bowels opened in a ragged gape of fear” – The reason she is so terrified is because he seems to be about to rape her. Through spoonerism, ‘ragged gape’ can be rearranged to ‘gagged rape’. These men treat the women like objects and feel they can do as they wish to them. There is no thought on the part of the men, they simply are able to follow their most brutal desires. This is also yet another insult to the woman before she is killed. The words ‘ragged’ and ‘gape’ are very powerful and provoke images of ripping and tearing, which shows the pain the woman would face during a rape.
- “Between the gap of corpses I could see a child” – the word corpses continues the idea that the people have been stripped of their individuality and humanity. Also, the fact that the sopeaker can see a child shows that the soldiers torture and kill indiscriminately, they have no feelings or sympathy for their prisoners.
- “The soldiers laughed” – this is in contrast with the suffering of the Jews. The soldiers seem light hearted and happy about the suffering, which highlights their lack of humanity. It shows that it is murder and rape that makes them happy.
- “Only a matter of days separate this from acts of torture now” – She is quite clearly showing here that because this has been done before, it can be done again. As soon as we forget the horrors of one atrocity another will be committed.
- “They shot her in the eye” – this child is used by the men as target practice. They do not see Jewish children as human.
Stanza 4
- “How would you prepare to die” – This is forcing us to put ourselves in her position. Once again we are shocked by how calm she seems to be. It shows that they knew they were going to die, that it was their only option. To have this knowledge of their own fate must have weighed heavily on them.
- “a perfect April evening” this makes us think of spring and rebirth, yet this in direct contrast to the death in this camp.
- “young men gossiping and smoking by the graves” – this shows how normal death seems to these soldiers. They act as if they are sitting around a camp fire. They are very normal, relaxed everyday things here, and this is in shocking contrast to what is happening around them. The Holocaust was so horrifying and yet it was seen as normal at the time. This helps to emphasise what men are capable of.
- “My bare feet felt the earth” – they have been stripped of every personal belonging and civility when we see they have no shoes. She also seems to be preparing to die and be buried and become part of the earth. She seems to have accepted her fate.
- “urine trickled down my legs” – she is so terrified she has wet herself. This is yet another humiliation she has had to suffer.
- “I heard the click. Not yet. A trick.” – a soldier has pretended to shoot her but has an empty chamber. This is described as a trick on the soldiers part. A trick is a game, something funny – there is nothing funny about this. Three very short sentences create impact and make us pause to see the harshness of what is happening. The internal rhyme of ‘click’ and ‘trick’ also increases the pace and intensity of the poem. It also sounds harsh, which represents the harsh treatment of the Jews.
Stanza 5
- “After immense suffering someone take tea on the lawn” – The word ‘immense’ creates an image of the magnitude and intensity of what these people had to go through. However, there is a contrast when we once again see how the lives of the soldiers continue as normal. They seem to live in a civilised manner even though they are surrounded by pain and suffering.
- “After terrible moans a boy washes his uniform” – The solider, a young man, has just caused someone great pain, suffering and death. Despite this, he is civil enough to worry about keeping clean and looking good. The soldiers seem to think they can simply wash away their sins, just as easily as they wash the blood from their uniforms.
- “After the history lesson… Sara Ezra…” – Shows how quickly people are able to forget about the things that went on during the Holocaust. As the bodies are covered in soil and the history lesson ends, they are able to forget and continue on with their normal day to day lives with no more thought of this.
Stanza 6
- “Sister, if seas part us, do you not consider me?” – This is an appeal from this woman to other women. She is asking us to remember what happened to her, even if we are not Jews, even if we come from far away from where all this happened.
- “Tell them I sang the ancient psalms at dusk” – We have to keep her memory alive, the things that she did and the fact that despite the suffering she has endured, she never let go of her religion, even though she was being persecuted because of it.
- “inside the wire and strong men wept” – inside the concentration camps, conditions were so awful that even the strongest of men could not help but cry at what was happening to their families and communities.
- “Turn thee / unto me with mercy, for I am desolate and lost.” – This is a reworking of verse sixteen, Psalm twenty-five, which is a prayer from King David to God in which David places his absolute trust in God. This represents that the Jews have put their faith in the rest of the world, asking people to be merciful and the request has not been granted. The word ‘desolate’ gives a clear indication that she feels empty and hollow, as if she has nothing left. She is also ‘lost’ as she finds it hard to understand why she has been persecuted because of her faith.
Structure
The poem has an irregular rhyme scheme.
This means we never know what to expect. This represents the conditions experienced by the Jews in WW2 as they never knew what to expect while living in concentration camps.
This lack of regularity represents the unpredictability of life in the concentration camps, and acts which are too horrific for the Jews to anticipate.
The stanza structure contrasts this. It is very regular (6 stanzas, each 4 lines long). This represents the inevitability of human nature continuing to commit atrocities against other humans. It highlights that we do not learn from our mistakes.