Drawing parallels with other poetry in the “Book of Matches” explore the ways in which Armitage effectively delivers experience in ‘Hitcher’. ‘Hitcher’ by Simon Armitage is a chilling composition in which a disappointed man, who also picks up a hitcher with “just a toothbrush and the very good earth for a bed”, removes his anger on this ‘hippy’ and tosses him away of a moving car: he’s cheered up by doing so and says that “the perspective for the day was” now “moderate to fair”. This composition contains crucial ideas and concerns that are reminiscent of Simon Armitage’s other poetry and therefore parallels can be drawn among this poem and his other works in the collection, “Book of Matches”.
This composition is much for a longer time than the sonnets which constitute the central pattern of the collection. This short sequence, which gives the collection thier name, is based on the pub game of telling your life tale in the period it takes for a match to burn. Nevertheless , these sonnets are often not perfect in type (irregular m and pararhyme) and apparently Armitage’s idea and experience influence his poetry , nor allow him to write in the ideal and loving form of a true sonnet.
In the poem ‘Hitcher’, there a five, five line stanzas, which nearly have a syllabically frequent structure, in spite of its abnormal rhyme structure. It is drafted in the form of a monologue that allows the reader to find insight into the mind of this killer and adds to the immediacy plus the authenticity of the poem. The first stanza of Hitcher reveals which the narrator has been off work for a while and it is under risk of burning off his job.
He colloquially states that he had recently been “tired, under//the weather”, but is not seriously unwell. This generally seems to describe somebody who is unable to face the routine every day life and he declares that the “ansaphone” is “screaming” that he will probably be terminated if this individual produces “one more sick and tired note”. The frequent make use of proper subjective is common in Armitage’s poems and displays the grounded and pragmatic quality of his operate.
‘Hitcher’ presents us with two extremes in culture: two males of the same age, one of who has prevailed in avoiding all connections and worries, the additional caught up in it, yet unable to face up to its demands and vulnerable with losing his task. In a issue and answer session with Simon Armitage, he stated that at the time having been writing the poem, having been torn among both heroes as he was choosing between either learning to be a full-time poet or carrying on as a examen officer.
This kind of also can represent a deeper meaning as it shows that art (represented by the hippy) always manages to lose out to Thatcherite Capitalism (symbolised by the worker). The action-word “screaming” reveals the anxious nature of this man and portrays a recurrent theme of Simon Armitage’s poetry which can be the failure of lifestyle. The leading part is functioning and yet reaching nothing, whereas the ‘hippy’ seems to be living a care-free life. Also this is shown inside the poem, “My Party Piece” in the expression, “I still find time to stall and blush prior to I’m burnt”. This demonstrates that despite the short time that this individual has to inform his lifestyle story, he has free time at the end to “stall and blush”.
The narrator himself hitches a lift to the place where he has a hired car parked, but for a very several reason towards the hitcher who have he picks “up in Leeds”. Bob abruptly presents the hitcher, who is simply ever presented as ‘him’ or ‘he’. This is important because keeping the figure anonymous makes the crime even more despicable. The hitcher sums up freedom when he follows “the sun to west coming from east” and he is described as “blowin’ inside the wind” the industry clear reference to the popular Greg Dylan music of the 60s. The laid back enjambment of this stanza could possibly be trying to make the hitcher sound as monotonous as possible. Nevertheless , the hippys comment the truth could very well be “round the next bend” is an ominous precursor to what comes after.
The fact that stanza 3 describes the narrators immediate violent strike on the hitcher reveals the envy that he sensed when faced with a person who seemed to have total freedom. I actually let him get it is a blunt description of the physical assault during which the narrator strike the hitcher initially along with his own head and then “six times while using krooklok”, straight in his confront. Ruthlessness is all too obvious when he tells us that this individual carried on driving, perhaps as they didnt also swerve through the attack. Assault is a common topic in Simon Armitage’s poems as Armitage worked as a probation police officer originally in Manchester.
This kind of job, during which he had to deal with drug sellers and murderers could have presented him a bleak and violent outlook on life that has influenced his poetry. The colloquial and casual vocabulary, such as “I dropped this into third” makes the criminal offense even more troubling and the relaxed tone where the main figure talks following brutalising somebody shows his psychopathic inclinations. Colloquial dialect is often used in Simon Armitage’s other poems which reephasizes the pragmatic qualities of his poetry (“My father though that bloody queer” and the hard-edged phrase, “People talk nonsense and I push them straight”).
Armitage uses enjambment to hyperlink the third stanza to the next, as the narrator explains how this individual pushed the hitcher from the car and watched him “bouncing off of the kerb”. The statement “We were the same age, offer or have a week” lets us know that the narrator obviously built a direct evaluation between himself and the hitcher. The hitcher “said this individual liked the breeze/to operate its fingers/through his hair”: the representation brings to life this description that must possess aroused this kind of envy in the narrator with the hitchers independence that started his unhappy attack.
Within the last stanza all of us again view the cold-heartedness of the narrator in the matter-of-fact develop in which this individual speaks, “it was twelve noon”. Realistic look is included with the composition in the instant way the narrator says, “stitch that”, a violent, northern expression uttered the moment head-butting someone. The chilling humour and flippant style shown inside the line, “you can walk from there” is shocking and shows that the narrator shows zero remorse.
To conclude, the combination of the colloquial tone when the protagonist speaks and the violent actions that he describes effectively shows experience and, in particular, a man who lacks knowledge and yet is usually tired of lifestyle. Drawing parallels with other poetry in the “Book of Matches” explore the ways in which Armitage effectively provides experience in ‘Hitcher’.
