November Simon Armitage The winter of her life

November Simon Armitage

The winter of her life November First person plural shows narrator is part of the experience. We walk to the ward from the badly parked car with your grandma taking four short steps to our two. We have brought here to die, and we know it. Shows emotion of situation – not neat and tidy. Demonstrates how old and frail she is.

To ‘pare’ = to trim. Personal belongings. You check her towel, soap and family trinkets, pare her nails, parcel her in the rough blankets and she sinks down into her incontinence. As though she is an object. Horrid image of woman with no control of bodily functions.

John is the grandson. Alliteration highlights miserable effects of ageing. It is time, John. In their pasty bloodless smiles in their slacked chests, their stunned brains and their baldness, and in us John: we are almost these monsters. Emotive and shocking. ‘Almost’ because they will get old too, or almost monsters for leaving her there?

Emotionally and physically. You're shattered. You give me the keys and I drive through the twilight zone, past the famous station to your house, to numb ourselves with alcohol. Unreality of situation. Escapism through getting drunk.

As night falls they are left with nightmares of the hospital. Near the end of the day, like November is near the end of the year. Inside, we feel the terror of dusk begin. Outside, we watch the evening failing again, and we let it happen. We can say nothing. Like life slipping away. ‘Failing’ implies it is a negative situation. Inevitability of death.

Glittering sun = beauty of nature, highlighted by alliteration. Momentary pleasure and sense of worthiness of life. Sometimes the sun spangles and we feel alive. One thing we have to get, John, out of this life. Ambiguous final line.