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Bruises Heal Polly Peters Point of View: Subject Matter

The poem is told from the perspective of a smart student who is constantly verbally abused by another girl at school. This discrimination deeply damages the student's self-esteem and emotions. The student states that being physically hurt would result in bruises that can heal, unlike the lasting mental damage caused by verbal abuse. The poem conveys that verbal discrimination can sometimes be more harmful than physical abuse due to the difficulty of healing emotional wounds.

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1K views2 pages

Bruises Heal Polly Peters Point of View: Subject Matter

The poem is told from the perspective of a smart student who is constantly verbally abused by another girl at school. This discrimination deeply damages the student's self-esteem and emotions. The student states that being physically hurt would result in bruises that can heal, unlike the lasting mental damage caused by verbal abuse. The poem conveys that verbal discrimination can sometimes be more harmful than physical abuse due to the difficulty of healing emotional wounds.

Uploaded by

M M
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Bruises Heal

Polly Peters

Point of View:
The poem is written from the point of view of a school student who is being discriminated

Subject Matter:
Because she is smart, a student is constantly picked on by a girl at her school. The student’s
self esteem and emotions are deeply damaged, and she states that if damaged with fists,
at least there would be bruises (which as the title indicates, will heal)

Purpose:
To display the kind of damage that verbal discrimination can have on people

Theme/Message/Ideas Privileged:
Verbal discrimination can sometimes be more harmful than physical, because often, mental
damage is a lot more serious and harder to ‘heal’

Emotion and Mood:


The poem has a very depressing and hurt emotion. It makes you feel spite towards the
discriminator as does the student being picked on and feel sadness for the narrator.

Poetry Techniques/Craftsmanship:
• Structure – regular four-lined stanzas
• Language – vivid and emotive language
• Imagery -
• Stanza one: metaphor~ words are scalpels
• Stanza two: metaphor~ little cow
• Stanza four: metaphor~ poisoned words
• Stanza four: simile~ wears them like a cloak
• Movement – Slightly slow/moderate pace movement allows us to absorb and imagine
the descriptive images
• Sounds – Rhyme; ABCB

Register:
The character has written in a very personal and honest register, as if thinking to herself.
The words that have been chosen help display the cold, depressing and spiteful tone of the
poem.

Discourse:
The writer is a very intelligent school student, and her discourse is one that values
education and despises those who dislike smart people. She probably isn’t popular and
would have a more anti-social attitude.
Reading Position:
Readers are positioned to see the opinions and emotions of the student being
bullied/abused. We are also positioned to see the other student in bad light (as a ‘villain’)
because she is always bullying the narrator.

Socio-Cultural Views:
This era portrays modern schooling, where in our society ‘nerds’ or ‘smart people’ are
bullied.

Gaps & Silences:


The poem uses a silence, at the end of the poem; where the text finishes with ‘at least
there would be bruises.’ In this line, it does not tell you why having bruises would’ve been
better, but instead, it expects the reader to deduce from the title of the poem, that bruises
would’ve been better because they could heal, whereas emotional wounds were much
harder to fix.

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