This contrasts with the aggressive fluency of the British army and their walkie-talkies. His movement is described through the linguistic metaphor “stuttering”. The speaker was “trying to complete a sentence in head” but is also unable to communicate because of the violent confusion. Language and the ability to communicate is clearly “broken” in the first verse. The “broken type”, which are the letters and punctuation of printers, is being compared to the “nuts, bolts, nails, car-keys” thrown at the army. People often resort to violence when the communication between two opposing factions breaks down. The “burst of rapid fire” is depicted by the ellipsis with each point representing another bullet.Īt the end of the first verse, “the alleyways and side streets blocked with stops and / Colons” which are metaphors for the army vans and police lines he cannot get past in the same way these punctuation marks conclude a sentence or clause.įinally, there is the threatening “fusillade of question-marks” when the speaker tries to get through the army checkpoint. However, the shape of the asterisk is also appropriate because of the way an explosion moves out from its centre. Asterisks are often used to edit swear words which suggests the bomb is vulgar. The “explosion” is compared to an “asterisk on the map”. The poet’s use of the list and the hyperbolic “raining” suggests the “fusillade” is inescapable. Visually, the comparison is very effective because they are both similar in shape and size. Carson’s “Belfast Confetti” compares the frenzied brutality of a riot to ordinary punctuation and this extended metaphor forms the basis of the entire poem.įor example, the first metaphor compares the shrapnel of “nuts, bolts, nails, car-keys” to “exclamation marks”. The ConceitĪ literary conceit is the imaginative and unusual comparison between two very different ideas. The two sides of the conflict are divided appropriately by this verse break. It is lined by the mesh-covered Saracens, which were army-green armoured vans instantly recognisable on the streets of Belfast, and the soldiers wearing the plastic “Makrolon face-shield” to protect their heads from the crude missiles thrown by the rioters. In the second verse, it seems the British army has created a defence perimeter to contain the violence. There is the loud “explosion” of the bomb itself and then the army return a “burst of rapid fire” in retaliation, escalating the danger of the confrontation. For example, the list of “nuts, bolts, nails, car-keys” refers to the improvised weapons being thrown by the residents at the “riot squad”. There are a number of simple signifiers in the poem that identify the riot. The chaos of confetti becomes an effective description of the speaker’s confusion when he tries to evade the rioters and army. The sardonic irony is quite shocking, but typical of Northern Irish humour. This massive burst of small missiles is euphemistically compared to the delicate confetti thrown at, for example, wedding ceremonies. Small pieces of metal were added to the devices so, when they exploded, the shrapnel caused even more devastation. These crude bombs were constructed in the abandoned kitchens and blind alleyways of Belfast. Belfast confetti is a slang term used describe the improvised explosives used by rioters to attack the security forces.
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