Key questions you will be looking to answer are about: remember the big man has two moments of realisation first when he realises the denim man has drunk his pint. The second realisation comes when the denim man continues to be cheeky and the big man realises he will have to be violent to regain his pride. This is the surprise at the end of the story! below i have simply listed key quotations from the short story. I have used the page numbers from the hand out we used in class page 77 80 at the start of the short story the atmosphere is quiet and dull: line one: the pub was quiet. This grabs our attention and lets this important piece of information sink in straight away. Here the poet uses a simile to compare the big man to a small innocent child in a sweet shop.

just as a small child would be happy and excited with the choice of sweets on offer in a sweet shop so the big man is in awe at the amount of drinks he has to choose from. This simile makes him seem quiet and makes the moment when he flips out more surprising. The poet uses a great metaphor to describe the skin tone of the big man: his pallor suggested a plant kept out of the light. Here the poet compares the big man's unhealthy pale skin to a plant that has been kept out of the light. This is a good metaphor to use as a plant kept out of the light would be yellow and unhealthy looking.

The man may look yellow and unhealthy as he has spent so much time locked up away from the outdoors. All of these techniques used to describe the big man are examples of 'characterisation'. This is a good word to use when discussing how the poet has created a quiet and well behaved character.

Then the denim man enters and tries to get people to look at him so that he can accuse them of something and start a fight. Line 28: the barman was relieved to see old dave come towards the bar as if he was walking across america this is a good simile to show how slowly the pace of life is in the bar. It compares the amount of time old dave takes to reach the bar with the amount of time it would take to walk across america. When the denim man does not get a reaction out of the big man he drinks his pint to cause tension. the moment of realisation and the climax. the big man remains calm and polite when he finds his pint is gone: excuse me. Ah had a pint there this shows the big man's quiet manner in the short sentences and polite word choice. He does not blame the denim man or anyone else and he is not looking for trouble.

Doctor Positional Thesis Help

However when the denim man owns up to it in a very sarcastic way the atmosphere changes from dull to electrically charged. The moment crackled like an electrical storm this is the moment the big man realises what has happened and turns from being quiet and polite to angry. This simile shows the friction and possibility as the big man has to think about how to react.

The situation is made even tenser when the denim man challenges and provokes him further. The poet then uses a great image that would be perfectly at home in a western film: the silence prolonged itself like an empty street with a man at either end of it. This shows the tense atmosphere between the two men and how the big man feels this tension also as he is silent while deciding what he should do. The reader realises there may be violence as the connotations what the words or images make us think of suggest two cowboys across a deserted street with some locals about to watch a gun fight where one dies and one is victorious.

The big man continues to rise above the situation and appears to make his decision to defuse the situation. The big man tries to be pleasant and take it as a joke although the reader feels that he does not truly feel this. He continues to joke when he offers to buy the denim man a drink: this seems to be the end of the moment of realisation where he decides that violence is not worth it and he seeks to avoid conflict. He has already been very cheeky to the big man: ye had a pint there but i drank it. That's the dinky dory when the denim man continues to be cheeky the big man has a second moment of realisation and realises he has to do something to get the denim man back. He is deliberately trying to make a fool of the big man and is assuming the role of the victorious person.