A Critical Analysis of Simon Armitage's Out of the Blue, Section 7 Cerys Gunn College

In Section 7 of Out of the Blue, Armitage builds the tragic tension, this section describes the panic experienced by the workers in the Tower after the plane struck and commemorates the experience of those in the Towers, making the reader contemplate its legacy. Graphically, the section appears solid, but within the prose the shattering impact of the plane upon the building is portrayed. The end to this section creates a cut off as the English Trades is trapped with now possibility of escape, setting the tone of hopelessness that explains the Trades actions with the last section, whilst dealing with inevitable death.

The structure of this Section is a continual stanza, composed of many imperative sentences. Armitage, like Shakespeare before him, uses prose to illustrate the powerlessness of the realist characters. It can be interpreted that the form represents the Towers prior to the plane collision, with each sentence arguably mirroring in miniature the individual floors. As the stanza is unbroken there is the sense of solidity which is comparable to the image of the global success of capitalism symbolised by the Twin Towers. The personas experience is written in first person, enabling the experience of the English Trader to...