Summary of the poem the cockroach by kevin halligan
Answers
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To be specific, in this poem the character (cockroach) has a problem deciding what to do in his situation when he has finally reached his ‘destination’ at the top of the shelf – but then, he hesitates as he does not know what to do.
It is an extended metaphor of the persona (the poet himself) or human beings as a whole. This is first hinted by the fact that the cockroach is ‘giant’ – is it large for its species, or large to the point it is the size of a human?
He gives the cockroach human characteristics such as: ‘jog’, ‘trace’, ‘circle’ which are more of what a human being would do than that a cockroach would.
The poet further describes the frantic actions of a human being: How we are content with our situations (at first he seemed quite satisfied to trace) And then after a while, he gets bored (but soon he turned to jog in crooked rings) He is then struck by a case of restlessness, but then finally finds something exciting, new – the open shelf
When he reached the open shelf, he begin to question himself of whether what he’d come for was worth it.
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In the last two lines, the writer shows the turn (solution to the problem) and the cockroach personifies the character of the poet/human being as he asked: ‘A former life had led to? I don’t know, Except I thought I recognised myself.’