AQA GCSE English Literature (8702) · Paper 2
⚔️ Power & Conflict Poetry
Revision notes written to the specification, with examiner tips and the required practicals. Every point here has flashcards in the Stickwise app.
Power of rulers & nature
This section covers poems that explore power: the power human rulers claim over other people, and the power of nature, which can dwarf any human structure or achievement. Several poems in the anthology invite a direct comparison between these two kinds of power, since a tyrant's authority and a mountain's force are often presented using a similar language of size, threat and control. When answering on this section, it helps to notice whether a poem admires power, exposes its abuse, or shows it being overwhelmed by something greater.
OzymandiasIn this poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley, a traveller tells the speaker about a ruined statue standing alone in the desert: a shattered stone face and two vast, broken legs are all that remain of a once-powerful king. The poem uses a frame narrative, since the speaker only reports what the traveller told him, distancing the reader from the ruined king even further. It is a sonnet, but Shelley breaks the usual, regular rhyme scheme, so the form itself feels damaged, matching the wrecked statue it describes. The boastful inscription on the statue's pedestal is exposed as empty through dramatic irony, since nothing is left to fear, and the vast, empty desert around the ruin emphasises how completely the king's power has vanished.
LondonWilliam Blake's speaker walks through London and hears suffering in the voice of everyone he passes, from grown men to newborn infants. An anonymous speaker narrates in the first person, acting as a witness rather than taking part in events. The poem is written in four regular quatrains with a steady rhyme scheme, giving it the controlled feel of a methodical survey of the city. Blake repeats certain words, such as "every" and "chartered", to suggest that every person and every part of the city is owned or controlled, and he blames powerful institutions, particularly the monarchy and the Church, for this suffering.
My Last DuchessIn Robert Browning's poem, the Duke of Ferrara shows a silent visitor, an envoy arranging his next marriage, a portrait of his previous wife. Through his own words, the Duke reveals that he grew jealous of her warmth towards everyone, not just him, and implies that he had her killed for it. It is a dramatic monologue written in rhyming couplets, but heavy enjambment hides the rhyme almost completely, mirroring the Duke's obsessive need to control everything around him. The poem depends on dramatic irony: the Duke's calm, boastful tone reveals his own cruelty and jealousy to the reader, even though he does not seem to realise what he is giving away.
The Prelude (extract)In this autobiographical extract, William Wordsworth recalls taking a boat out onto a lake alone at night as a boy, without permission. As he rows, a huge mountain peak appears to rise up behind him and loom over him, as though it were alive and pursuing him. The extract is written in blank verse, unrhymed but rhythmical, giving the description a natural, flowing, speech-like quality. The mountain is personified as a vast, threatening presence, showing nature's power to overwhelm a person physically and mentally, and the boy is left awed and troubled by the memory long after the event itself.
Storm on the IslandSeamus Heaney's poem describes how an island community has prepared for a storm, building sturdy houses into the bare rock because there are no trees nearby to give shelter, or to fall dangerously in high wind. The speaker uses "we" throughout, giving one collective voice for the whole community rather than a single individual. It is written in blank verse with no regular rhyme, which gives the poem a conversational, matter-of-fact tone suited to a community explaining its precautions. Despite every preparation, the islanders admit they are frightened, because the real threat is not something solid they can defend against, but the invisible force of the wind and sea, showing nature's power to be far greater than any human defence.
TissueImtiaz Dharker's poem considers many different kinds of paper, including maps, money, holy books and building plans, reflecting on how thin and easily torn they all are, even though they record and shape human lives. There is no single story or named speaker; instead the poem moves between different examples of paper, more like a meditation than a narrative. It is written in short, irregular stanzas with no fixed rhyme scheme, and this loose structure mirrors the fragile, flexible material it describes. The extended comparison between paper and human power suggests that buildings, empires and official records are all just as fragile and temporary as the paper they depend on, however permanent they seem.
🎯 Examiner tip: A strong answer explains how a poet creates meaning and effect, through structure, form and language choices, rather than simply retelling what a ruler or a storm does. Naming a method, such as dramatic irony or personification, and then explaining its effect is worth far more than a plot summary.
The reality of conflict
This section covers poems that show what conflict is actually like for the people who experience it, both during battle and in the years afterwards. Several poems set an official idea of duty, glory or heroism against the real physical and psychological cost of fighting, and this gap between expectation and reality is often the most important point to explore in an answer. It is worth noticing whether a poem focuses on the moment of combat itself, on the psychological aftermath, or on both together.
The Charge of the Light BrigadeAlfred, Lord Tennyson's poem retells a real event from the Crimean War, in which six hundred cavalry soldiers were mistakenly ordered to charge straight into artillery fire coming from three sides of a valley. An outside narrator describes the charge, presenting the soldiers as a collective group rather than as individuals. The poem uses a fast, driving rhythm and heavy repetition, particularly of numbers and the idea of riding into danger, which mimics the pace of a cavalry charge. Although the soldiers know the order is a mistake, they obey without question, and Tennyson uses this obedience to honour their discipline and courage, treating their deaths as tragic but heroic rather than pointless.
ExposureWilfred Owen's poem describes soldiers spending a freezing night waiting in the trenches during the First World War, suffering far more from extreme cold and crushing boredom than from any actual enemy attack, since nothing military happens at all. The speaker uses "we", giving a collective voice for the suffering soldiers rather than a single narrator. Most stanzas end with the same repeated closing line, and this refrain, along with a half-rhyme that never quite settles, reflects the way time drags and nothing is resolved. The weather itself is personified as an active enemy, as threatening as an opposing army, and the soldiers' religious faith is shown wavering, since they feel abandoned by God as well as by any sense of purpose.
Bayonet ChargeTed Hughes's poem drops the reader into the middle of a soldier's disorientating charge across a field under fire, focusing on a single moment rather than an entire battle. A third-person narrator stays extremely close to the soldier's confused physical and mental state, so the reader experiences the panic almost from inside his body. Long, breathless sentences spill across the line breaks, mirroring the soldier's stumbling run and racing thoughts. Patriotic ideals fall away completely under fire, replaced by raw animal instinct and fear, and a small, startled hare fleeing the battlefield underlines how far the scene is from any sense of glory or heroism.
RemainsIn Simon Armitage's poem, a soldier recalls shooting a looter during a conflict and tries to describe the event as routine, but the image of the man's body will not leave his mind. The soldier speaks directly to the reader in a casual, conversational voice, as though talking rather than writing formally. The poem is written in loose, largely unrhymed stanzas that gradually break down as it continues, mirroring the speaker's own psychological state. This informal, everyday language makes the trauma feel immediate and real, and the intruding memory of the killing shows the soldier unravelling mentally long after he has returned home.
War PhotographerCarol Ann Duffy's poem follows a photographer working alone in his darkroom in England, developing photographs of suffering he witnessed in conflict zones abroad, as disturbing memories resurface with the images. A third-person narrator describes the photographer's outwardly calm, professional actions, while hinting at the turmoil underneath. The poem is written in four stanzas of equal length using a controlled rhyme scheme, and this ordered, disciplined form contrasts sharply with the chaos of the conflicts the photographs depict. A central contrast runs through the poem between safe, indifferent England, where readers barely glance at the published photographs, and the real horror the photographer witnessed and cannot forget.
🎯 Examiner tip: Several poems in this section separate the duty or excitement conflict promises from the experience actually endured by soldiers or civilians. Stating this gap directly, and showing how form or structure enacts it, such as a rhythm that breaks down or a refrain that never resolves, is often the key analytical point an answer needs.
Memory, identity & loss
This section covers poems in which memory, distance or a dominant version of history disrupts a person's sense of identity or belonging. Several of these poems focus on people away from the front line altogether, such as parents, photographers or exiles, or look back on conflict and its consequences many years afterwards. In each case, a personal or private memory is placed under pressure from a public event, an official version of history, or the passing of time.
PoppiesJane Weir's poem follows a mother recalling small, tender memories of her son's childhood as she watches him leave home, uncertain whether he is going to war or, more permanently, to his death. The mother narrates directly, moving between a present moment of loss and vivid memories of her son as a young child. It is written in free verse with no regular rhyme or rhythm, and this loose form mirrors the mother's wandering, uncontrolled grief; frequent enjambment and irregular pauses help control the emotional pace. An extended metaphor built around the poppy and the wider idea of remembrance runs through the poem, connecting public commemoration of war with the mother's private, domestic memories, and it ends with her at a war memorial, straining to hear some trace of her son in the silence.
The EmigreeCarol Rumens's speaker remembers the city she left as a child in bright, sunlit detail, even though she hears reports that the city has since been damaged by war. A first-person speaker looks back from exile or distance, so the whole poem is filtered through personal memory rather than present reality. It is written in three stanzas of similar length with no regular rhyme scheme, giving a steady, insistent quality as the speaker repeats her attachment to the city. She refuses to let the city's present troubles darken her memory of it, and imagines that she still carries its light with her wherever she goes, even though she knows she can never physically return.
Checking Out Me HistoryJohn Agard's speaker challenges the selective history he was taught and explores figures excluded from it. Caribbean dialect runs through the poem, including the sections about imposed history. Changes in stanza shape, rhythm, imagery and tone distinguish those sections from the more celebratory portraits of reclaimed figures. The voice and form support the speaker's effort to define his own identity.
KamikazeBeatrice Garland's poem follows a Japanese kamikaze pilot who sets off on a suicide mission but, overwhelmed by memories of the sea and his childhood home, turns back before completing it. The story is narrated by the pilot's daughter, looking back on and imagining her father's experience, which creates a layered, distanced memory passed across generations. It is written in unrhymed stanzas of regular length, giving a controlled, narrative pace to the story as it unfolds. Vivid natural imagery of the sea and home shows the pull of memory and identity strong enough to overcome duty, and although the pilot survives, his family and community respond with silence and shame, treating him as though he no longer exists.
🎯 Examiner tip: These poems show identity and memory through form as much as through content, such as a broken rhyme scheme, alternating dialect, or a narrator distanced from events by another generation. Naming these structural choices, and not only the memories or feelings described, adds a stronger analytical point to an answer.
Comparing poems
Paper 2, Section B always prints one poem from the anthology in full and asks for a comparison with one other poem chosen from memory. Planning likely pairings in advance, before the exam, makes it far easier to write a confident, detailed comparison under time pressure.
Planning a comparison
- Identify the theme named in the question, such as power, conflict, or memory and loss, before choosing a second poem.
- Choose a second poem that is genuinely well known, rather than the first one that comes to mind, since detail matters more than the pairing itself.
- Note two or three specific points of comparison, whether similarities or contrasts, in form, method or idea, before starting to write.
- Plan one overview sentence stating how the two poems relate to each other as a whole, to open the answer.
Poems that pair well
Power'Ozymandias' compares well with My Last Duchess, since both use a ruler's own boastful words to expose an abuse of power; with London, contrasting a single tyrant with oppressive institutions; and with Storm on the Island, contrasting human power with the power of nature.
The reality of conflictExposure and Bayonet Charge pair well together, since both show the physical and mental suffering of soldiers during combat. The Charge of the Light Brigade pairs well with Remains to contrast Victorian ideas of heroism with a more modern sense of trauma and guilt after killing.
Memory, identity and lossPoppies and War Photographer pair well together, since both show the impact of conflict on people who are away from the front line. Kamikaze pairs well with The Emigree to compare how memory of home competes with present duty or reality in shaping personal identity.
Structuring the answer
A strong comparison opens with a brief overview of how both poems approach the theme, before moving into paragraphs that discuss both poems together, point by point. Linking words such as "similarly" or "in contrast" should appear throughout, connecting the two poems in every paragraph rather than treating them as two separate essays.
How the exam question is worded
One anthology poem is always printed in full on the exam paper, and the question asks for a comparison with one other poem selected from memory. The question always uses the word "compare" and names a theme, which is the signal to discuss both poems together throughout the answer, rather than one after the other.
🎯 Examiner tip: The strongest answers compare both poems in every paragraph, using linking words to move between them, rather than writing everything about the printed poem first and the chosen poem second. Examiners reward sustained comparison far more highly than two separate, well-written descriptions placed side by side.
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