Enola Gay Essay

August 6, 1945 by Alison Fell In the Enola Gay five minutes before impact he whistles a dry tune Later he will say that the whole blooming sky went up like an apricot ice. Later he will laugh and tremble at such a surrender, for the eye of his belly saw Marilyn’s skirts fly over her head for ever On the river bank, bees drizzle over hot white rhododendrons Later she will walk the dust, a scarlet girl with her whole stripped skin at her heel, stuck like an old shoe sole or mermaid’s tail Later she will lie down in the flecked black ash where the people are become as lizards or salamanders and, blinded, she will complain Mother you are late. So late Later in dreams he will look down shrieking and see ladybirds ladybirds Bombing Repetition Simile Female View Personification Alliteraion Male View Pronouns GLOSSARY ‘Enola Gay’: this was the name given to (and painted on) the plane which carried the bomb to Hiroshima. The pilot’s mother was called Enola Gay. ‘Marilyn’s skirts’: there is a famous film clip/still photograph of the American movie star Marilyn Monroe, in which she walks over a pavement air vent and the warm air from it blows the full skirt of her light-coloured dress upwards over her head. ‘drizzle’: this means ‘rain lightly’, but here is used to evoke the way the bees descend, buzzing, on to the flowers. ‘salamanders’: a salamander is a lizard-like amphibian with a smooth skin. In ancient legend salamanders were supposed to be able to live in fire. ‘ladybirds’: there are numerous versions (not all in English) of the nursery rhyme which begins, ‘Ladybird, ladybird, fly away home, Your house is on fire and your children are gone’. There are numerous explanations for it, too. Ladybirds are quite difficult to dislodge, and the rhyme, when recited, was traditionally supposed to induce them to fly off of their own accord.