Watching for dolphins
Change of narrator
The poem starts with an impersonal narrator
Changes to a personal narrator
Isn't part of the crowd
He isn't part of the people that were waiting eagerly to see dolphins
Dolphins seen as unreachable
Seen as godlike creatures
People expected that once they saw them they would hear "gongs and drums"
Sounds that apear in the bible and related to praising gods
Literary devises
Onomatopeya
"Praying the sky would clang (...) gong and drum"
Sibilance
Gives an idea of the context
Sea or water near
Symbols
Black water
Not knowing whats underneath
Sense of loss
Chains
Sinking feeling
Spiritual things usually are upwards
Represent entrapment and inprisionment
Themes
Loss of hope
Environment
Semantic fields
Ancient Greece
Satyrs
Dolphins
Story of how they were created
Religion
Epiphany
Implored
Sign
Saint
Structure
3rd part, again, shows reality
(stanza 6)
2nd part shows a kind of "dream"
(stanzas 4 and 5)
"We should have laughed and lifted the children up"
1st part shows reality
(stanzas 1 to 3)
Title
Makes the reader think that the people were going to see dolphins
In the end, they don't
