Analysis of Deaf House Agent

Katherine Mansfield 1888 (Wellington) – 1923 (Fontainebleau, Île-de-France)



That deaf old man
With his hand to his ear--
His hand to hi head stood out like a shell,
Horny and hollow.  He said, "I can't hear,"
He muttered, "Don't shout,
I can hear very well!"

He mumbled, "I can't catch a word;
I can't follow."
Then Jack with a voice like a Protestant bell
Roared--"Particulars! Farmhouse! At 10 quid a year!"
"I dunno wot place you are talking about."
Said the deaf old man.
Said Jack, "What the Hell!"
     But the deaf old man took a pin from his desk, picked
          a piece of wool the size of a hen's egg from his ear,
          had a good look at it, decided in its favour and re-
          placed it in the aforementioned organ.


Scheme ABCBDC XXCXDACXBXX
Poetic Form
Metre 1111 111111 1111111101 1001011111 11011 111101 11011101 1110 11101101001 1010011101 10111111001 10111 11101 101111011111 0111011011111 1011111001101 110001010
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 654
Words 132
Sentences 11
Stanzas 2
Stanza Lengths 6, 11
Lines Amount 17
Letters per line (avg) 27
Words per line (avg) 7
Letters per stanza (avg) 230
Words per stanza (avg) 63
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

39 sec read
78

Katherine Mansfield

Katherine Mansfield Beauchamp Murry was a prominent modernist writer of short fiction who was born and brought up in colonial New Zealand and wrote under the pen name of Katherine Mansfield. more…

All Katherine Mansfield poems | Katherine Mansfield Books

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