War photographer essay plan

The metaphor used to describe the amount of suffering and agony found in Nachtwey’s photographs of war elicits ideas that the photographer is “alone” in a room filled with so much suffering, pain and death that he simply cannot detach himself anymore.

In this poem, Duffy describes the experience of a war photographer, whose job it is to witness terrible crimes against humanity and bring them back to us many miles away. The poem is about how he deals with this kind of traumatic experience. It asks questions about how we react to disaster in other countries.

At one point in War Photographer, Duffy uses sibilance alongside metaphors when he says, ‘spools of suffering set out in ordered rows.’ The use of the ‘s’ sound highlights the imagery and suggests graves or bodies ‘in ordered rows.’

As the images emerge, he is reminded of the horror of violence he witnessed, as well as photographed. Duffy uses powerful imagery to not only display the conflicts of war, but the conflicts within himself, and in the world of media reporting.