The Famine

Essay Questions

1. How does Longfellow use the personification of Famine and Fever in "The Famine" to transform abstract forces of suffering into intimate, domestic threats? Consider how their intrusion into the wigwam shapes the reader's understanding of vulnerability and the limits of human agency. (AQA AO2; AP Lit Q1 poetry analysis; IB guiding concept: transformation)

1. *To what extent does the trochaic tetrameter — a rhythm Longfellow borrowed from the Finnish epic Kalevala — reinforce the poem's thematic preoccupation with inevitability and loss in "The Famine"? Explore how the "falling" quality of the metre mirrors the poem's movement toward death and mourning. (AQA AO2; AP Lit Q1 poetry analysis)*

1. How does Longfellow construct Hiawatha as a figure of tragic dignity rather than tragic failure in "The Famine"? In your response, consider the tension between Hiawatha's role as provider and hunter and the utter indifference of nature and the divine to his efforts. (AQA AO1/AO2; IB guiding concept: identity)

1. "The Famine" presents nature simultaneously as a source of beauty and a force of annihilation. How does Longfellow use the contrast between the summer memory and the winter present to sustain this tension throughout the poem? (AQA AO1/AO2; AP Lit Q1 poetry analysis)

1. To what extent does "The Famine" reframe death as a destination rather than an ending? Examine how the symbols of the burial fire, the Islands of the Blessed, and Hiawatha's closing speech work together to shape the poem's attitude toward grief and the afterlife. (AQA AO1/AO2; IB guiding concept: time, space, and place)

1. How does the tone of ceremonial stillness in "The Famine" both honour and constrain the expression of grief? Consider how Longfellow's refusal to allow the poem to "veer into hysteria" affects the reader's emotional response and the poem's portrayal of sorrow as a dignified, expansive experience. (AQA AO1/AO2; AP Lit Q1 poetry analysis)

1. Compare how "The Famine" and one other poem you have studied use the natural world — particularly winter or seasonal change — as a vehicle for exploring human mortality and emotional loss. In your answer, explore how each poet's structural and linguistic choices shape the thematic significance of nature's role. (AQA AO1/AO2/AO3 comparative; IB guiding concept: transformation)

1. To what extent does the biographical and historical context of "The Famine" — including Longfellow's reliance on Schoolcraft's ethnography and the poem's composition amid national crisis — complicate a reading of the poem as a straightforward celebration of Ojibwe culture? Consider how the European literary framework through which Indigenous legend is filtered both elevates and distorts the source material. (AQA AO3/AO5; IB guiding concept: intertextuality)