The writer grabs the reader immediately immersing them into the shocking scene of a young couple crashing through jewellery stores window. In this opening stanza Morgan uses a metaphor to convey the deeper meaning of violence in everyday society.
“With a ragged diamond of shattered plate-glass a young man and his girl are falling backwards into a shop window”
The metaphor of ragged diamond is used to show the reader that something which is usually new looking and beautiful like the young couples loving relationship, has now been tainted and ruined by the criminal acts of the two thieves, the word choice of ragged gives connotations of the diamond being ugly and crooked, we can also associate with the couple as their lives have changed forever as they are likely to be scarred and deformed as a result of their injuries. These connotations can also be easily affiliated with these two heartless thugs. Morgan smartly uses ‘plate-glass” to emphasise and highlight the brutality and lethal force with which the couple have been pushed, as plate-glass is supposed to be extremely hard to break. This clever word choice can also be used to create sympathy for the young couple as their live will surely be changed forever. Furthermore the reader can again feel great sorrow as the couple are helplessly falling backwards into the window, creating a distressing image as the couple have been caught by surprise and appear to be falling in slow motion, making the reader aware that their pain is inevitable and will be undoubtedly slow.
Although the reader can feel great disgust in the violence the couple have suffered, it becomes apparent that this is only the beginning as Morgan describes the couple’s shocking injuries in further detail.