The Darling Letters | Summary and Analysis

Critical Appreciation of The Darling Letters

Carol Ann Duffy is a contemporary British poet and playwright whose poems are known for
embodying experiences from our daily lives, expressing the wide range of emotions that
accompany them. She picks out carefully chosen moments and instances from various stages
of one’s life- from childhood to youth to adulthood- and discovers within them powerful
sentiments such as love, loss and nostalgia. “The ‘Darling’ Letters” is one of her beautiful short
poems that speaks about the nature of love and relationships and how it undergoes a transition
with the passage of time.

Through the medium of love letters exchanged by lovers, she explores how their relationship
changes from being full of passion and enthusiasm in the beginning to being tinged with
sadness and melancholy as the initial love fizzles out, ultimately leading to separation. Though
this change is difficult to accept at first, causing much grief and heartache; eventually, as one
looks back at those papers which held so much meaning for them at some point in their life,
he/ she reaches the stage of acceptance of the past, and the bygones no longer hold the same
significance they did earlier. In due course, the devotion in those words changes first to
recriminations and finally to a resignation as one makes peace with one’s past.

The Darling Letters | Summary Stanza 1

The poet begins the poem by pointing out people from all over the world have the habit of
preserving the love letters of their past, storing them in shoe boxes which are then hidden in
some far-off, secluded corner of their homes, such as the attic, where they hardly see any light,
their existence almost being forgotten unless one seeks them out. Whenever this lid is lifted,
the plethora of memories, often the painful ones, associated with these letters gushes out
reminding one of their impetuous past affairs, most of which reeked of recklessness and lapse
in judgment. Probably, when they were young, these lovers, blinded by youthful passion, fail
to see the reality and end up being fully consumed by the intensity of their emotions, unaware
of the world around them. The poetess finds herself to be no different from the others. She too,
as when the memories of her past resurface, is full of embarrassment and awkwardness as she
discovers that she is no longer able to comprehend the jokes which she once shared with her
loved one. Instead of making her laugh, these punch lines, rendered immortal in these letters,
now appear as mere means of filling the spaces between their terms of endearment. As she goes
through these once familiar lines, it seems to her that the present and past are two different
persons, and she is confronted by a version of herself that is long lost. Left behind, caged in
those letters, is a mere shadow of her.
The Darling Letters | Summary Stanza 2

Continuing with her ponderings, she observes that most of these letters contain the phrase
“Don’t ever change” which serves to highlight her silliness because change is the only constant
of life, however much one wishes to deny it. Looking again at these words reminds her of the
foolishness she displayed in her youth, believing those feelings to be permanent and
everlasting, ignorant of the realities of life. These letters, which, at the beginning appeared to
be full of love and romance, often end up becoming statements of accusations and complaints
as the relationship comes to an end. What were once a declaration of undying love, now turn
into reminders of a love long lost, bringing with them a sense of loss and absence. Wondering
as to why people preserve these letters for years, even though the relationship has ended since
long, the poet comes to the conclusion that it was maybe because they still harbour some hope
of reconciliation which keeps them from throwing these letters. As they read across the lines,
they envision the future which they had dreamt of when these letters were written and even
now they want to hold on to those promises of a happy tomorrow. With the help of the letters,
the lovers can still imagine the future which they used to believe in and probably that is why
everyone treasures them- to go back down the memory lane and reminisce with pleasure, the
happy dreams they once shared. And thus, these love letters keep lying in those cardboard
boxes, providing the lovers a gateway to their past.

The Darling Letters | Summary Stanza 3

Moving on further, Carol Ann Duffy says that everyone, including her, has had their share of
such romantic encounters in their youth. The feeling of embarrassment, when these lovers come
across the sweet, silly nicknames by which they used to address each other, is universal. She
says even after years have passed since the relationship, these terms of endearment hold the
power to make her blush, just like all others. It might also be that these names evoke memories
of what they now consider to be their dirty past. The stupidity displayed by them in the past
when they indulged in these unthinking fancies and frivolous love affairs haunts them as they
read those names on the letters. Amused and abashed upon seeing the declarations of love in
those letters and the promises of not being able to survive even a moment without one’s
beloved, the poet is mortified by her own silliness and naivety. Be that as it may, the temptation
to go through those letters time and again still resides in our hearts and regardless of the time
that has lapsed, these love letters still manage to make one’s heart beat faster within their chest
and evokes in them the same giddiness and pleasure that it did in the past. It seems to the author
that we continue to hold on to these letters, as well as the memories and emotions associated
with them, because as we get older and experience the harsh realities of life, it becomes more
and more difficult for us to feel these emotions as intensely and fully as we were able to back
then.

Composed in three sestets, the poem takes the reader on the journey of the transition of a love
letter from a source of joy to a source of melancholy. The poem is written in free verse and
reads almost like fragmented thoughts that come across the poet’s mind as she probes into the
reason behind treasuring these love letters of the past. The major themes explored in the poem
are that of the changing nature of love as one passes from youth to adulthood and the sense of
longing for the intense passion of youth that is found in their hearts. Relationships and their
nature, particularly romantic ones, form the crux of this verse.

The love letter is used as a symbol to convey the transformation that a relationship undergoes
as time passes. Duffy has peppered the piece with a vast variety of literary devices such as
enjambment, alliteration and caesura. Along with this, personification has been employed in
the second line where memories are described as blinking and simile has been used in the very
last line of the poem. The liberal use of alliteration and enjambment adds beauty to the poem.
Overall, the poem expresses a universal feeling and manages to strike a chord with the readers.