Carol Ann Duffy

<1> Money Talks (p50):

 Selling Manhattan: Marxist critique of capitalism and consumerism
 1980s England: Margaret Thatcher – monetarism
 “Money Talks”: money conveys power
 Diction: simple words in complex arrangements
Stanza 1:
 “I am”: money is the speaker. Money is the cause of “suffering”
 “authentic language of suffering”: the only means by which one can understand
suffering
 “cold gold”: internal eye. “Cold” = emotionless, insensitive
 “does not blink”: omnipresent, inhuman, unperturbed by suffering
 “Mister, you want nice time?”: spoken by a prostitute – uneducated, poor, human
trafficking. Shows the extent that people are willing to go to for money
 “Screw you”: man replying to the prostitute. Also, money speaking to the rest of the
world.
 “buy and sell”: antithetical – power and arrogance of money
 Midas: classical allusion – greed, irrational lust for money
 “My million tills”: alliteration. Shows money’s omnipresence
 “sing through the night”: people count money at night, showing that it is always present
 “shining mad machines”: excitement and frenzy turns people into machines
 “I stink and accumulate”: stink of ‘blood and sweat’ of people who work for it. Also,
‘stinking rich’
 “Do you fancy me, lady? Really?”: man, to prostitute; shows insecurity of people
because of money. Many relationships are based on money and wealth
Stanza 2:
 Biblical allusion to Book of Matthew 19:24 (“It is easier for a camel to go through the eye
of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”) – “See me pass through
the eye of a needle” shows money’s arrogance and power
 “Whoopee!”: onomatopoeia
 Time is considered undefeatable, but “I cut Time dead with my sleek facelift”: money’s
“facelift” to plastic money/cryptocurrency makes it immortal. Plastic surgery – benefits
people get when they have money
 Dollar sign: superiority of American dollar
 “don’t give me away”: don’t give money away, keep accumulating it; don’t give away the
‘secret’ to getting money
 “no one can eat me”: usually used as a clichéd expression to show that money isn’t
everything, but here, money itself uses it the other way to show its invincibility
 “jealous God”: Biblical allusion to Exodus 20:5 (Old Testament)
 “one commandment” instead of 10 – it’s easier for people to follow money than religion
 “calculator” = where people calculate how much money they have
 “stammering”: reference to the 10 commandments
  “under your fingernails”: passed around often. Things that are literally under your
fingernails are hard to get rid of and hard to ignore
 “black grin”: smirk = arrogance of money
Stanza 3:
 “oily manner”: don’t let it slip out of your hands
 “sir, I’ll get you a taxi, get you a limousine”: according to how much money you have,
your life will be better
 “raining dollar bills”: hyperbole: attraction/false promises of money
 “I know a place”: comparison to Heaven of other religions
 “women and gigolos, metal tuxedos”: two extremes of the temptations that people fall
to (“metal” = luxurious sheen) – you can get whatever you want
 “gold-toothed scream”: auditory imagery. Only rich people would have gold teeth: image
of a luxurious, extravagant party
 implicit suggestion: your entire life is a party when you have money
 “I am the big bombs”: money causes war. People with weapons have the most power
and weapons come from money. Entire society’s balance is based on money. Increasing
intensity of objects mentioned.
 “Have a good day”: signing off the monologue
 “sighing”, “thick lead sheath”: helplessness of bombs, control of money over everything
 “OK”: authoritative, sense of finality

 Recurring enjambment: monologue in a conversational tone

 Stream of consciousness: constant thoughts of a person being written down with no real
order
 Tone: arrogance; sets itself up as an alternate God
 Modernism/Postmodernism begins with the shattering of faith, leading to the question,
“What do you have instead of God?”

<2> Originally (p69):

 Dramatic monologue: one speaker/persona: an adult reflecting on past experiences
 Autobiographical poem: poet’s shift from Scotland to England
 Represents all displaced people
Stanza 1: The beginning of the journey (childhood)
 “We”: poem is about the whole family as a unit
 “Our own country”: sense of belonging, emphasizes origin
 “red room”: train carriage – alliteration, visual image
 “red” connotes anxiety and fear felt by the child and the feeling of being pushed into a
new world (color symbolism)
 “fell through the fields”: train passing through the fields gives the child a sense of
disappointment and loss of control
 “mother singing”: comforting
 “our father”: could be literal father who may have already shifted
 Image of a well-knit, happy family
 “turning of the wheels”: allusion to Fate; the family’s fortune and lives will change
  “brothers cried”: juxtaposition of sounds, variation of reaction with age. Children are
being uprooted
 “Home, Home”: emphasis (capitalization, italicization, repetition) on the connotation of
home: comfort, identity, and security
 “mind rushed back”: personification. Mind is retracing the path she has taken – room,
street, house, city, etc. Visual imagery, syndetic listing
 “vacant rooms” mirror the emptiness that she feels
 “didn’t live anymore”: longing to return to place of origin
 The speaker, unlike the rest of her family, is silent. “Toy”: clinging on to the last few
remnants of the past. ‘Comforting’ the toy – she too needs a sense of anchorage
 “blind” toy cannot feel the change. She herself is feeling blind because she doesn’t know
where she’s going: uncertainty, insecurity
Stanza 2: The changes that occurred (child-adult transition)
 “All childhood is an emigration” into adulthood. Extended metaphor
 “Leaving you standing, resigned”: acceptance of loss
 “Up an avenue where no one you know stays”: assonance. Insecurity, fear, lack of
familiarity – starting from scratch and getting accustomed to a new life.
 “Some are slow”: sentence itself is long
 “Others are sudden”: sentences are shorter and more brisk
 “Your accent wrong”: accent stands out despite common language – makes her feel like
an outsider, because the cultural identity of others is always different. She is constantly
being judged and she knows it.
 Similar turn of the road (both literally and figuratively) may result in something
unexpected. Visual imagery – sense of being out of place
 “Big boys”: alliteration. Intimidation, vulnerability of speaker
 “eating worms”: sense of disgust. Could signify the different cultural food
 “words you don’t understand”: slang – proving their masculinity
 “parents’ anxiety like a loose tooth”: parents are constantly worried. Simile: nagging
problem that can’t be ripped out. More maturity, showing child-adult transition. Parents
are trying to make the most of it.
 “our own country”: yearning for childhood and the past is still present. Italics = inner
thoughts.
 Extended metaphor: every adult yearns for the innocence, comfort, and security of
childhood.
Stanza 3: Retrospective adult (adulthood)
 “but then”: time has passed, she adapted, grew up
 “change” is inevitable. She conforms to her surroundings, giving up her original identity
 Polysyndeton shows the extent of change
 “brother swallow a slug”: brothers adapted faster than her. First time she notices the
change in them
 “only a skelf of shame”: Scottish dialect – something small but painful. The desire for her
old identity is diminished, but she’s still retaining a small part of it.
 Sibilance “s”: swaying motion, waves of change, falling into a pattern
  “shedding its skin like a snake”: simile. She’s the same person on the inside, but has
changed a lot due to conformity pressure. “Snake”: betrayal in favor of immediate
acceptance.
 “I remember”: retrospection from an objective point of view. She understands that it
was necessary to change (no self-loathing), but feels slightly guilty and ‘treasonous’
 “just like the rest”: gave up her unique identity to be accepted.
 Rhetorical question: how much has she lost?
 “Hesitate”: uncertainty/anxiety that comes from displacement. She is torn between two
countries
 Ending: the hesitation is permanently ingrained in her life; she’ll never be completely
sure of where she’s from

 Chronological progression
 Applies to anyone who has been displaced – forcefully or voluntarily
 Contemporary context
 Identity crisis of most post-modern people
 Change is an inevitable part of life
 Tone: reminiscent, reflective, conversational
 Mood: uncertainty about identity, sympathy for displaced people
 Giving a voice to the marginalized
 The Other Country: you don’t know which one is the “other”

<3> In Mrs. Tilscher’s Class (p70)

 Speaker: adult looking back/yearning for her childhood while knowing that it won’t
come back
 First two stanzas: childhood – 8 lines
 Last two stanzas: adolescence – 7 lines: subtle change – time passes faster as you age.
You lose something while growing up
 1st two stanzas contain one slightly unpleasant image cocooned by pleasant, colorful
imagery – cocooned childhood, but not devoid of badness.
Stanza 1:
 Sense of fascination, curiosity, discovery, and adventure with a world map for the first
time
 “You could travel up the Blue Nile”: imagination runs wild as a child.
 “Mrs. Tilscher chanted”: everything is child-centric in childhood. Pleasant, comforting
tone of the teacher. Joy of learning new things
 Enjambment: continuity of map, learning, and imagination
 “Tana. Ethiopia. Khartoum. Aswan.”: caesura shows the variety of things the child is
introduced to.
 “a skittle of milk”: even milk is made child-friendly. Sense of being loved and wanted.
Visual image.
 “chalky Pyramids rubbed into dust”: change of subject. Things are erased even in this
world, but the child is too innocent to understand. Visual image.
 “a window opened with a long pole”: teacher helps them explore the world outside
  “the laugh of a bell swung by a running child”: personification. Children are excited
about the next class and the child is excited to ring the bell. Laughter: children don’t find
the bell unpleasant.
Stanza 2:
 “This was better than home”: class must be very good. Sense of confidence and security.
Cocooned from negativity.
 “Enthralling”: positivity. Easy to learn - contrast to higher grades
 “The classroom glowed like a sweet shop”: simile, visual image. Happiness and color,
positive associations with sweet shop – the best place the child can think of.
 “Brady and Hindley”: contemporary allusion to the Moors Murders. World outside isn’t
actually comfortable and secure – subconscious awareness, but they are cocooned, and
so, oblivious to any negativity
 Mistakes are easily forgiven in childhood
 “faint uneasy smudge”: negativity was present, but the children weren’t made aware of
it.
 “Mrs. Tilscher loved you”: strong, positive statement. Maternal presence. Immediate
comfort, cushioning from the outside world.
 “good gold star”: small rewards to make them feel happy about small things. Alliteration,
emphasis on rewards for good things, while mistakes are easily forgotten
 “slowly, carefully shaved”: teacher cares/is concerned about the children and wants to
make them feel good about small things. Olfactory imagery.
 “nonsense”: freedom to make mistakes.
 “another form”: children are free everywhere
Stanza 3:
 “Easter”: spring = change = new life. Sudden.
 “tadpoles”: children turning from small and weak (“commas”) to stronger, more
significant people (“exclamation”). Visual image shows the simple shapes she connects
to.
 Images of freedom and happiness
 “jumping and croaking away from the lunch queue”: development of rebellious
character. Mocking the frog – they will soon mock others as well (foreshadowing).
 “A rough boy told you how you were born”: sudden change. Innocence lost; sudden
sense of maturity.
 “You kicked him”: first instinct is disbelief, trying to hold on to her childhood.
 “stared”, “appalled”: doesn’t want to change. Sense of confusion, definite transition into
adolescence.
Stanza 4:
 all adjectives are ‘adult’ words, and have double meanings.
 “air tasted of electricity”: impending storm. Synesthesia.
 Unease, discomfort, uncertainty.
 “feverish”: wanting to grow up as soon as possible.
 “tangible alarm” contrasts with laughing bell. “alarm” = threat.
 “untidy, hot, fractious”: contrast with primary years. Easily irritable.
  “heavy, sexy sky”: heavy = unease. Sexy sky contrasts with open window. Eagerness to
become an adult and join the outside world. Sense of confusion persists.
 “you asked her”: retains some part of childhood – necessity for adult validation.
 “turned away”: doesn’t want to burst the bubble, but knows that the bubble has already
been burst. Bittersweet smile: she can see that the children have grown up, but knows
that she cannot guide them anymore. With adulthood comes the responsibility of
finding your own answers.
 “Reports”: end of term – no more Mrs. Tilscher. Learning is now for grades, not joy.
 “impatient to be grown”: eager to grow up, but reality is not the same as expectations.
 “thunderstorm”: violent image. World of opportunity opens up but negativity comes too

 1st two stanzas: short sentences show simple memories from childhood.
 Yearning for the past while knowing that change was inevitable.
 Tone: warm, affectionate, comfort changes to disturbed, angry, unsure.
 Theme: coming of age.
 Mood: nostalgia to yearning/longing to loss.
 Free verse

<4> War Photographer (p24)

Stanza 1:
 “in his darkroom”: sense of hopelessness – his mind and pictures are filled with
darkness, but both are preferable to the war he came from.
 “spools of suffering”: metonymy. Spools of film that show suffering. Sibilance – harsh ‘s’
sound.
 “set out in ordered rows”: visual image. Soldiers lining up; war graves. Makes it seem like
a ritual that he performs. Contrasts the chaos in the pictures themselves.
 “red” connotes blood, violence, anger
 “softly glows as though this were a church”: simile. This is where he ‘worships’ his work
and finds safety from the war. Almost as though he is performing the death rites of the
dead and commemorating their sacrifice.
 Caesura – places where was has occurred – all over the world.
 “All flesh is grass”: Biblical allusion. He realizes that human life is very
transient/momentary and it withers away very quickly. Extension of simile.
 “He has a job to do”: suppresses his normal, emotional reactions by treating it as a job.
Stanza 2:
 “solution slops around”: literal liquid for developing photos. This is his way of trying to
bring about a “solution” to the war.
 His hands “did not tremble then”: in the field, he treated it as a job, but now, the
memories are triggering the suppressed reactions.
 Contrasts “rural England” with other places. He is trying to convince the people of
England that there are much larger, more severe problems than their “ordinary pain.”
 “nightmare heat” = bombs.
Stanza 3:
  “stranger”: he does not know the subjects of the photos at a personal level, but has seen
them at the worst parts of their lives.
 “half-formed ghost”: picture is developing; the person is dead.
 “faintly start to twist before his eyes”: visual image. He is the only one who knows the
whole story.
 Enjambment: continuity of memories and pain stemming from one photo.
 Only the photographer knows the whole story behind the pictures.
 “sought approval” to take the picture. Feeling of guilt as he just stands by and takes a
photo as a man dies and his wife cries. Wife must hate him.
 “someone must”: justifying/consoling himself for being a bystander. He “must” remain
detached.
 “blood stained into the foreign dust”: visual image. Biblical allusion. He tells himself that
humans are dust to live with his line of work.
Stanza 4:
 “A hundred agonies in black and white”: innumerable incidents across the world. Lack of
color = no warmth = very dark side of life.
 “five or six”: “editor” sees it as a very mundane, everyday thing. People become
desensitized after a point. Most of the stories remain untold because they value the
quality of photo more than the actual suffering depicted.
 The readers only experience a momentary, transient sadness, then go back to their
ordinary lives, never realizing how war victims actually feel. The photographer knows
that he is unable to make a contribution – sense of failure.
 Bathos: sudden drop from the sublime to the trivial.
 Alliteration (‘b’): sense of rhythm/harmony in ordinary people’s lives.
 Last line: ‘zooms out’ into a picture of the man in a plane.
 “stares impassively”: at his own home because there is a rift between him and them.
Sense of dissolution with his own country.
 Trying to change people’s hearts is a futile effort – pessimism.
 The fact that he is on the plane means that all the pictures he printed failed to prevent
another war.
 Emotion he feels for war victims is not felt for ordinary people because he has
experienced both sides.
 Half rhyme shows disillusionment.

 Main themes: anti-war, plight of people who see both sides, role of media in bringing
about change.
 Two contrasting lexical fields: he is mediating between two contrasting worlds.
 Structure is very uniform: seems very ordered and organized, but the enjambments
show the inner chaos. Amid all this chaos, the photographer must remain calm,
composed, and detached.
 The poet empathizes with the photographer, because she too is trying to make art out of
chaos to display it to people and try to bring about a change.
 Short sentences depict photographic effect, but each sentence and each photo tell a
story.
  Tone: relief (welcome loneliness) – ritualistic and mechanical – inevitability of death
(philosophical) – back to clinical, mechanical (must repress emotion), and composed –
fear, reminiscence of things he doesn’t want to remember – dismissive of triviality of
ordinary problems – guilt and remorse; helplessness – disillusioned, satire of insensitivity
– realistic and pessimistic.
 Cyclical effect: no matter how much he tries, war does not end.
 Mood: uncomfortable/guilty with your own insensitivity; serious; somber.

<5> Shooting Stars (p25)

 Positive connotation – false sense of hope/expectation.
 Double meaning of the title – Star of David.
 Dramatic monologue: one person is speaking to a listener. Deals with a critical moment
in the speaker’s life.
 The speaker is a Jewish woman – doubly marginalized – she is right at the bottom of the
power structure.
Stanza 1:
 Begins with “after”: a period of torture has already occurred. Cannot show full extent.
 “I no longer speak”: euphemism for dying.
 “they”: clear distinction between us and them; accusatory tone; doesn’t want to identify
them as human beings.
 Violent, shocking image in the very first line contradicts the title.
 Nazis desperately try to save the woman’s wedding ring. It has more worth to them than
her life.
 “wedding ring”: loses its emotional value.
 Enjambment symbolizes the long torture she has gone through.
 Names: sense of unity; endless list of dead Jews. They’re all the same to the Nazis.
(Alliteration, assonance, asyndeton.)
 Visual image of the Stars of David that have been branded on their foreheads.
 “beneath”: Nazis hold a sense of superiority and power.
 “gaze”: Nazis don’t need to break their stare: connotation of power. Psychological
torment.
 “Guns”: physical torment and medium of superiority.
 “Mourn for the daughters”: to the reader. Present continuous = continue the
lamentation.
 2 listeners: reader and fellow dead Jew.
Stanza 2:
 “upright as statues, brave”: some of them tried to show bravery and did not succumb.
Simile – endurance, forced to become cold and lifeless.
 “You would not look at me”: to fellow dead Jew. Shame and guilt that they couldn’t help
each other.
 “waited for the bullet”: a battle that they are doomed to fail; inevitability of their death.
Guilt: flicker of hope that the bullet is not for them. Everybody is left to fend for
themselves.
 “Fell”: euphemism for dying.
  Short sentences: no emotion involved – cold, mechanical killing; rhythm of click and fire.
 “Remember. Remember”: Capitalization and repetition for emphasis.
 “appalling”, “forever bad”: a stain on the world’s history that can never be cleansed.
 “One”: dehumanization of Nazis.
Stanza 3:
 Being alive is not a good thing in this situation.
 Images are imprinted in her mind even after death. Visual images are used to condense
the torture. Sense of helplessness.
 “gap of corpses”: everyone around her is dead and yet, she is the unlucky one.
 “child” symbolizes the future and innocence that the Nazis are destroying.
 “laughed”: insensitivity.
 “Only a matter of days separate this from acts of torture now”: beginning of the war.
Torture will be repeated. They will look for new ways as well.
 “shot her in the eye”: abrupt end of all that the child symbolizes. Cruelty.
Stanza 4:
 Addresses the reader: What would you have done in my place to prepare for death?
 “perfect April evening”: dark irony. She dies in spring. Even nature doesn’t care while
they are tortured and killed.
 “gossiping and smoking by the graves”: juxtaposition of two contrasting images shows
their insensitivity.
 “bare feet”: no comfort, wealth. She has been stripped of dignity and civility.
 “urine”: out of fear.
 “a trick”: extreme sadism – they make her want to die, and then they don’t let her.
 Consonance: auditory image shows strength of memory. Lack of visual imagery shows
that she was looking down or away in fear.
 The poem doesn’t give the exact instant when she dies.
Stanza 5:
 Juxtaposition of contrasting images. “someone” is the reader – trying to shock us out of
our insensitivity.
 “After”: anaphora. Same effect as last time.
 Depicts ease with which people move on with their lives if they are unaffected.
 “boy washes his uniform”: could be a Nazi washing blood off his uniform or even a
schoolboy who merely heard of it.
 “toys”: comfort, happiness, security.
 “the world turns in its sleep”: they can sleep comfortably.
 “spades shovel soil”: farming or graves. Cyclical nature of life goes on despite this.
 Names + ellipsis: endless stories of people that never got told.
 Lack of punctuation: continuous.
Stanza 6:
 “Sister”: all the women in the world.
 Desperate plea: keep our memories alive so that you don’t have to experience this.
Thought-provoking question.
  She was singing Jewish prayers inside the concentration camp: hope, strength, faith,
defiance even at “dusk”: when light was going out of their lives and when she was about
to die.
 “strong men wept”: wouldn’t normally have cried. Torture and humiliation broke them
down.
 Biblical reference: could be her last words.
 “mercy” = death. They were “desolate and lost.”

 No rhyme scheme: no sense of pleasantness, complete chaos.

 Two instances of internal rhyme show that it is just an easy game for the Nazis – they
have no problems.
 Purpose: asking the reader never to forget this story so that it is never repeated.
 Tone: serious; somber; hopeless; pleading.
 Mood: insensitive; horrific; disturbing; jarring.

<6> Valentine (p121)

 Persona: a lover of unspecified gender.
 It is an unconventional love poem.
 It parodies/satirizes the conventions associated with Valentine’s Day and the gifts – “red
rose”, “satin heart”, promises, passion, etc.
Stanza 1:
 Begins with a negative, already breaking conventions of love poems.
 “red rose”: alliteration.
 “satin” signifies something beautiful and shiny to bring a smile immediately.
Stanza 2:
 “I give you an onion.”: straightforward, direct sentence. No preamble.
 “moon”: it is the same color and shape on the inside. Metaphysical conceit: comparing
two ordinary things that are completely different (?).
 “It promises light,” like the moon. “light” = positivity, at least in the beginning.
 “the careful undressing of love”: you have to peel away the external layer to get to the
reality/to see the real person. “careful”: slow unmasking.
Stanza 3:
 “Here”: the recipient has been taken aback.
 “It will blind you with tears”: literally, onions make your eyes water. Also, love will make
you hurt.
 “It will make your reflection a wobbling photo of grief”: tears blur everything, making it
‘wobbly.’ There will be days of misery.
Stanza 4:
 “I am trying to be truthful”: the real gift is honesty. Contrasts conventions.
Stanza 5:
 “cute card” (alliteration) and “kissogram” signify frivolity that the speaker doesn’t want
to convey.
 “Its fierce kiss will stay on your lips”: you can’t get rid of an onion’s taste – he/she means
that passion will always be there.
  “possessive and faithful”: both positive and negative connotations.
 “for as long as we are,” which might not be forever.
Stanza 6:
 “platinum loops” = onion rings.
 “shrink”: constricting/stifling your own individuality. Rings are smaller at the center.
 “Lethal.”: marriage/a relationship kills your individuality, hopes, and dreams. Lots of
compromises are required.
 “cling”: the speaker will stay with his/her lover all his/her life.
 “knife”: even if you choose to end the relationship, the bitter, pungent lessons you learnt
will stay with you.

 As the poem progresses, insecurities and questions of loyalty and commitment come in,
just like in a relationship.
 Short sentences: the message isn’t sugarcoated at all.
 The poem highlights the lack of communication about negative things and the fleeting
nature of people and their relationships
 The message is, ‘if you want to celebrate love, the best gift is honesty and loyalty.’
 Themes: love, superficiality, fleeting nature of love, gifts, and people, constraints of
marriage, the need to make marriage a more positive thing.

<7> Medusa (p183)

 Anthology: The World’s Wife: it’s about the women in the lives of the famous men of the
world. Duffy isn’t creating new stories, just retelling them from a different perspective.
 Subversion of patriarchal narratives.
 The female perspective: marginalized voices, search for identity.
 It’s always Medusa’s fault in the stories – she is always punished.
 She was a beautiful priestess in one of Athena’s temples. Athena’s priestesses had to be
chaste/virgins. She was found unchaste (Poseidon). Athena cursed Medusa to become a
monster, but Poseidon received no punishment.
 Persona: a modern woman who has been betrayed/cheated and is now foul-
mouthed/tempered with no beauty in her life, similar to Medusa.
 People focus on the end-product, ignoring the fact that there might be a back-story.
 Message: ‘look at the journey that has made me who I am.’
 Dramatic monologue addressing the husband and the reader.
 Contrasts with typical feminine quallities.
Stanza 1:
 “A suspicion, a doubt, a jealousy”: tricolon, asyndeton. Sense of betrayal, distrust about
the husband. “jealousy” = confirmation of doubt.
 “grew in my mind”: the negative thoughts grow and spread like a disease, destroying the
relationship.
 “turned the hairs on my head to filthy snakes”: allusion to Medusa. Simile + symbol: her
thoughts are turning into “filthy snakes” – venomous, evil, and bitter. She stops having
positive thoughts.
  Enjambment: the backstory is summed up in the first stanza. Circumstances led her to
become like this.
 “thoughts hissed and spat on my scalp”: insecurity – she doubts herself first.
Stanza 2:
 “bride’s breath”: alliteration. The way she behaves – supposed to be pure, positive.
 “soured, stank”: sibilance. Conveys rotting.
 “grey bags of my lungs”: decay, dullness. Contrasts with most brides, showing the quick
transformation.
 F-alliteration + “yellow fanged”: visual imagery of a snake. Sense of revulsion,
threat/danger (tricolon + asyndeton).
 “yellow” signifies disease and decay.
 Every time she says something, something foul comes out.
 Shorter sentences than stanza 1: once her doubt was confirmed, the transformation
took place very quickly.
 “bullet tears”: metaphor, paradox. Tears are signs of defeat and weakness, but bullets
are weapons. Her tears are the weapons with which she will become a stronger person
and at least start questioning.
 “Are you terrified?”: rhetorical question. ‘You better be terrified. You left me with no
choice but this transformation, so you have to live with it.’
Stanza 3:
 “Be terrified”: imperative tone: strength, vengefulness.
 “you”: element of threat. Dramatic monologue addressing the husband and the reader.
 Sarcastic, satirizing how she initially felt about the man.
 “Greek god”: allusion to Poseidon. He wasn’t punished, but she was.
 “but I know”: reality. Internal rhyme, tricolon, asyndeton.
 “better by far for me if you were stone”: she’d rather see him as a stone than with
someone else. Sense of vengeance, trying to take things into her own hands.
Stanza 4, 5, 6:
 Shifts to what she is like now.
 The things she looks at increase in size and intensity – climax (device).
 Initially, her anger is shown on small, homely things.
 Her power of destruction increases – she becomes more of a monster.
 “buzzing”, “singing”, “snuffling”, “ginger”: symbols of life which she turns to stone.
Mirrors how she herself was full of life, but then turned to stone on the inside.
 “dull grey”: she spreads her negativity. No comma shows the quick transformation.
 Series of visual images.
 All the femininity in her is gone.
 Anaphora of “glance” changes to “look”: increasing in intensity and deliberation of
action. She’s doing things by herself and taking responsibility.
 The “bowl of milk” is destroyed with the “cat”: rise in intensity.
 “shit”: shocking diction. She doesn’t care; breaking the stereotype of femininity.
Stanza 7:
 “I stared in the mirror”: self-loathing, trying to destroy herself. But she’s already dead on
the inside. There’s nothing left to destroy but the physical body.
  “Gorgon”: Classical allusion. This is how she thinks of herself. Self-loathing.
 “dragon”: her power is unequivocal, giving her confidence. “stared” shows the vengeful
thoughts that she’s beginning to have.
 “Fire spewed from the mouth of a mountain”: violent image. Mirrors her mental state.
Stanza 8:
 “shield for a heart”: metaphor. She realizes that she cannot make him love her; his heart
is impenetrable.
 “sword for a tongue”: metaphor. Vicious words. He is presented as Perseus, who kills
Medusa in the myth, but he is not the hero, just like Perseus shouldn’t have been called
a hero for killing the blameless Medusa.
 “your girls, your girls”: first in sadness, then anger. Plural shows that he is a habitual
infidel.
 Questions show her self-doubt. Cry of despair – she wants to know what went wrong,
why he went to the other women. Not rhetorical, showing her insecurity.
Stanza 9:
 “Look at me now.”: could be despair – ‘look at the state I’m in now.’ But it could be a
threat, establishing her power (imperative) and strength (her gaze will kill him now). ‘You
can’t destroy me any further.’ Sense of finality.
 Ambivalence: how does she treat him at the end?
 Finality: she’s a strong woman now.

 Free verse: no emotions, harmony, pleasantness left.

 Internal rhyme, words that rhyme, enjambment, assonance, and alliteration show the
remnants of her humanity and feeling of hurt. She’s not actually a ‘stone.’
 Audience: any woman who has been through this, also people in general who judge
without knowing the backstory.
 Tone: vengeful, bitter, sarcastic, insecure, self-loathing, threatening, despairing.
 Mood: disturbing, threatening, uncomfortable, dark, Gothic, sympathetic for the
woman.
 Theme: betrayal, empowerment, loss of identity/quest for identity beyond marriage.
 Enjambment – continuous transformation.
<8> Nostalgia (p108)
 Greek root: ‘nostos’ = return; ‘algos’ = pain.
 First coined by Swiss mercenaries who left home to get money all over Europe.
 Theme: voice of displaced people.
Stanza 1:
 “Those early mercenaries”: allusion to Swiss mercenaries and origin of the word.
 “ill”: they were physically unaccustomed to the new area and felt emotional longing for
their home.
 “leaving”: repetition. Emphasizes the feeling of separation.
 “down, down”: literally, as well as metaphorically – feeling low/down.
 Enjambment shows the length of the journey they had to make and how far away from
their home they felt.
  “dull, crude coins”: negative, harsh sounding – distasteful image. No grandeur/heroism
to their pain.
 “strange”: unusual, uncomfortable: physical pain is because of different things (not
nostalgia).
 “wrong”: psychological pain because the land is ‘not right.’ Sense of hopelessness:
money must be earned; they must do something that feels wrong to them.
 “here”: italics denotes a gesture, pointing to the heart. They did not understand the
feeling, so they thought they needed a “Doctor.”
 “pined, wept, grown men”: they became emotionally weak. Breaks the
masculine/soldier stereotype and evokes sympathy.
 “It was killing them”: hyperbole shows the extent of emotional longing/pain.
 Stanza establishes context of creation of the word ‘nostalgia.’
Stanza 2:
 “It was given a name”: the word had to be coined to express what they felt.
 “Hearing tell of it, there were those who stayed put, fearful”: after the soldiers came
back and told stories, the people who heard decided to stay put. Sense of apprehension.
 “sweet pain”: oxymoron. Memories are sweet, but the feeling is painful.
 “heavier air”: literal for the Swiss mercenaries. It feels like the air itself is
confining/oppressing you because of the situation you’re in.
 Anything that you can relate to your past causes the “sweet pain” to arise.
 Alliteration of “h”: pleasant, soft sound associated with home.
 “summoning”: bringing up memories.
 “dwindling”: negative connotations are given to the “plain” (the new place).
 “particular”: specific memories come back.
 Things that would come to the minds of young men. Vivid images show the strength of
memory.
 Pain = the uncertainty of never returning.
Stanza 3:
 “the word was out”: once the word spread, people realized that they too had felt it – for
the past.
 “Some would never fall in love had they not heard of love”: analogy. People only realized
that they had felt it when they heard of the word.
 “love” = feeling of “sweet pain” and longing: similarity with nostalgia.
 “priest” and “schoolteacher” contrast with soldier. They are confined to restrictive
spaces, so there is no sense of displacement, but even they feel nostalgia.
 Priest is sad – contradictory to stereotype of priests – when he sees the change of
seasons. The passage of time causes a sense of nostalgia for the past.
 Teacher remembers her childhood, but knows she cannot return to it: nostalgia again.
 Nostalgia touches everyone.
 “spring”: rebirth, renewal.
 “returned”: happiness is expected.
 “life in a sack on his back”: internal rhyme. All of his experiences have burdened him and
changed him.
 “same”: repetition contrasts with “wrong” and “strange” in Stanza 1.
  “bell” signifies passage of time.
 “everything changed”: his home and he himself have changed, so the feeling of nostalgia
remains despite how much he hoped to resolve it.

 Inevitability of time’s passage.

 Structure: 9, 9, 10 – showing the progression into universality.
 Free verse – feeling of discomfort.
 Tone: nostalgic, reminiscent, melancholic, bittersweet.
 Mood: nostalgia, sadness, impossibility of going back.
 Metaphorical journey for readers, journey of the word, and literal journey of the
mercenaries.
 Purpose: to give the history of the word; to give a voice to displaced/marginalized
people, shows the importance of language to express emotions.

<9> Pygmalion’s Bride (p192)

 Anthology: The World’s Wife: it’s about the women in the lives of the famous men of the
world. Duffy isn’t creating new stories, just retelling them from a different perspective.
 Subversion of patriarchal narratives.
 The female perspective: marginalized voices, search for identity.
 Pygmalion was a sculptor who made a statue that he fell in love with. The statue’s name
was Galatia. She is brought to life to be his wife.
 The woman/statue doesn’t have a choice; her perspective is never taken into account.
 The speaker has no interest in the man and doesn’t want to become human.
 The poem shows the fickle-mindedness of people.
Stanza 1:
 “Cold, I was, like snow, like ivory”: connotations of emotionlessness, lifelessness, death.
 “snow” = pure; “ivory” = precious, pure.”
 She was fine with being emotionless.
 “I thought, He will not touch me”: fallacious expectation.
 “but he did”: sense of surprise.
Stanza 2:
 “stone-cool”: tactile image. Lifeless, no reciprocation.
 “I lay still” by choice. She could have responded but chose not to. Women don’t have to
be submissive – it is an active choice.
 “He stayed”: persistence. He likes the fact that she is under his control.
 “thumbed”: obtrusiveness – sense of power. His pleasure comes from the fact that he
can do anything to her.
Stanza 3:
 “blunt endearments”: no subtlety, very direct. There is no beauty in what he says; he
doesn’t mean any of it. She is not passionate about him.
 “terrible”: He repulses her. There is no consent.
 “My ears were sculpture, stone-deaf, shells”: she was trying to shut him out. Metaphors
for hard objects that don’t break easily.
  “I heard the sea”: the sea connotes the outside world where she would like to be, but is
out of her reach because she is chained down here.
 “drowned him out”: her dreams of a future away helped her tolerate the present.
 “heard him shout”: the words don’t reach her anymore. She doesn’t want to know what
he is shouting about.
Stanza 4:
 “I didn’t blink, was dumb” in reaction to the simple gifts he brought her.
 He brings her more expensive gifts. She still didn’t respond.
 Stereotype of women being ‘bought’ with gifts, jewelry.
 However, he never stops to ask her what she wants.
 “girly things”: stereotypical attitude of men is satirized.
 “clammy hands”: sense of disgust/revulsion every time he touches her.
 “played”: she is being submissive by choice.
 “schtum” = silent.
Stanza 5:
 Lexical field: physical violence that he subjects her to. Shows her feelings of revulsion
and hatred toward him.
 Because she didn’t explicitly refuse, he assumed that she liked it. He didn’t ask her.
 He looks for pain – any reaction.
 Asyndeton, anaphora, visual images show the extent of physical abuse.
 “claws”: compares him to an animal. Displays her felling of being hunted.
 Despite the violence, she still doesn’t respond. She remains docile and submissive in the
hope that he’ll stop.
 “jawed”: animal, brutish connotation.
 “My heart was ice, was glass”: cold on the outside but fragile and easily broken. She is
on the verge of emotionally falling apart.
 “gravel, hoarse”: crudeness of his words; he doesn’t mean anything he says.
 “white black”: antithesis. The “white” words (meant to be pleasant) were spoken with a
“black” tone.
Stanza 6:
 “So I changed tack”: proves that it was by choice.
 She lists all the things that women are expected to do by stereotypes.
 “all an act”: there was actually no pleasure involved, despite her actions.
Stanza 7:
 “And I haven’t seen him since. Simple as that.”: ends with finality and humor. The
moment he got what he wanted, he ran after something else, but she is happy that he’s
gone.
 Shows that the power is in her hands.

 Message: women should exercise their choice and men should look for consent.
 Theme: need for consent, power and choice is in women’s hands.
 Dramatic monologue: reader is the listener.
 Many parallel phrases, length of stanzas keeps increasing: increasing intensity of the
torture/pain.
  Two simple, short lines shows her power in the situation – she just needs to be herself.
 Tone: revulsion, disgust, helplessness to powerful, empowered.
 Audience: women who should believe in their own power.
 Mood: empowerment, reflective, cynical.
 Ending subverts the original myth.

<10> Standing Female Nude (p21)

 Both feminist and Marxist (class struggle).
 “Female” is in the center of the title.
 “Nude”: vulnerable to society and the eyes of watchers. In spite of that, she is
“Standing”: empowerment and pride. Taking her life into her own hands. Standing
comes before Nude in the title.
 Male artist, female subject. He becomes famous at the cost of objectifying this woman.
 Both are members of the lower class, just trying to get money.
 Viewers/buyers of the painting are upper class.
 Direct, to the point: voice of a prostitute – cynical about art.
 Dramatic monologue.
Stanza 1:
 “Six hours like this for a few francs”: shows how long she’s been standing there, just as
an object to be put on a canvas. Desperation – this is a necessity, not a choice.
 “belly nipple arse”: she knows that she’s just an object and that her human nature isn’t
being taken into account.
 The picture is based on a Cubist painting – she’s not even being portrayed properly:
sense of disappointment.
 “drains the color from me”: she is exhausted by the end. “color”: could symbolize the
human characteristics/nature that isn’t actually depicted.
 “try to be still”: insensitive. Contrasts stereotype of artists being sensitive to the world.
Tone of condescension, exploitation, demanding. Wishing the woman would be a lifeless
object.
 Cynical, sarcastic tone. “hung”: no dignity in this work for her. “I shall be represented
analytically”: she knows she is being objectified and that her character is unimportant.
 “great museums”: class difference.
 “coo”: onomatopoeia shows the childish excitement.
 “river whore”: very self-aware; she knows what she’ll be seen as. Element of pride. The
background will be made a river, masking the reality.
 Hypocrisy of “the bourgeoisie”: the admire the painting, but would be disgusted in real
life. The contrast between the words “coo” and “whore” show this contrast.
 “They call it Art.”: her exploitation is glamorized. Condescending tone.
Stanza 2:
 “Maybe.”: skepticism, cynicism. She questions what art really is. True art should depict
the story/journey behind it.
 “he is concerned with volume, space”: he is only concerned with what he needs to do
for money.
  “this is not good”: only in concern for his painting; he wants a curvaceous woman.
Despite the long-standing arrangement, he doesn’t care why she is looking less healthy.
 “breasts hang slightly low, the studio is cold”: discomfort, insensitivity of the painter.
 “tea leaves”: telling the future, symbolizes her thoughts.
 “Queen of England” is vaguely appreciative. Even the female upper class is oblivious to
the exploitation. Shows her dreams of becoming famous.
 “moving on”: the transient gaze she receives before her exploitation is dismissed.
 “it makes me laugh”: outsider’s view of the upper class.
Stanza 3:
 “They tell me he’s a genius”: his genius is at her expense, but she’s never seen his
paintings in the galleries to experience this genius firsthand.
 He wants to use her not only for the paintings, but she draws the line there: they both
have power over each other.
 “dips the brush”: sexual imagery.
 Nobody cares about exploiting her, so she says no when she can.
 “little man”: dismissive.
 “arts I sell”: if such exploitation can be called art, why not prostitution? She gives herself
the dignity that society doesn’t. No sense of self-loathing.
 “both poor”: sympathy, she understands his situation. They’re both in the lower class
and rely on the upper class for their living. She doesn’t hate him.
Stanza 4:
 “Because I have to. There’s no choice”: both of them would give the same answer.
They’re victims of the power structure and the economy. He knows that this is what sells
– commercialization.
 “Don’t talk”: objectification. He doesn’t want to find answers to uncomfortable
questions.
 “my smile confuses him”: contentedness. Her life is in her own hands while he is
ignorant of the fact that one can be content with oneself.
 “too seriously”: both are in the same situation – pleasing the bourgeoisie, but the artist
thinks he’s changing the world. Condescending tone.
 “wine and dance”: her life is not happy, but she chooses not to follow the stereotype of a
miserable, poor prostitute.
 “shows me proudly”: possessiveness that he feels over her.
 “lighting a cigarette” shows his satisfaction.
 No feedback: she doesn’t care.
 “twelve francs”: reminder that everything was for money – no glorification. Very little
money. She puts on her clothes and leaves without comment.
 “it does not look like me”: it cannot capture her true essence and character. Cynical view
of artists in general.

 Theme: exploitation, power struggle, gender dynamics, questioning what true art is.
 Tone: cynical, contemptuous, sarcastic. Also, dignity and pride.
 Same number of lines per stanza and enjambment shows the routine and monotony.
 Free verse: lack of rhythm and harmony in both their lives.
  Dialogues are integrated because the two speakers are integrated: they’re on the same
platform.
 Shift in perspective: “Georges”
 Very few figures of speech: proletariat prostitute’s speech.
 Mood: reflective, true meaning of art, journey behind art.
 Audience: everyone.

<11> Head of English (p11)

 Conversation.
 Criticizes the education system for lack of creativity/curiosity, lack of student-teacher
interaction, and emphasis on conformation.
 Conflict between creativity and conformity.
 Shows that the teachers themselves don’t really appreciate the learning material.
 Who you respect and how you show that respect (or lack thereof) cannot be masked.
 Dramatic monologue by the head of department of English, with the audience consisting
of the poet and the children.
Stanza 1:
 “Today we have a poet in the class”: the poet is treated as a commodity.
 “a real live poet”: slightly derogatory/mocking. Also slightly insulting to all other people
who think they are poets.
 “published book”: his entire credibility/validation. Shows the fixed pattern that must be
conformed to in order to be recognized.
 “Notice”: objectification; almost as though he is a museum specimen for their
amusement.
 “ink stained fingers”: symbolizes the effort that goes into writing a poem. Stereotype.
 “Perhaps we’re going to witness verse hot from the press”: the teacher clearly has a
superiority complex and often crosses the line between humiliation and humor,
marginalizing the effort that the poet actually puts into his work.
 “Who knows”: shows her skepticism and doubt about how good the poet actually is, as
though she actually does expect him to come up with some poetry on the spot.
 “Please show your appreciation”: the students don’t get to choose what they appreciate
or not, and the poet feels a sense of false appreciation.
 “not too loud”: restraints are always present and ready to be enforced.
Stanza 2:
 “assonance”: she uses jargon to show her disapproval of the poet.
 “not all poems, sadly, rhyme these days”: the teacher has a problem with the free verse
of the modern age and do
 doesn’t appreciate change. She belongs to the generation that has gone by. Critical
about the poet.
 “out of bounds”: sense of conformity.
 “feel free to raise questions”: it seems as though she’s encouraging interaction.
 “forty pounds”: falls short of previous expectations. She just wants to pass off the event
as being worth the money and is just trying to show what a good job she’s doing. It could
also be a disapproval of the decision to pay those forty pounds to get this poet here.
Stanza 3:
 “Those of you with English Second Language, see me after break”: she’s displaying her
authority and diminishing the poet’s presence by talking about something that could
easily be discussed later. Shows that the classroom’s diversity and variety is not
celebrated – instead, compartmentalization runs rampant.
 “We’re fortunate to have this person in our midst”: clearly an ironic statement that she
doesn’t really mean. Generalization to “person” brushes away the actual importance of
the poet.
 “Season of mists”: allusion to John Keats and stereotypes poets.
 “so on and so forth”: verbal filler, diminishing the importance of poets’ work in general.
 “I’ve written quite a bit of poetry myself”: could show jealousy or regret that she didn’t
make something more of her life with that ability. She makes it a point to show that she’s
as good as the poet (or that the poet is nothing special). Pretense of humility and
modesty.
 “am doing Kipling with the Lower Fourth”: shows her capacity, despite which she still
thinks that she’s as good as the poet. Small talk about herself shows self-obsession and
arrogance – she should be showing appreciation.
Stanza 4:
 “the Muse”: source of inspiration. Clearly a sarcastic comment.
 “We don’t want winds of change around the place”: letting out inner thoughts of not
wanting change. Shows her close-mindedness.
 Closed window symbolizes the suffocating, stuffy atmosphere she creates for the
children. Their minds are confined and there are no opportunities or freedom.
 “take notes, but don’t write reams”: conformity – she doesn’t care if there’s someone in
the audience who doesn’t like the poet, or someone who likes the poet a lot. Do only
what you’ve been asked to do – nothing more.
 “Fine. Off we go.”: she’s very skeptical about what the poet is going to say.
 “Convince us that there’s something we don’t know”: almost a challenge to the poet.
Again, dismissive of the poet’s work and effort.
Stanza 5:
 “Well. Really.”: dismissive, unimpressed.
 “I’m sure”: ironic – she clearly thinks that the poet’s speech was useless.
 She doesn’t approve of the “outside view.”
 Sense of contempt, lack of respect. The artist is treated very badly and is not given the
respect that unique, creative individuals deserve.
 After the poet’s talk, she makes small talk again, not asking the poet anything of value.
“Do hang about” suggests that it wouldn’t matter to her if he didn’t.
 “Applause will do”: same effect as last time.
 “I have to dash”: the poet is no longer ‘worthy’ of her attention and she readily hands
him over to one of her subordinates.

 Structure: uniform stanzas – conformity: it’s only about what the teacher wants.
 Children are asked to interact but there is no interaction.
  Listeners (the poet and the class) are never really given a chance to speak and voice
their own opinions despite how facetious the speaker is.
 Non-gender-specific.
 Diction is important.
 Series of imperative sentences display the conformity pressure.
 Very few rhymes – the class is not a unified, harmonious whole: they are being
oppressed and their individuality is controlled.
 Her displays of her superiority complex are usually subtle.

<12> Stealing (p54)

 Dramatic monologue by a thief who tries to hide his true feelings but can’t.
 Political background: Margaret Thatcher’s tenure. Her policies encouraged mad pursuit
of wealth.
 The listener could be a social worker or police officer who is interrogating him.
 The thief is left with no choice – everyone around him is mindlessly pursuing their own
greed, so he feels the need to do the same so that he doesn’t get left behind.
 Title generates curiosity
Stanza 1:
 “The most unusual thing I ever stole? A snowman.”: Hypophora. Sense of surprise,
absurdity. The voice of the persona is established in the very first line.
 “snowman” creates a happy atmosphere linked with childhood. He’s trying to steal
happiness because he longs for it. Sense of loneliness and unhappiness.
 “midnight”: darkness. Everything wicked is supposed to come out at midnight.
 “a tall, white mute beneath the winter moon”: visual image glorifies and beautifies the
snowman. The lyrical language shows that there is a part of the thief that could have
been much more than what he is now, if only society had given him the chance.
 “mute”: having a conversation with humans has always been futile for him.
 “wanted”: sense of yearning, desperation.
 “mate”: he is longing human company and lacks both friends and a partner.
 “mind”: personification.
 “a mind as cold as the slice of ice within my own brain”: he connects with the snowman
because they are both cold and emotionless. Sense of psychological disturbance. Self-
aware without expecting the reader to understand him.
 “I started with the head”: he doesn’t mind destroying something beautiful that
symbolizes happiness. Frustration and anger. Lack of remorse/guilt. He compared
himself to the snowman, so it also shows his tendency for self-destruction.
Stanza 2:
 “Better off dead than giving in, not taking what you want”: in that period, everybody
was desperately snatching things they wanted. Political statement about society at the
time.
 Enjambment shows that he has no second thoughts about greed.
 “hugged to my chest”: dark humor – the only thing he gets to hug is a frozen-stiff
snowman. Shows how cold and loveless his life is.
  “a fierce chill piercing my gut”: tactile imagery. Hugging it doesn’t give him any comfort.
Instead, it gives him a sharp, immediate reminder of reality.
 “Part of the thrill was knowing that children would cry in the morning”: psychologically
disturbed. Sadism. Circumstances have made him embittered, so he gets satisfaction
from seeing other people suffer the way he has. He thinks he’s preparing them for
reality.
 “Life’s tough”: a statement in his life that he wants to pass on. There is no shock, just
acceptance.
Stanza 3:
 “I steal things I don’t need”: mirroring society. Just for the excitement of it. The only
thrill he gets is from an illegal activity.
 “to nowhere”: He knows that this kind of lifestyle is taking him nowhere and that these
pleasures are transient. He knows that it’s futile.
 “just to have a look”: he gets a thrill out of it, but even if he takes something, it won’t
change his situation. He’s jealous of the upper class; that’s where he wants to be.
 “houses”, “cars”: plural shows that he’s done this more than once.
 “houses” connotes safety, comfort, security, and human connection: all things that he’s
been deprived of. Sense of vengeance.
 “mucky”: he deliberately leaves a mess behind himself. He doesn’t care if he gets caught,
because he wants people to acknowledge his existence. This is how he tries to build a
connection with other people.
 “ghost”: metaphor. He is invisible to society. He tries to induce fear because he does not
expect to be loved.
 “I watch my gloved hand”: visual, kinesthetic imagery of watching his own hand. He’s
been alienated from society, but even within himself, there’s a sense of detachment and
fragmentation. This internal conflict can never be resolved because of his social
condition.
 “bedroom” connotes comfort and companionship. Even though it’s a “stranger’s
bedroom,” he just wants companionship, but all he finds is his own reflection in the
“mirrors.”
 “sigh” (onomatopoeia and auditory imagery) of envy/jealousy. Sense of resignation
because he feels that his life is an utter failure.
Stanza 4:
 “Reassembled”: he’s rebuilding the snowman. “It took some time”: he’s not used to
building/creating things.
 “didn’t look the same”: every time he tries to do something positive, the world (and
society) reminds him that it’s pointless. Sense of repeated failure.
 “booted him”: violent, kinesthetic image of kicking the snowman displays his pent-up
frustration and anger. “Again. Again”: increasing intensity.
 “breath ripped out in rags”: allit eration. He’s panting/exhausting himself for a futile
action.
 “rags” connote worthlessness of both himself (in his opinion) and of the activity.
 “it seems daft now”: at the time, he was so overcome by his negative emotions that he
couldn’t stop himself.
  He himself destroys the one thing that he considered a “mate” and even compared to
himself – self-destructive tendencies.
 “alone”: bluntly states his sense of loneliness.
 “lumps of snow”: the remains of a beautiful thing/the remains of happiness. Barren
land, just like his life.
 “sick of the world”: climactic moment of the poem – he doesn’t enjoy anything.
Stanza 5:
 “Boredom”: consolidates his entire life into one word.
 “I’m so bored I could eat myself”: channelizing his hurt and anger toward himself. Self-
destruction.
 “guitar”: something pleasant. But he never learned how to play. He wants to better
himself but is restrained by society. It could also show that he’s been beaten down so
many times that he’s just given up on his life now.
 “bust of Shakespeare”: symbolizes his intellect/knowledge.
 “flogged it” = sold it illegally.
 The three things (guitar, bust, snowman) show his desire for self-improvement, but
eventually, nothing comes out of any of them.
 “You don’t understand a word I’m saying, do you?”: rhetorical question. The listener will
never understand the thief’s life – loneliness, unemployment = absolutely no support
system.

 Class difference. The reader is left in a state of questioning about the thief’s life.
 The broken sentences give the impression of a lower-class individual and show the
conversational tone.
 He bluntly states facts – he doesn’t expect the upper-class listener to understand his
thoughts and his story.
 Lyrical images in the midst of harsh, blunt statements. The few poetic instances show
the streak of his desire for beauty in his life, but these instances are immediately
contrasted with cold reality.
 Initially, it seems as though he has a sense of pride or achievement, but this is later
broken.
 Lexical field of language used by a petty thief. Argot: language used by a particular social
class – blunt, monosyllabic words.
 Themes: greed, isolation, failure, social injustice, bitterness, class discrepancy.
 Tone: frustrated, lonely, lyrical, boastful, longing.
 Mood: sympathy, confusion, curiosity.
 Structure: monotony. Free verse: his life is chaotic, lacking charm.

<13> Havisham (p126)

 Antagonistic character in Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations.
 In the story, she was jilted on her wedding day; Dickens made her a dark, Gothic
character without any human characteristics.
 Poem shows the emotional turmoil of the true person.
 Dramatic monologue.
Stanza 1:
 “beloved sweetheart bastard”: coexistence of tender memories with the hatred for the
man who jilted her.
 “Not a day since then I haven’t wished him dead”: sense of vengefulness, but also
hopelessness, because she can’t get her revenge and she can’t get rid of the need to get
revenge.
 “dark green pebbles for eyes”: visual image. Stonehearted and cold. She can’t trust
anyone anymore after that man.
 “ropes on the back of my hands”: her veins have hardened. Her hatred hasn’t
diminished even though time has passed, but she’s become a frail old lady because of
the kind of life she’s had.
 “strangle”: violent imagery – death. Her dreams were violently forced to a stop, so she
wishes the same on him.
Stanza 2:
 “Spinster”: social isolation (even more so in the Victorian era). She chooses to isolate
herself.
 “I stink”: in the story, she wears the same dress and has the same cake from her
wedding day. Everything is decayed. “remember”: she chooses not to forget, not to
move on.
 “cawing”: auditory imagery. Unpleasant sound.
 “Nooooo”: disbelief and shock.
 “at the wall”: no one actually hears her despair.
 “yellowing” signifies decay and disease.
 “trembling if I open the wardrobe”: she can’t bear to try to change.
 “slewed”: sense of disorder and chaos
 “her, myself”: she doesn’t even recognize herself until reality hits her. Difficult to accept
what she has become.
 “who did this to me?”: what kind of person could do this. Self-victimization.
Stanza 2:
 “puce”: mumbling.
 “sounds, not words”: she doesn’t even know what she’s saying.
 “Some nights” she dreams of the man she’s lost, but then she awakes.
 “body,” “it”: she finds the dreams of the man pleasant, but doesn’t want to associate
any human qualities with the man.
 No punctuation: fluidity of the action.
 “bite awake”: violently waking up to reality.
 “love’s hate”: oxymoronic. Both are equally intense, and are tearing her apart.
Stanza 3:
 “behind a white veil”: refers to the wedding gown she still wears. Her appearance
contrasts to what brides usually look like.
 “veil” = all of her dreams and all the promises were just a veil that covered the
selfishness of the man.
 “red balloon bursting” on the wedding day. The balloon symbolizes her hopes and
dreams that were crushed/burst.
  “red” connotes both anger and vengeance as well as love and passion.
 “Bang”: onomatopoeia. Almost the sound of her heart breaking.
 “I stabbed at a wedding cake”: she can’t stab the man, so she stabs the wedding cake –
violence. Her violence is shown even in front of other people (she stabbed it at the
ruined wedding).
 “male corpse”: after a point, she starts hating all men because she couldn’t express her
hatred to that one man.
 “Don’t think it’s only the heart that b-b-b-breaks”: emotional breakdown. Displays the
psychological trauma she’s been through.

 Pleading for someone to understand her, but nobody bothers.

 In the original story, she takes her revenge on Pip (the protagonist), but nobody cares
about why she needed to do that.
 Structure: uniform stanzas – repetitive, continuous nature of her torment. Stanza
enjambment – she has one singular thought: no change.
 Tone: vengeful, angry, bitter, vulnerable (at the end).
 Mood: reflective, sympathetic.

<14> Liar (p83)

 Lack of trust, deceitful.
 People want to detach themselves from liars because they can’t and because people
believe that they themselves are not liars.
 Character: Susan – is a liar, has a job, has a flat, has friends, has lovers sometimes, tells
stories, cross-dresses, stole a child, went to jail. Before you get to know her personal life,
she seems like a completely ordinary person.
Stanza 1:
 “made things up”: euphemism for lying.
 “for example, that she was really a man”: causes the reader to immediately dissociate
with her. She’s uncomfortable with her identity and wants to be someone else. She
might be tired of being marginalized.
 Everyone wants to be someone else at some point, but people usually try to cover up
this desire.
 “cotton floral day frock”: simple, ordinary.
 “heavy herringbone from Oxfam”: at home, she dresses in a masculine pattern/weave.
She’s poor – buys from a charity.
 “He was called Susan actually”: dichotomy within her. Psychological disturbance –
‘normal’ people don’t want to associate with her.
 “The eyes in the mirror knew that”: she knows that she’s a woman. “she could stare
them out”: she defiantly tries to force herself to believe that she isn’t.
Stanza 2:
 Conveys that she leads a normal life, just like the reader.
 Repetition of “of course”: emphasizing all the symbols of ‘ordinary life,’ showing that
there’s nothing unusual about her on the surface.
 “Lover? Sometimes”: according to convenience just like everyone else.
  “She lived like you do”: forces the reader to associate with her.
 “dozen slack rope ends”: trying to control her life and lies. Everyone suffers from identity
crisis and tries to be someone else – they just hide it better.
 “slack”: lives can’t be controlled.
 “dream hand”: hands hold on to dreams and aspirations, all of which can’t be fulfilled,
leading to the lies.
 “tugging uselessly”: her attempt to control her life and fulfill all of her hopes is futile.
 “memory or hope”: she’s trying to control both her future (hope) and her past
(memory), but it’s not possible.
 “frayed”: the attempt to control it pushes the ropes to the verge of breaking, making life
worse.
 Puts the reader and the character on the same platform.
 “She told stories”: again, a euphemism, but now the reader is more likely to sympathize
with her.
 “I lived in Moscow once…I nearly drowned”: ellipsis, italicization. Stories that she told to
try to make her life sound more interesting.
 “Rotten”: judgement upon her stories from society.
Stanza 3:
 “Liar”: before she even finishes the story, society passes judgement on her with ease.
 “Hyperbole, falsehood, fiction, fib”: synonyms of lie (lexical field), ‘f’ alliteration, listing.
 “flat pool” is boring, so she tries to make “ripples” that could draw interest.
 “bright eyes fixed on the ripples”: she’s trying hard to make her life like that.
 Like the mirror, she stares hard at the pool to try to change her life.
 “No one believed her.”
 “Our”: everyone. People don’t make it public because we adjust to the demands of
society and hide our true thoughts. The poem questions who is the disturbed one if we
choose to hide everything and make our “secret films private affairs, watched behind the
eyes.”
 “subtitles”: the actual ‘movie’ (her life and behavior) seems foreign/different, and can’t
be related with. People don’t want her to explicitly show her thoughts.
 “Not on”: society doesn’t accept her differences.
Stanza 4:
 “From bad to worse”: the poet doesn’t tell the reader parts of the story, forcing the
reader to make up stories, too. The rest of her life could be boring and ordinary, but
what we think it’s like depends on what we think of her.
 “ambulance”: not a police car – they think of her as mentally ill, not as a criminal.
“whinged”: ambulance is personified.
 “played with the stolen child”: she abducted a child, but she’s not really harming the
child in any way. Symbol of loneliness.
 “You know the rest”: telling the reader to make it up.
 “The man in the long white wig”: hypocrisy – parallel to cross-dressing, but symbolizes
truth (instead of lying) because society finds it acceptable. Irony: she wants to become a
man, but is judged by men.
 “sadly confused”: euphemism for being psychologically disturbed.
  “top psychiatrist”: only called in for extremely disturbed people.
 “studied”: objectification.
 “Princess of Wales”: contemporary allusion. Symbolizes an object of fantasy that is
impossible to reach. Even the psychiatrist has his fantasies.
 Most people, like the psychiatrist, get away with their fantasies and lies, but she’s sent to
an asylum.

 Themes: hypocrisy, relativity of normality, difficulty in defining madness, deception,

judging versus sympathy, how quick people are to judge.
 Mood: Sympathetic or Judging?
 Purpose: to show the hypocrisy in everyone.
 Tone: sympathetic, judging, sarcastic, cynical.
 The poet’s sympathy for the liar comes from her own tendency to take on different
personas as a poet – in a way, all artists lie.

<15> Weasel Words (p73)

 Poem is a parody of political language.
 Sugarcoated words – shallow or hollow, but sound grand. Looks beautiful and rounded,
but is empty.
 Origin: weasels sucked out the contents of eggs (not scientifically proven).
 Weasel symbolizes deception, untrustworthiness.
 Tergiversation: evasive statements that use glamorous words to hide the true meaning.
 Setting: parliamentary debate. The ‘Weasels’ are one party.
 Hansard: official transcript of parliamentary debates.
 Epigraph: background of a poem.
 The poem is a satire of politicians who use “weasel words.”
 Italicized words show actions.
 Sir Robert Armstrong was a politician who was said to be ‘economical with the truth.’
Stanza 1:
 “we Weasels”: the speaker is a representative of the Weasels.
 “mean no harm”: sounds comforting, but is vague.
 “you may have read that we are vicious hunters, but this is not the case”: shows how
politicians and media create conspiracies and fabricate news.
 “Natural History Book”: symbolizes anything in the media.
 “Hear, hear”: the members of the party are cheering the speaker on.
Stanza 2:
 “We are long, slim-bodied carnivores with exceptionally short legs”: states undeniable
facts.
 Makes a big deal about the fact that “we have never denied this”: implying that they
would be truthful about everything.
 “anyone here could put a Weasel down his trouser leg and nothing would happen”:
trying to convey that they are harmless.
 “Weasel laughter”: when parliamentary debates were first broadcasted on TV, the
frivolity shocked people. This poem breaks the idea that it is all serious.
Stanza 3:
 “Ferrets”: another party. Giving each party the name of a separate species suggests that
there is not much difference within the party, but lots between parties.
 “Which is more than can be said for the Ferrets”: everything is just about getting an
edge over the other party – there is less emphasis on doing good for the people who
they are responsible for.
 “break the spinal cord”: violent imagery. While they give such specific, vivid examples of
why the Ferrets are bad, they don’t give much of the same to show how they are any
better.
 “brown fur coats turn white in the winter”: white has connotations of purity, maybe
implying that they can be trusted in difficult times (winter). However, it also shows that
they don’t hesitate to change sides according to circumstance – hypocrisy.
Stanza 4:
 Discrepancy between words and actions.
 Continuously harping on the fact that the charges against them are incorrect, while at
the same time conducting the same activity.

 Satirizes divisions between political parties.

 Form: 14-line sonnet – associated with beauty and poetry; has a certain rhythm to it.
 Traditionally, sonnets show a logical progression of arguments through a debate-like
structure (like what a parliament should be like).
 Sounds like a logical debate, but the content shows that there’s nothing sonnet-like
about it.
 Alliteration in the title and the sound of the poem is lighthearted and the simple diction
projects an image of down-to-earth people.
 Tone: evasive, deceptive, false innocence.
 Jargon of political speeches.
 Mood: satirizing.