Afternoons

Question 1

context on poet

Answer 1

He lived in a high flat where he could watch a park - inspiration

Gender roles were more defined at this time - women were domestic house wives and men had jobs to prvide for their family

Question 2

summary of poem

Answer 2

A scene of mothers and children playing in a park at the end of summer

Women’s lives are presented as restricted by chores

Their lives have changed and they are no longer in control

Question 3

form

Answer 3

3 equal stanzas - standard and dull lives with little variation

Absence of rhyme scheme - lack of excitement in life

Question 4

structure

Answer 4

explores the present and past identities - readers can contrast the women’s lives

final stanza describes the fading of there beauty - lack of optimism

Question 5

language

Answer 5

nature is used to mirror change in people’s lives

domestic imagery - reinforces gender roles & shows how love is ordinary

Question 6

key quotes

Answer 6

‘In the hollows of the afternoon’
- loneliness and emptiness
- detached from previous lives, burdened by everyday tasks

‘An estateful of washing’
- metaphor
- their lives are dominated by domesticity
- alludes the overwhelming chores

‘their beauty has thickened’
- brief - readers consider it more deeply
- shortest sentance in the poem = important
- loss of beauty and vitality

Question 7

Mood

Answer 7

sympathy - imagery of dull and repetitive life
melancholic - relflects the subject of marriage - neglected by their husband and bound to the duty of children