Afternoons

Question 1

Summer is fading

Answer 1

Melancholy

Symbol for the love and also the life- their love is dying, they are ageing and happiness is dissipating

Question 2

Enjambement

Answer 2

Shows the gradual nature of summer’s departure

Question 3

In the hollows of afternoons

Answer 3

Time wasted

Question 4

Young mothers assemble

Them

Answer 4

Tragic

Restricted by gender stereotypes, have no life of their own- their only role is looking after the children. Who will face the same fate, gives the whole poem a tone of futility

They have anonymity -> it is a generalisation regarding all romance. Depressing stuff

There should be a sense of friendship and joy, but there isn’t. It’s almost military, as if this is a task

Question 5

At swing and sandpit

Answer 5

Sibilance- sense of repetition and that this happens regularly
Should be fun
Juxtaposed by mournful tone

Question 6

Setting free

Answer 6

Captives

Everyone is captive to the monotony of domestic life

Question 7

An estate full of washing

Answer 7

Domestic monotony

Question 8

Lettered/ Our Wedding, lying

Answer 8

Liesss
Letters mean that the words no longer make sense
Enjambement emphasises time passed and lack of memory regarding why they got married and their original love

Question 9

Ruining their courting places

There are still courting places

Answer 9

Sadness
Regret

Enjambement over stanza break combined with descriptions of courting places indicate that even though the lovers change, their lives still follow the same pattern. The time passes without excitement or change -> depressing idea

Question 10

Unripe acorns

Answer 10

Unfulfilling

Question 11

Their beauty has thickened

Answer 11

Fat

Only standalone sentence in the poem- emphasises how the past tense shows how their life is passing them by.

Question 12

Something is pushing them to the side of their own lives

Answer 12

Unstoppable 
Inevitable 
Tragic 
Children take centre 
Loss of life before life itself is lost

Question 13

Form

Answer 13

Three regular stanzas slow the regularity and monotony of domestic life

No regular metre makes the poem feel stilted, emphasising monotony and how there is no romance in rhyme

Third person is distancing- women are distant from children , all are distant from the essence of nature and life - loss of true life

Caesura literally separate and symbolise the separation between the women and their husbands

Our wedding in italic makes it sound patronising, also emphasises of superficial nature of the relationship

Question 14

Distance imagery

Answer 14

Their husbands stand behind them -> indicating a love lost in the past

Their courting-places are being ruined before them shows permanency and highlights how they can see that they are no longer lovers, but they cannot fix it as it is caused by nature ‘the wind’ -> presents the idea that it is in human nature to fall out of love and that it is a temporary fantasy resulting in depression and separation

Question 15

The new recreation ground

Answer 15

Enjambement shows how a lot of time is spent there

Also puts focus on new and ‘creation’ -> ironic because nothing is changing, and it has been used so much by other failed couples that it had to be replaced, but with, unsurprisingly, the same thing

Question 16

Expect

Answer 16

Sense of routine

Also children causing the monotony?

Question 17

Use of nature to describe the death of the love

Answer 17

Yep

Question 18

Leaves fall in ones and twos

Answer 18

Makes nature seem responsible for the death of love -> it is natural for love to die -> depressing stuff

The gradual nature of the love fading and the excitement in life dissipating means the women don’t realise their own futility, yikes

Question 19

Title

Answer 19

The women are in the afternoon of their lives