an easy passage - julia copus Flashcards
free verse
ironic
growing up is inevitable
in medias res
middle of transition
liminality
enjambment and ceasura
hesitation
unstoppable, quick change
title
escape
life to death
passage through life - bible
rite of passage - something you have to go through - tradition
‘once she is halfway up there, crouched in her bikini’
in media res
female experience
in the liminal - uncertainty
exposure
foetus position
‘family’s house’
comfort
represents safety
not her own, implies that she does not feel as though she belongs there
‘trembling, she knows that the one thing she must not do it to think of the narrow windowsill’
fear
leave house but scared to
not sturdy - represents mental state?
‘sharp drop of the stairwell’
plunged into womanhood
unprepared
‘she must keep her mind on the friend with whom she is half in love
keep sanity and innocence
thinks she’s in love - strong teenage emotions
imperative - certainty
‘blond gravel somewhere beneath her’
friends have made that transition
she is still young
top of the hierarchy - hasn’t faced challenges yet
‘open window’
opportunity to still be a girl
all the opportunities in womanhood
‘flimsy, hole punched, aluminium lever’
unstable
going back to childhood is difficult
‘length of her whole body, leaning into the warm flank of the house’
judgement - body is the focus - half in
wants to go back in
‘but first she steadies herself, still crouching’
hiding
scared of adulthood
trying to dismiss fears - disjunction
‘hot beneath her toes and fingertips’
pressure of growing up
‘tiny breasts’
sexualised as you get older
things for people to comment on
‘what can she know of the way the world admits us less and less the more we grow?’
less freedom
can’t wear what we want
career discrimination
‘for now, both girls seem lit, as if from within’
‘gold stud earrings in the first one’s ears’
angelic - something elevated
not corrupted by adulthood
untouched
’ the house exists only for them’
don’t have to worry - safe space
‘long, grey’
elongated vowels
lifeless
symbol of adulthood
‘far away from the mother who does not trust her with a key’
not responsible enough
still a child , yet expected to act like an adult
‘electroplating factory’
spatial shift
childhood is fun
‘flush faced secretary’
fricative alliteration
stress/ menopause
assistant - women are irrelevant
most secretaries are female
‘head full of the evening class’
no time in the day
bored
wants a hobby
‘trip of a lifetime’
get away from boredom
‘astrology column’
trying to find a meaning in life
hopeful
‘a girl - thirteen’
unlucky number
scene from romeo and juliet
‘standing in next to nothing in the driveway opposite, one hand flat against her stomach’
judgemental society - influence
female weight
‘shielding her eyes to gaze up at a pale calf’
not grown
innocent
off sexualised body parts
young
‘silver anklet’
majestic
precious
innocence should be protected
world is a magical place
‘dropping gracefully into the shade of the house’
dropping into woman hood
