Aunt Julia

Question 1

TITLE: “Aunt Julia”

1st STANZA: “Aunt Julia…”

Answer 1

Repetition

Suggests that the name itself is the trigger for the rest of the memories that follow in the poem.

Question 2

“very loud and very fast”

Answer 2

Repetition (of ‘very’)

Emphasises Aunt Julia’s overwhelming presence/personality. The lasting memory of her is her
shrill, rapid and incomprehensible speech.

Question 3

“I could not answer her-

I could not understand her.”

Answer 3

Repetition (of ‘I could not’)

Emphasises the poet’s sense of frustration at the language barrier which prevented a true connection between aunt and nephew.

The inability to understand his aunt could also have been scary for a child.

Question 4

“I could not answer her-
I could not understand her.”

“I…
I…”

Answer 4

Repetition (of personal pronoun ‘I’)

Suggests the poet’s guilt: does he feel it is his fault for
not making more of an effort to communicate with her?

Question 5

“Aunt Julia spoke Gaelic
very loud and very fast.
I could not answer her-
I could not understand her.”

Whole Stanza

Answer 5

Simple Language

Suggests how clear the memory is and conveys the that this is a childhood memory.

Question 6

“She wore men’s boots
when she wore any.
-I can see her strong foot,
Stained with peat,”

Whole Stanza

Answer 6

Sibilance (repetition of ‘s’ and ‘sh’ sounds)

Helps to emulate the hushed, soothing noise of the spinning wheel.

Although she is in the midst of very productive
activity, her movements are soothing and calming in their practised skill.

Question 7

“…mens’s boots
…
… strong foot”

Answer 7

Aunt Julia associated with physical strength –she is more than capable of looking after herself and certainly equally as tough and capable as a man.

Question 8

“when she wore any”

Answer 8

The poet adds this extra piece of information almost as an afterthought, to highlight the fact that she is hardy enough to work barefoot. This emphasises her close
connection with the land.

Question 9

” I can see her strong foot”

Answer 9

Use of the senses - the poet can still picture a vivid image of his Aunt in his mind, shows how unforgettable/important she was to him.

Question 10

“Stained with peat”

Answer 10

Word Choice

“stained”
Connotations: being coloured/tainted over a long period of time.

Highlighting her long standing dedication to working the land.

“peat” provides fuel,
linking to the traditional way of life in this part of Scotland.

Question 11

“while her right hand drew yarn

marvellously out of the air.”

Answer 11

Metaphor

Compares Aunt Julia spinning wool to a magician drawing something out of thin air.

This helps to emphasise her skill; to the young boy it
seems like sorcery.

Question 12

“marvelously”

Answer 12

Word Choice

Connotations: magical, awe-inspiring, wonderful.

He was impressed by her skills at spinning – it seemed to him as a boy as if she was conjuring wool out of the air through her mystical hand movements.

Question 13

“… her right hand drew yarn”

Answer 13

Long vowel sounds also elongate the sentence.

Question 14

“stained with peat,
paddling with the treadle of the spinningwheel
while her right hand drew yarn
marvellously out of the air.”

Answer 14

Long Sentence/Enjambment

Helps to emulate the long drawn out process of spinning yarn, requiring lots of patience.

It could also link to the physical movement of the wool
being stretched out by hand to make the yarn
taut.

Question 15

"She wore men’s boots
when she wore any.
-I can see her strong foot,
stained with peat,
paddling with the treadle of the spinningwheel
while her right hand drew yarn
marvellously out of the air."

Whole Stanza

Answer 15

Contrast

Between Aunt Julia’s association with hard manual labour, represented by her heavy men’s working boots and the delicate intricate work of spinning.

Question 16

“Stained with peat,
paddling with the treadle of the spinningwheel
while her right hand drew yarn
marvellously out of the air.”

Answer 16

Present tense (second half of stanza 2)

Brings a sense of immediacy – we can imagine the poet as a young boy, watching this process, fascinated.

Question 17

“Hers was the only house”

Answer 17

In the poet’s mind the house was linked strongly to Aunt Julia –
it was her presence that made it so welcoming and reassuring.

Question 18

“absolute darkness”

Answer 18

Foreshadowing

Links forward to the “absolute black” of Aunt Julia’s grave which is mentioned later in the poem but here the threatening nature of the darkness is negated by Aunt Julia’s presence and the comforting sounds of
nature.

Question 19

“a box bed”

Answer 19

Traditional bed in many Scottish crofters cottages where space was limited. The bed would be ‘boxed in’ with wooden panels to separate it from the rest of the living.
space

Question 20

“listening to crickets”

Answer 20

There is a shift in this stanza from visual description (“absolute darkness”) to aural (“listening to crickets”)

Question 21

“crickets being friendly”

Answer 21

Personification

The noise of the crickets sounds like friendly chatter rather than anything sinister. Even the sounds of nature sound comforting and reassuring as the boy feels so at
home and secure in Aunt Julia’s presence.

Question 22

“She was…
She was…
She was…”

Answer 22

Repetition

Shows the enduring image that the poet still has of his aunt – she was a powerful presence in his life. This stanza is a series of metaphors that link Aunt Julia closely to the traditional way of life in the Scottish crofting community, to the tasks she did daily and the natural world she was so closely connected to.

Question 23

“She was buckets

and water flouncing into them.”

Answer 23

Metaphor

She is so connected to the tasks she did around the croft, it is as if she became the buckets of water she used every day. She is connected to the elements.

Transferred epithet

Her rapid, energetic movements are linked to
the gushing water being poured into the buckets.

Question 24

“She was winds pouring wetly

round house ends”

Answer 24

Metaphor

She is compared to the strong winds that would regularly batter the Scottish hills.

Question 25

“She was brown eggs, black skirts
and a keeper of threepennybits
in a teapot”

Answer 25

Metaphor

Connects Aunt Julia to objects of domesticity – these are the simple things he still remembers about his aunt. A picture is created of a hard-working, thrifty woman who often had to work incredibly hard to make ends meet financially.

Question 26

"She was buckets
and water flouncing into them.
She was winds pouring wetly
round house-ends.
She was brown eggs, black skirts
and a keeper of threepennybits
in a teapot."

Whole Stanza

Answer 26

Aunt Julia is strongly connected to nature and her brisk, energetic movements are emphasised.

Question 27

“Aunt Julia spoke Gaelic

very loud and very fast”

Answer 27

Repetition (of the opening lines – a refrain.)

This emphasises the idea that the most enduring thing the poet remembers about his aunt is her powerful, commanding voice.

Question 28

“By the time I had learned

a little, she lay”

Answer 28

Alliteration (of ‘l’)

Draws our attention to the poet’s guilt: he left it too late to try to connect to his aunt via language.

Question 29

“…she lay
silenced in the absolute black
of a sandy grave
at Luskentyre.”

Answer 29

Sibilance (repetition of ‘s’ and ‘sh’ sounds)

This could mirror the hushing of Aunt Julia’s voice through death – she has been silenced.

Question 30

“silenced”

Answer 30

Word Choice

Suggests a finality in death – death has cruelly stopped her voice for good.

This contrasts with the earlier description of her voice as being “very loud” – emphasises that the shrill, incomprehensible voice of Aunt Julia is one of the things he misses most after her death.

Question 31

“… in the absolute black”

Answer 31

Repetition (of an earlier description in the poem.)

Now “absolute darkness” has become “absolute black” suggesting the more sinister and permanent black of death. This creates a melancholy mood and emphasises the finality of death.

Question 32

“at Luskentyre. But I hear her still…”

Answer 32

Caesura (sudden full stop in the middle of the line)/link word

“But” signals a shift in mood from the sombre silencing of Aunt Julia’s voice in death to the more challenging tone the poet asserts when he argues that
her voice lives on in his memories of her – through his memories she transcends death.

Question 33

“welcoming me”

Answer 33

A mere memory of Aunt Julia is comforting.

Question 34

“with a seagull’s voice”

Answer 34

Metaphor

Comparing Aunt Julia’s shrill voice to the noisy, high-pitched calling of seagulls. Just as we cannot imagine what birds might be ‘saying’ when they call to one
another, he could not understand Aunt Julia’s lively
chatter. Another connection to the natural world.

Question 35

“across a hundred yards

of peatscrapes and lazybeds”

Answer 35

The suggestion of the physical distance that often separated them geographically also reminds us of their
completely different ways of life.

Question 36

“and getting angry, getting angry”

Answer 36

Repetition emphasises the poet’s ongoing frustration at
leaving it too late to learn to communicate with his aunt. He imagines her being angry with him but it is more likely that this is a projection of his own guilt/remorse.

Question 37

“with so many questions

unanswered.”

Answer 37

“so many”
Emphasises the large number of questions the poet and his aunt had about each other. There is so much they could have learned.

Enjambment

Used to allow the poet to place the word “unanswered” in a line of its own and make it the final word, emphasising the idea that the poet will never receive answers to his questions; his
chances of a deeper connection with his
aunt have been lost forever through the
finality of death.