Captain Of Form Team- D Flashcards
Themes-captain of the for team
-Time
-disappointment
-change
About- captain
-dramatic monologue
-narrow actor is a disillusioned man who looks back nostalgically at a time when he was the captain of his form team
-since this time his life has been disappointing and boorish
-starts with joy of youth and ends with angry disappointment at adulthood
Do way diddy diddy” “baby love” and “oh pretty woman” i lived in a kind of fizzing hope” “ clever smell of my satchel” “gargling woth vimto” “correct”
-onomatopoeia
-reflects the childhood he had which was full of excitement
- however something that fizzes will eventually flatten, speaker subconsciously recognising this hope an excitement was temporary and will eventually disappear.
Songs encapsulate a period of excitement and optimism “fizzing”
-use of sensory imitates “gargling, clever smell”
Bring these memories to life evoking youthful world filled with possibility and hope
-however as the poem unfolds the vibrant past feel increasingly remote and unattainanble
Remembers himself being right
-pleased with himself and his cleverness
*hypallage he is clever, the smell evokes memories “clever” tells us he’s pleased with himself and hints he is a scholar
Views himself in high regard
“No snags”
-minor sentence
-ironic as there is snags in the speakers subsequent life after his time as the captain
“The Nile rises in April”
-speaker remembers facts from the competitions
-however these facts are now useless in his everyday life and are now even a barrier to him being able to relate to the present
“I sped down Dyke Hill, no hands”
-representing how life will go down hill from here, the journey of life
-he is not holding on showing he’s not worried about the possible consequences, care free
“In my prize shoes up Churchill way, up Nelson drive”
-the streets names that come to mind are all famous leaders
-like only he is aware of his own fame and thinks of himself as these, hoping he will be something like them.
“My country. I want it back”
-statement could not be anymore clearer, he wants to return to this time
-admits he yearns for a lost past
-Volta of the poem, tone shifts from comedic and optimistic to pathetic and desperate
-Longing encapsulates a. Universal desire to reclaim lost potential and reconnect with the vigour of youth even as it remains beyond reach
- poem portrays the inevitable disappointment tat can arise when one is forced to confront the reality of their unfulfilled life
-underscores this easier for a return to his past
-Suggesting that the life he lives now fees foreign almost a if he lost his identity along the way
“My name was red on Lucille Greens jotter. I smiled”
Recalls being popular with girls
He was a charmer
“I smiled as wide as a child who went missing”
-assonance
-his innocence is lost his youth gone
-Ominous
- his child self has been kidnapped by adulthood
–Implies he lost his way straying from the promising path he envisioned in his youth
- he ha lost his innocence
- the child has been kidnapped by adult hood
“Stale wife” “thick kids wince”
-us as readers now lose sympathy
-his bitterness shines through
-contradiction of how life used to be “fizzing”
-Shifts from energetic memories to “…”
-stale reflects a relationship that’s lost its spark it contrasts with fizzing
-mirrors his broader disappointment in how life has turned out
-sense of resignation is intensified by his attempts to recapture his past by reciting “dusty springfeils hits” to his wife only to realise these moments fail to reignite the passion and excitement he once felt
-assonance ‘kids’ ‘wince’
-they are embarrassed of him
-he doesn’t think much of them because they are not as smart as him
-strained relationships
“Name the Prime Minister of Rhodesia” “how many florins in a pound?”
-old currency which no longer exists
-his knowledge is now old and irrelevant
- the questions show what he once was and is stuck in the past
-ends on an obsolete coin, sad pathetic note.
poem also reflects on the broader cultural and social disappointment of adult hood”
-attempts to connect with his children fall on deaf ears hilghting the generational disconnect
-he is disappointed that his children lack his knowledge and experience which also symbolise the disappointment with the changing world around him
Context- captain
“Churchill, nelson” - names of streets if Duffy home town, Stafford
“top of the form” was a popular quiz show for secondary school kids
-the poem is noticing for its evocation of the popular culture of 1964 when Duffy was nine and probably watching the programme.
-reflect the choices made and the pain of diaaspoinment
-moors murders
“Captain.. the one with all the answers”
- seems disconnected from the confident sortited boy who once navigated life woth ease
-when he recalls ‘…’ he revealed a longing for his former self
-the self assured describe person has now faded into a figure of uncertainty
-his life seems mundane and repetitive lacking sene of purpose
“Mascot gonk” “blazer” “badge” and “first chord of a hard days night”
-contrast starkly with his current life, emphasising how his dreams and ambitions have faded over time
- final image of his children “wincing” as he quiz them reinforces this theme showing how the passage of time can lead to a disconnect between past and present, between who he was and who he has become.
Critics
-duffys style in the poem aroused convtriversy amounts literally critics
-on one hand there are joking references to popular culture which forms contextual landscape of the poem
-this to some critics was “not serious” and a dumbing down of poetry to its lowest denominator.
“ insight into such disturbed minds”
