Duffy Flashcards
Pluto - Stanza 1 & 2 quotes
- ‘When I awoke’ - new beginnings, excitement & potential. Metaphorical awakening from the past? or the present?
- ‘same soap suddenly; so’ - sibilance creates a stuttering tone, representing the speaker’s mental deterioration as their speech is protracted. = Metaphor for the slippery quality of their memory.
- Repetition of ‘Pluto’ metaphor for isolation, disconnect from both the present and from the speaker’s memories & mind as Pluto is no longer classified as a planet & the speaker seems more attached to the alienated planet of Pluto, the furthest planet from earth reaffirming their utter disconnect from reality.
Pluto - Stanza 3
‘an hourglass weeping the future into the past’ personified metaphor of the uncontrollable passage of time, bleak as suggests a bereavement or grief at the speaker’s journey through their memories resulting in them entering the present from which they feel greater alienated. - the impact of dementia
This is punctuated by the singular line ‘- and I was a boy’, parenthetic structure representing the disorganised mind of the speaker and the intermingling of the ‘future’ and ‘past’ - emulates the transition between memories.
Never go back key quotes
- ‘The smoky mirrors flatter’ - idiom of deception, distorted reality. Metaphor for community’s & the speaker’s avoidance of the harsh truth that this is not a healthy environment.
- Motif of decay & death ‘the streets tear litter in their thin hands’ & ‘blackened stumps of houses’ - undernourishment represents underfunded state of northern towns. Personification of the streets = violent, uncomforting atmosphere/environment.
- ‘each groan and creak accusing you as you climb the stairs’ - personification of the house = resentful & bitter, evoking a sense of hatred for the persona. Representative of ‘class betrayal’ as this speaker has literally and metaphorically ascended from this location.
- ‘a bar where the living dead drink all day’ - sense of stagnation hollow & empty lives. Pitiful existence, this is not living but rather survival
Before you were mine - Stanza 1
BYWM stanza 3
- ‘my hands…high heeled red shoes, relics’ - the child restricting the mother’s mobility.
- ‘relics’, ‘ghost’ & ‘clear as scent’ = motif of intangible, relics are historical artefacts. no purpose, ‘ghost’ & ‘scent’ suggest a fading persona, the death of the mother’s youth and sexuality
Stuffed - 4 key quotes
- ‘I screw…I stitch…I pierce the heartbeat of a quail’ = evolution/gredatio of violence into explicitly sexual violence & a desire to inflict pain upon women. ‘screw…stitch…pierce’ = physically penetrating, phallic quality, a desire to sexually dominate.
- ‘Tame. My motionless, my living doll. Mute.’ = woman animalised through ‘tame’, there is a need to domesticate a woman to achieve compliance. Objectified & stripped of all autonomy. ‘doll’ = an object he derives joy from, a trophy of his masculinity.
- ‘Spiv…/Fierce…/Splayed’. = self-congratulatory holophrases reflect his sheer enjoyment and deranged revelling in the domination and assumption of full physical control over others.
- ‘I like her to be naked and to kneel’. - imposition of his own ideas on the female, ‘kneel’ = she assumes a position of subjugation & submissiveness.
Stuffed - structure & rhyme
terset stanzas - ‘I…’ phrase followed by 2 holophrases = strictly controlled, reflects the speaker’s authoritarian nature.
Repeated ‘L’ rhyme: ‘bull/gull’ ‘living doll/i like her not to tell’= protracted, preserving of the sound mirrors his utter control over these dead animals
Mrs Havisham key quotes
- ‘Ropes on the back of my hands I could strangle with’ - Metaphor for progression of time - morphed and withered by her ‘spinster’ status, no longer considered attractive. Suicidal or homocidal ideation reflects the sheer pressure of societal labelling and the shunning that comes with a failure to match expectations.
- ‘the dress/yellowing, trembling’ - objective correlation as it correlates to/is the physical embodiment of her mental deterioration.
Decay, faded, past its prime = corruption of her femininity & beauty, marker of her failed attempt to fulfil the relational label of the ‘wife’. - ‘prayed for it so hard I’ve got dark green pebbles for eyes.’ - metaphor for the transformative power of jealousy, she wishes that she could have achieved the title of ‘wife’. ‘pebbles’ = lifeless, dull = she cannot see past her hatred.
- ‘my fluent tongue…down till I suddenly bite awake’ = vampiric dream, subversion of the marriage night as she concocts a dreamscape in which she assumes power over the male by preventing him from consummating a marriage with anyone else, physically taking ownership over his masculinity.
Disgrace key quotes
- ‘each nursing a thickening cyst of dust’ - maternal instinct is subverted as this suggests a ‘nurturing’ of something that will ultimately cause destruction and pain = a metaphor for the cancerous relationship dynamic which extends into the physical setting of the domestic home,
- ‘still life of a meal, untouched, wine bottle, empty, ashtray, full’ & ‘bowl of apples rotten to the core’ = domestic/everyday items are subverted as unhealthy vices are overconsumed as coping mechanisms. ‘rotten to the core’ = suggests an irreversible toxicity & damage to the relationship, all items they come into contact with are corrupted.
- ‘Dead flies in a web./how they stiffened and blackened’ - continuation of this sematic field of death & decay The breakdown of the relationship evolving into a breakdown of verbal communication.
Prayer - Duffy’s personification of everyday/natural items
- ‘minims sung by a tree, a sudden gift’ = beauteous, almost twee image conjured of nature in harmony & symphony, nature as able to produce beauty and illicit joy. This is reemphasised by the pleasure-bringing quality of ‘gift’ which suggests something precious bestowed upon humanity, potentially a reward for hardships.
- ‘distant Latin chanting of a train’ = structured, orderly. Reminiscent of a wealthy, Catholic education = perhaps indicative of the almost exclusionary nature of religion as Latin is an inaccessible language.
‘piano scales console the lodger’ = more musical imagery, suggests that there is a joy and vivacity to be found in the simplicity and normality/everyday of life.
‘radio’s prayer/Rockall. Malin. Dogger. Finisterre.’ = Continuous end stops suggest a formulaic structure, a reliability to be found in the constancy of the everyday. = this joy in simplicity is reaffirmed by the simple rhyme scheme ‘abab’ culminating in the rhyming couplet of ‘prayer/finisterre’ = a greater. more fulfilling spiritual unity found in the relationship with nature and earth itself than with religion.
Prayer structure
- Sonnet form = indicative of the unrequited love for religion as the personae within the poem also seem to derive v. little joy or fulfilment from religion.
However, sonnets are built on logic!!! highly highly key to this poem as Duffy comes to the rather logical conclusion that the beauteous interactions with simple aspects of life provides greater comfort than religion.
