Duffy Flashcards
1
Q
Pluto - Stanza 1 & 2 quotes:
- ‘when I…’
- ‘Same soap s…;s..’
- ‘Pluto’
A
- ‘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.
2
Q
Pluto - Stanza 3:
- ‘an hourglass weeping…’
- ‘and I was…’
A
‘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.
3
Q
Never go back key quotes:
- ‘the smoky mirrors…’
- ‘the streets…blackened stumps…’
- ‘each groan & creak…’
- ‘a bar where….the alcoholic whose face is…’
A
- ‘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’ & ‘the house where you were one of the brides has cancer…nursing itself’. - 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.
This gruesome image of the domestic setting suggests a corruption of the standard ‘homely’ domestic setting, replaced with a regressed state as the house appears afflicted with ‘cancer’, essentially remaining deprived of nutrition and healthcare as its instead prefers to be left in the personified state of ‘nursing its growth’ in a perverse maternal image as the deprived ‘house’ feeds further into its own state of deterioration. - PHYSICAL DEPRIVATION/DETERIORATION: ‘a bar where the living dead drink all day’ & ‘the friend…the alcoholic…whose face is a negative of itself’: SENSE OF THE UNCANNY as these people appear literally ‘deprived’ of true sustenance, clearly withered by their dependency on alcohol above all else and hugely unable to project images of themselves as fully realised & developed human beings as their faces are imaginably ‘sunken in’ or as the photography image ‘a negative of itself’ indicates, a reflection of the unnatural state of life in this underdeveloped town. The idea of ‘living dead’ suggests a reanimated life that has failed, perhaps reflecting the failed attempts at regeneration of the North under Thatcher which saw her attempt to cut northern cities like Liverpool off financially, exacerbating deprivation. - sense of stagnation hollow & empty lives. Pitiful existence, this is not living but rather survival
4
Q
Before you were mine - Stanza 1
- ‘I’m ten years away f t c y l o w y p’
- ‘polka dot d b a y l. M’
A
- ‘I’m ten years away from the corner you laugh on/ with your pals’: Concrete statement, suggests the irreversibility of motherhood & also the solidified social expectation of motherhood => women are unable to escape the pressures forced upon them by society. ‘corner’ = is suggestive of a turning point and reinforces the notion that motherhood marks a new state in one’s life and prevents one from a sustained existence in perpetual teenagedom. The enjambment of ‘you laugh on/with your pals’ creates a graphological disconnect from the mother’s childhood friends, suggesting that by having a child she is automatically deprived of the opportunity for a social life - ostracised by her friends as she lacks any personal time.
- ‘polka-dot dress blows round your legs. Marilyn.’: Holophrastic ‘Marilyn’ evocative of a sense of extreme beauty exacerbated by the likening of her mother to the sexual icon of Marilyn Monroe. AO3: Marilyn Monroe notably died very young, symbolising the impending death of this woman’s sexuality & glamorous youth.
5
Q
BYWM stanza 2:
Temporal labels intertwined with the speaker
- ‘im not h y…The thought of me d o….BYWM’
A
- ‘i’m not here yet. The thought of me doesn’t occur…Before you were mine…’: constant allocation of the 1st person pronouns ‘me’ and ‘mine’ enforce the idea that this persona, whether unconsciously or subconsciously, assumes ultimate control over their mother’s life as they become entirely possessive of all aspects of their mother’s life. Reveals the permanence of the familial/relational label of mother as this speaker’s mother cannot escape their child & motherly destiny - even a time before the child exists is marked by the LACK of a child, revealing that she hasn’t YET had a child, but soon will.
6
Q
BYWM stanza 3: SF of the intangible
- ‘my hands…highheeled r s, r’
- ‘my loud p y’
A
- ‘my hands…high heeled red shoes, relics’ - the child restricting the mother’s mobility as she takes possession of the mothers own posessions which were once markers of her sexual identity & beauty i.e. ‘high heels’.
- ‘relics’, ‘ghost’ & ‘clear as scent’ = motif of intangible, relics are historical artefacts that serve no real purpose otherthan to be ogled at: ‘ghost’ & ‘scent’ suggest a fading persona, potentially the death of the mother’s youth and sexuality. - ‘…my loud possessive yell…’ suggestive of an inescapable audio, the morose soundtrack of maternal life, as by having this child the speaker’s mother has had to abandon her femininity in favour of motherhood, suggesting that these two female personas cannot coexist. ‘Yell’ emphasises the demanding nature of an infant, revealing that one cannot shirk their responsibilities as a mother but this comes at a cost to one’s social life.
7
Q
BYWM stanza 4: Sustained path image
‘stamping stars f t w p’
A
- ‘stamping stars from the wrong pavement.’ This brash act reflects a distaste or disgust for the ‘wrong path’ society has defined for the speaker’s mother as ‘wrong pavement’ implies that this societal path of motherhood and children was ill-suited for this woman, who should have instead pursued a bold and glamorous career suited to her personality i.e. a life of fame as a movie star.
8
Q
Stuffed - 4 key quotes:
- ‘I screw…’
- ‘Tame…M m, m l d. M.’
- ‘Spiv…F…S’
- ‘I like her to be…’
A
- ‘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.
AO3: Male obsession w/ domination of the female echoed in popular songs of the 50s/60s i.e. Cliff Richard’s ‘Living Doll’. - ‘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. = This is an artificial act of female acquiesing, suggesting that in reality the submission of the female to male counterparts is not a ‘fact of life’ but something imposed upon women by a restrictive patriarchal society.
AO3: He literally creates a trophy of fetishised female suffering, displaying her as a prize, emblematic of male victory over the female - not dissimilar to Victorian ideas of displaying taxidermy projects to denote wealth.
9
Q
Stuffed - structure & rhyme
A
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
10
Q
Mrs Havisham key quotes:
- ‘ropes on…..’
- ‘the dress…’
- ‘prayed for it…’
- ‘my fluent tongue…’
A
- ‘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.
11
Q
Disgrace key quotes:
- ‘each nursing…’
- ‘still life of a…’
- ‘dead flies in a web…’
A
- ‘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.
12
Q
Prayer - Duffy’s personification of everyday/natural items:
- ‘minims sung…’
- ‘distant Latin chanting…’
- ‘piano scales console…’
- ‘radio’s prayer…’
A
- ‘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’ = extension of musical imagery, suggests that there is a joy and vivacity to be found in the simplicity and normality/everyday of life which is accessible to all!!!
- ‘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.
13
Q
Prayer structure
A
- 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.
14
Q
Captain…. key quotes:
-‘the white sleeve of my shirt…’
- ‘the blazer…’
- ‘my…’
- ‘No s…C…B’
A
- ‘the white sleeve of my shirt saluted again and again’: suggests a sense of deference for the teacher, clearly this speaker was somewhat of a ‘teacher’s pet’ delighting in education. The cleanly implications of ‘white shirt’ suggest a purity of character, perhaps demonstrating that this youthfully innocent speaker had yet to recognise the dirge and dullness of adult life. However there appears an underlying ‘eurocentric’ tone in ‘white shirt’ and ‘salute’ = white suggests racial purity whilst salute suggests a swearing of allegiance to the BR. empire = is this speaker disillusioned with society because of the decline of the BR. Empire ?
- ‘The blazer. The badge. The tie.’ => triadic list of professional attire which reveals a sense of pride in this cultivated image of the knowledgeable ‘Captain’. Distinct physical markers => a desire to detach from the bleakness of reality/to distinguish himself from ‘lower class peons’ whop he deems as inferior based on intelligence. => suggests that his self-worth entirely hinges on his ability to maintain this image.
- Repetition of ‘My country’. = metaphorically this ‘country’ is the realm of knowledge that the speaker presides over, implying their own self-importance as they imbue themselves with the revered status of a dynastic ruler. Could however represent 1960s notions of respect for the Br. Empire & how by the last stanza the speaker feels that traditional ‘British’ ideals have been lost with eth increase in cultural diffusion.
- Series of clipped interrupting phrases: ‘No snags…Correct…BZZ’
these phrases shift from depicting a sense of perfection attained through knowledge to a rather bleak ‘BZZ’ -> harsh auditory image metaphorically interrupts the speaker’s fantasy/daydreaming about the past, revealing that there is no ability to return to the past as once time has passed this change is irreversible.
15
Q
Captain… key quotes regarding the motif of stagnant life/resentment w/ current life.:
- ‘I say to…’
- ‘I smiled as wide as…’
- ‘my thick…’
A
- ‘I say to my stale wife’ = dehumanising as the relational label ‘wife’ removes her of any personality outside of marriage, she is a human trophy & a reminder of his success in terms of achieving an ‘expected’ nuclear family.
‘stale’ suggests a state of biological deterioration, his wife is no longer ‘valuable’ or something to be prized as the rather foul image depicted of ageing through the wife figure reflects the stagnancy of the husband’s own life. - ‘I smiled as wide as a child who went missing on the way home from school’ => simile depicts the speaker’s subconcious desire to return back to their childhood which they felt was their prime, especially as they consistently speak in past tense. The literal image of a ‘missing child’ transforms into a metaphor for the speaker’s own loss of identity outside of this ‘knowledgeable’ status. Strange simile, glosses over the actual horror & danger of a child going missing, perhaps reflecting this ‘rose-tinted’ perception of an ‘easier time’ in the 60s.
- ‘my thick kids wince.’ = this bitter declarative reveals the utter malicious nature of the speaker as he insults his kids, branding them ‘thick’, insinuating that they (like everyone else) are his perceived intellectual inferiors. The children’s reaction to ‘wince’ suggests a complete sense of embarrassment in the speaker, perhaps revealing that it is he who is ‘thick’ as he is unwilling to accept societal change that occurs with the passage of time.
16
Q
Litany - SF of plasticity/illusion i.e. attempts to achieve a certain standard in regards to beauty or marriage:
- ‘Candlewick…’
-‘ stiff haired wives…’
- ‘The terrible marriages crackled…’
- ‘Pyrex’
A
- ‘candlewick bedspread three piece suit display cabinet’: triadic list of saleable products initiates this idea of the ‘soundtrack’ of the 1960s era with the rise of consumerism as these women (like a bible verse) have studied & retained the ‘Litany’ of these catalogues = criticism of consumerism as a shallow replacement for religion. ‘display cabinet’ adds to the growing idea of pride in material items as something to ‘show off’ and lord over others as a status symbol.
- ‘stiff haired wives balanced their red smiles’: image of physical perfection yet their ‘stiff’ status suggests a complete inability to move, indicating that women are restrained by the need to conform to social expectations of beauty touted by the media as by failing to do so they will be deemed social outcasts. The physical struggle encapsulated in ‘balancing red smiles’ implies a straining of one’s physical limits to achieve a goal, implying that these women face a consistent struggle to attain socially prescribed standards of femininity & motherhood that exhausts them = the toll of social expectations!! Perhaps this image of juggling a social identity mimics the juggling of the several distinct and juxtaposing roles/ideas of femininity i.e. motherhood & youthful femininity.
- ‘The terrible marriages crackled, cellophane round polyester shirts’ = personified ‘marriage’ through the cellophane metaphor suggests an inability or harshness present within these marriages. The metaphorical cellophane allows for a distortion of the true reality of these marriages, acting as a preserving & protective layer as these wives desperately attempt to retain their marital status despite the growing instability of these unions. AO3: DIVORCE IS TABOO!!!
- ‘Pyrex.’: Punctuates the sense of falsity and forced jollity in this cultivated life. Metaphor for these women as they present as ‘strong’ yet they are prone to fracturing & damage! => perhaps reflects that with some effort these stereotypical images of women could finally be permanently broken.
17
Q
Litany - key quotes p2:
- ‘Bristle with eyes…’
- ‘sharp hands…’
- ‘the year a mass grave of wasps….’
A
- ‘bristle with eyes, hard as the bright stones in engagement rings’: jewellery simile reflects the transformative power of jealousy which seems to morph these women into sinisterly vicious animals, in complete contrast to the façade of dainty femininity encapsulated in ‘stiff haired wives…’. This severity is furthered by “hard” which evokes a sense of intensity & vigorous judgement, indicating that these women are akin to a pack of feral animals, quick to ostracise any who they deem as inferior or pushing the boundaries of normative femininity.
- ‘sharp hands poised over biscuits’: juxtapositioning of the violent potential of their hands with the comforting associations of “biscuits” reveals their sheer possessiveness over any material or physical items. ‘Poised’ seems to add to this growing artificiality of these women as they are carefully positioned in certain actions, revealing their prolonged lack of autonomy.
- ‘the year a mass grave of wasps bobbed in a jam jar/a butterfly stammered itself in my curious hands’ = Repeated image of confinement reflects the constraints of societal expectations/society itself as it leads to the ultimate destruction & death of these ‘waspish women’ who have been morphed into cruel creatures w vicious potential.
- Juxtaposed with the rather more vibrant image of life encapsulated in the ‘butterfly…stammered’ which acts as a ,metaphor for the curious, non-conformist persona of the speaker. metaphorical ‘stammer’
represents child’s effort to escape stifling society of the women and to experience liberation of reality
also represents a physical attempt to speak out.
18
Q
Litany - structure:
A
- Parenthetic structure of items ‘candlewick bedspread three piece suite display cabinet’ = non-essentials
- ‘My mother’s mute shame. The taste of soap.’: caesura reflects the harshness of the retaliation of these women for daring to voice words such as ‘fuck off’ which subvert traditional gender norms.
