Effects Flashcards
I held her hand, that was always scarred
From chopping, slicing, from the knives that lay in wait
In bowls of washing-up, that was raw,
Held – past tense
Hand – symbolic / ‘object’ that brings narrator to memory of mother
Scarred – causing the nostalgia / prompting all the memories / flow of consciousness and the structure reflects the same memories and reflections
Chopping, slicing – hard working / tough shell for family / continuous tense and continuously working
The knuckles reddened, rough from scrubbing hard
At saucepan, frying pan, cup and plate
And giving love the only way she knew,
Plosives – Reddened and Scrubbing / reflects the hardness of her life and maybe her exterior
Only way – adverb ‘only’ / very little love and only comes in a certain form
In each cheap cut of meat, in roast and stew,
Old-fashioned food she cooked and we ate;
And I saw that they had taken off her rings,
Cheap cut – alliteration /c/ living in poverty and destitution – mother had no chance of giving love because of their economic and financial situation
Old-Fashioned – traditional maybe reflecting her traditional attitude of stoicism
We are - lack of savouring the food
The rings she kept once in her dressing-table drawer
With faded snapshots, long-forgotten things
(scent-sprays, tortoise-shell combs, a snap or two
From the time we took a holiday “abroad”)
Brackets – Protected things
Asyndetic list – Emotionless / Moving through the list of objects
Holiday abroad – has not seen the world / worldly experiences – finances don’t permit it
-Less educated
-Less travelled
But lately had never been without, as if
She wanted everyone to know she was his wife
Only now that he was dead. And her watch? –
Only – Adverb / sense of regret -> sadness at his passing
The mother only wants to show affection once her husband is dead
End-stopped line – Dramatic ending / Maybe her putting up and storing her feeling which manifests themselves in bad ways
Classic ladies’ model, gold strap – it was gone,
And I’d never known her not have that on,
Not in all the years they sat together
They sat together – this was their loving and their moments of affection
-It was gone – feeling of loss and regret
Watching soaps and game shows I’d disdain
And not when my turn came to cook for her,
Chops or chicken portions, English, bland,
Links this to ‘stared unseeing at the television’ - she is clinging onto this memory
Familiar flavours she said she preferred
To whatever “funny foreign stuff”
Young people seemed to eat these days, she’d heard;
/F/ emphasis on her only knowing the familiar contrasting the ‘funny foreign stuff’
-This pairs well with the holiday abroad stuff
She’d heard – only knows based on hearing rather than experience herself / unuse to change / stuck on traditions such as stoicism
Not all the weeks I didn’t come, when she sat
Night after night and stared unseeing at
The television, at her inner weather,
Night after night – repitition / continuously happening
Stared unseeing – mindless and hopeless
Television – Connection but also brain rotting
Caesura around inner weather – emphasis the contrast of the blankness of her outer appearance but the storm of emotion and sadness within her that is kept in
Heaved herself upright, blinked and poured
Drink after drink, and gulped and stared – the scotch
That, when he was alive, she wouldn’t touch,
Gulped and stare – Hendiadys / Deterioration / Mental and physical deterioration
Blink and poured – repetitive actions
Drink after drink – just like night after night / continuous deterioration / repetitive sadness
That was her way to be with him again;
Not later in the psychiatric ward,
Where she blinked unseeing at the wall, the nurses
In the psychiatric ward – Deterioration has set in to such a great extent
Unseeing – wall now not the tv / she is now just suffering in her internal conflict / nothing external matter anymore
Her way to be with me – trying to relive memories / she is trapped by this
(Who would steal anything, she said), and dreamt
Of when she was a girl, of the time before
I was born, or grew up and learned contempt,
Before – before birth of the speaker / maybe his fault / his birth brings financial harship to the family
Learned contempt – learning is a skill or something non innate / being hard and mean is not intrinsically who she is
While the TV in the corner blared
To drown some “poor soul’s” moans and curses,
And she took her pills and blinked and stared
Blinked and stared – now boiled down to simply just these actions
As the others shuffled around, and drooled, and swore…
But now she lay here, a thick rubber band
With her name on it in smudged black ink was all she wore
Shuffled / drooled / swore – old care home / mother is now alinged with this
On the hand I held, a blotched and crinkled hand
Whose fingers couldn’t clasp at mine any more
Or falteringly wave, or fumble at my sleeve –
‘F’ alliteration – they both want to be close together but that just simply can’t happen bwetween the two / no matter how they try
Clasp – trying to be close during her final moments
