effects Flashcards
What is the significance of the mother’s hand being ‘always scarred’?
The mother is presented as tough, hardworking and resilient - she is defined within a traditional, domestic sphere.
What quotations describe the mother as a working class matriarch?
‘the knuckles reddened, rough from scrubbing hard’
‘giving love the only way she knew’
‘And I saw…
…that they had taken off her rings
What is the AO2? ‘And I saw that they had taken off her rings’
The rings are a metaphor for the speaker’s broader sense of loss
‘Scent-sprays…
…tortoise-shell combs, a snap or two from the time we took a holiday ‘abroad’’
What is the AO2? ‘Scent-sprays, tortoise-shell combs, a snap or two from the time we took a holiday’
The listing of personal items shows the speaker’s desire to remember their mother
What quotations show how the son differs from his mother?
‘soaps and game shows I’d disdain’ - speaker feels regret for looking down on his parents
‘Chops or chicken portions, English, bland’ - contrast in food conveys the generational gap between mother and son
What quotations show how the son feels regret?
‘Not all the weeks I didn’t come’ - regrets being absent and not providing the love his mother did
‘Not later in the psychiatric ward’
‘stared unseeing…
…at the television, at her inner weather’
What is the AO2? ‘stared unseeing at the television, at her inner weather’
The metaphor conveys how the mother has become isolated, where the TV is her only link to the outside world
What quotations show how the mother’s life has become a suffocating circle?
Repetition used in both ‘night after night’ and ‘drink after drink’
How is the motif is sight relevant?
‘stared unseeing at the television’, ‘blinked unseeing at the wall’, the mother becomes a passive, detached observer of the world
‘shuffled around…
…and drooled, and swore’
What is the AO2? ‘shuffled around, and drooled, and swore’
The verbs present the mother as an infant
‘a thick rubber band…
…with her name on it in smudged black ink’
What is the AO2? ‘a thick rubber band with her name on it in smudged black ink’
The rubber band is a metaphor for her eroded identity, conveys an image of vulnerability
What is the AO2? ‘But of course I left’
The speaker is disappointed, but unsurprised, by his inability to act selflessly
‘A nurse bring…
…the little bag of her effects to me’
What is the AO2? ‘a nurse bring the little bag of her effects to me’
The final image shows how the mother’s life has been reduced to a small number of objects
