Genetics By Sinead Morrissey Flashcards
Form
Tercets: broken up/ uneven nature of her family
Finally quartet stanza: evenness of her trying to create a stable relationship and breaking a cycle of failed marriages and having hope for the future of her and her partner
Repetition of hands/palms in every stanza: trying to keep them together and convince herself her parents are still connected through her - constant reminder they’ll always be together through her
Rhyme
Near rhyme: emphasis on how the relationship was almost perfect but simply wasn’t meant to be.
Themes
- family and inheritance
- marriage and relationships
- identity and new beginnings
Family and inheritance theme
- ancestors live on in their children’s bodies : creates a connection with the past
- belonging and connection in knowing you are a product of love and part of a family
- your body as evidence of the past - parents will always be connected and linked through her.
- cyclic nature of family: the speaker now wants to have children and pass her hands on with her partner.
Marriage and relationships
. Explores how relationships can change drastically - how the product of the marriage outlived the relationship displays the unpredictability of love.
. Parents are now separated and live different lives - from romantic to cordial relationship
. Despite the separation, the child will always hold them together
. Despite the past, the speaker wants to break the cycle amid marry her partner and have children.
Identity and new beginnings
- the speaker hopes to start a long relationship and not repeat her parents’ mistakes / history (suggests each generation is unique rather than a replica of the past)
- the child is a mix rather than a replica of her parents (message: we are reflections of our parents , identity is informed by the past but isn’t dictated by it)
- the speaker’s hope of making a new individual child shows kids don’t just represent the past, but they are also a chance to a fresh start.
My father’s in my fingers but my mother’s in my palms.
I lift them up and look at them with pleasure -
I know my parents made me by my hands.
Overall idea: some aspects of you are dictated by your genetics (physically)
REPETITION: sense of belonging and family - they are all connected
PLEASURE: proud of where she’s from - she knows she’ll always have a family to go back to (belonging)
KNOW: certainty that she is a reflection of her parents and she is proof of their relationship.
HANDS: is symbolic of everything she inherited from her parents
They may have been repelled to separate lands,
To separate hemispheres, may sleep with other lovers,
But in me they touch where fingers link to palms.
REPELLED: forceful separation that was meant to happen - she’s trying tp justify or excuse why they aren’t together
SEPARATE HEMISPHERES: metaphorical of their emotional separation and distance
No matter how much they avoid each other and move on, they will always connect through her.
TOUCH. Contrasts the distance described between them.
She’s convincing herself they’ll always be together
With nothing left of their togetherness but friends
Who quarry for their image by a river,
At least I know their marriage by my hands.
Nothing left: emphasis on their separation - highlights how despite their separation she will always connect them
METAPHORICAL: digging for the past?
- shows how cordial their relationship has become to the point where it’s like their entire relationship is an image or point in the timeline of their lives
I shape a chapel where a steeple stands.
And when i turn it over,
My father’s by my fingers, my mother’s by my palms
ENJAMBMENT: clinging to the idea and past that they can connect through her and are still together but also mirrors the separated nature of the couple that the daughter is trying to join.
BY: no longer inside her - mirrors the separation and distant relationship they have with her as a form of avoiding each other.
Demure before a priest reciting psalms.
My body is their marriage register.
I reenact their wedding with my hands.
RECITING: Forceful undertone - element of her delusion trying to get them back together
Metaphor marriage register: further insinuating they can’t escape their past because she’ll always be a connection of them.
Childish reenacting : wanting to go back to when their relationship was still alive anda witness it
So take me with you, take up the skin’s demands
For mirroring in bodies of the future.
I’ll bequeath my fingers, if you bequeath your palms.
We know our parents make us by our hands.
Shift: she addresses her partner
Skin’s demands: human nature to reproduce
Mirroring in bodies: cyclical nature of reproduction - her child will also be a reflection of her and her partner’s relationship.
Evenness: now breaking the cycle and trying to create a long lasting family and relationships but the future is uncertain - reinforces how love is unpredictable and we never know what’s will happen .
