Larkin & Duffy Poem Pairs Flashcards
Lost Opportunities/ Life’s Disappointments\ Failure
Pair 1: Love Songs in Age & The Captain of the 1964….
- Recognise loss of youthful hopes and dreams
- Nostalgic tone - realise they can never return to the hopes of childhood
Pair 2: Talking in Bed & Close
- Depict two former lovers who are now unable to communicate
- Secrecy & Deceit in relationships
Observing the Lives of Others/ Ordinary Life
Pair 1: Mr Bleaney & Room
- Both use location of setting to symbolise ordinary, mundane existence
- Contemplate the deep triviality of modern existence
Pair 2: Essential Beauty & The Windows
- Explore imagery of the unrealistic perfection of family life & modern existence
Struggle/ Oppressed members of society
Pair 1: Mr Bleaney/ Room
- Location/ setting to symbolise ordinary life/ mundane realities.
- Contemplate the deep triviality of modern existence.
Pair 2: Afternoons & Stafford Afternoons
- Explore the struggles of growing up.
- Sacrificing childhood and adulthood life of mediocrity.
Death/ Mortality
Pair 1: Nothing to be Said & The Suicide
- Both accept the inevitability of death
Pair 2: Ambulances & Small Female Skull
- Detailed depiction of people in society coming metaphorically close to death.
- Reflections of human existence and the journey towards death
- Attach the idea of death to a symbolic object.
Loneliness/ Isolation
Pair 1: Mr Bleaney & Room
- Both contemplate the deep triviality of modernness and the mundane nature of living alone
- Place/ setting to symbolise isolation
Pair 2: Talking in Bed & Pluto
- Emotionally & physically alone speakers
- Talking in Bed - romantically alone - Pluto - growing old and lonely
Love/ Romance
Pair 1: Talking in Bed & Close
- Depict two former lovers who are now unable to communicate
- Loss of tenderness and innocence
- Both allude to secrecy & deceit
Pair 2: An Arundel Tomb & Havisham
- Imagery of Decay
- Allude to the permanence of love (physical representation or failure to move on from heartbreak)
Passage of Time/ The Past
Pair 1: Love Songs in Age & The Captain of the 1964…
- Both recognise lost opportunities of their lives & failed youthful dreams
- Remind themselves of life when they were young - can never return to the fun of childhood - mundane reality of adulthood.
Pair 2: Afternoons & Mean Time
- Both explore how the passage of time brings unfulfilling and disappointing realities.
- Time represents the slow fading of youth and hopeful expectations leaving disappointments
Regret
Pair 1: Love Songs in Age & Before You Were Mine
- Depict loss of youth & girlhood
- Passionate & exciting love has passed - constrains of adulthood
- Tones of regret
Pair 2: Afternoons & The Captain of the 1964…
- How lives are sacrificed for our children as time moves on
- Regret of lost dreams and how ambitions fade with the mundane reality of adulthood
Adulthood
Pair 1: Love Songs in Age & Before You Were Mine
- Depict loss of youth & girlhood
- Passionate & exciting love has passed - constrains of adulthood
- Tones of regret
Pair 2: Afternoons & The Captain of the 1964…
- How lives are sacrificed for our children as time moves on
- Regret of lost dreams and how ambitions fade with the mundane reality of adulthood
Childhood
Pair 1: Love Songs in Age & The Captain of the 1964…
- Recognise lost opportunities - loss of youthful dreams/ ambitions/ hopes
- Remind themselves of when they were young - they can never return to the excitement of childhood
- Bitterness at growing old
Pair 2: Afternoons & Stafford Afternoons
- Oppressive nature of adulthood and the realities of growing old.
- Power of time destroying childhood - sudden abrupt nature of responsibility
- Loss of innocence, freedom, liberation, hope
Women
Pair 1: Sunny Prestatyn & Stuffed
- Misogyny and objectification of women
- Sexual undertones
Pair 2: The Large Cool Store & Havisham
- Critique the treatment of women
- Offer feminist outlooks
- L critiques how society presents women & D gives a voiceless woman a voice.
Memory & Nostalgia
Pair 1: Love Songs in Age & The Captain of the 1964…
- Both recognise the lost opportunities of their lives
- Nostalgic tone - recall their youth and realise they can never return.
Pair 2: Talking in Bed & Pluto
- Emotionally & Physically Alone
- Memory as destructive and melancholic - serves as a reminder of loss and the passage of time
Religion
Pair 1: Faith Healing & Confession
- Hint at the corruption and flawed nature of religion
- Express a negative attitude towards religious practise and doctrine
Pair 2: Water & Prayer
- Both don’t believe in the power of religion yet Duffy puts a more positive spin on this.
Illusion vs Reality
Pair 1: Essential Beauty & The Windows
- Both explore imagery of idyllic, perfect family life - unrealistic/ facade of perfection
Pair 2: The Large Cool Store & Litany
- Expose the juxtaposition between the real world and the fantasy world
- False nature of middle class life
Critical of Others
Pair 1: Afternoons & Litany
- Criticise the rigid lives of others and the expectations imposed by society.
Pair 2: The Whitsun Weddings & Welltread
- Criticise experienced of humanity (L - Wedding & D- education)
- Both observe the lives of others and critically reflect and ridicule universal experiences of humanity.
