material Flashcards
“hanky queen”
speaker sees hanky’s as an object of comfort, the loss of her mum is the loss in any coherent and understandable comfort to her, there is no longer any sustainable comfort
“when hankies were material”
loss of any material in the present, loss of quality in general in life from before, questioning capitalist profit motives over quality (material hankies - tissue paper)
rhyme scheme
rhyme strengthen in the stanzas set in the past
when she had control (understanding of the world and a sense of comfort)
“closed department stores”
cannot stop the inevitability that he modern world will replace your childhood, we cannot stop the innovation in a capitalist/ profit fixed world
the closing of the store symbolic of the loss of her childhood, which the loss of her mum has solidified / exemplified
“which demanded irons and boiling to be purified”
the heating of the tissue reflecting its durability, comparing to the modern tissue is impossible when the comfort of the hanky is so much more sustainable and long lasting
caesura + enjambment
reflects her loss of control or understanding of the world around her, she is stuck in a different timing than the poem, and is unable to fit into its structure
“nostalgia makes me old”
a longing for the past makes her old as she struggles to adapt to the new, she is stuck in the past (due to the comfort it brings, how difficult it is to move on after grief?)
“the innocence i want my brood to cling on too… was killed in TVs”
metaphor for wasted time, manufactured fun and memories - disconnection
reflects the violence/destruction of and on tv versus the innocence of children
juxtaposition of her own child, she is criticising her children’s childhood as if she has not created it - who is to blame for the falling quality of childhood?
“awkwardness in me forbids me to keep tissues in my bag when handy packs are 50p?”
tissues became a metaphor for her feelings of inadequacy and instability compared to her mother
society of convenience > quality that she partakes in whilst criticising
“i miss material hankerchiefs”
the hanky has just become a metaphor for her mum, she is unable to discern between the two - confusion of grief
“my mother… who died not leaving hankerchiefs but tissues”
reflecting the breakdown of self that slowly dying / growing old can have
her mother was not properly cared for, cut throat reality of society, where her mother gave other hankies, she is given tissues in return
“scratchy and disposable”
worse quality, downgraded degraded
she feels like her mothering lacks the comfort and love she experienved
extended metaphor of her being the 50p tissue, able to do the job but physically less comforting and made for the job than her mother
“material”
material of the tissue but also the material of her own making, we are all made up of ‘material’- effecting how we outwardly and inwardly feel
iambic pentameter loosely,
creating a feeling of human speech which makes the poem more intimate and therefore emotional
also idea of spoken stories, like folklore, that are handed down past generations (her mother is alive through her stories, just like how those folklore stories lasted so long)
