Originally

Question 1

We came

Answer 1

Plural pronoun. In the past tense. Collective experience of the family

Question 2

Our own country

Answer 2

Ownership and sense of belonging

Question 3

Red room

Answer 3

Everything they own is In car
Metaphor for car
Child like impression
Red implies danger and anxiety

Question 4

Fell through the fields

Answer 4

No control overwhelming

Question 5

Our fathers name

Answer 5

Ambiguous
Praying?
missing?

Question 6

Bawling

Answer 6

Hysterical. Conveys strength of misery and feeling of loss. Brother wasn’t ready to move.

Question 7

Home

Answer 7

Enjambment and list
Repetition conveys how stressed and uncertain they were

Question 8

Didn’t live anymore.

Answer 8

Caesura
Abrupt sudden final
how much has been left behind.
acceptance from duffy

Question 9

Eyes of a blind toy

Answer 9

Cant see what’s ahead of you
Fear of unknown. Universal idea

Question 10

Holding its paw

Answer 10

Quiet and withdrawn looking for comfort
feeling sorry for itself

Question 11

all childhood is an emigration

Answer 11

Metaphor
Idea of a journey/different changes+ stages of life

Question 12

Some are slow
Leaving you standing,resigned, up an avenue
Where no one you know stays. others are sudden.

Answer 12

Long sentences reflect how long these changes can seem
Short sentence reveals abruptness that comes with change

Question 13

Your accent wrong.

Answer 13

Short sentence
How can you communicate with the wrong accent
Abruptness that comes with change

Question 14

Seem

Answer 14

inability to negotiate her way successfully with Sense of confusion and uncertainty

Question 15

Big boys eating worms and shouting words you don’t understand

Answer 15

Strange and aggressive behaviour reveals intimidation
her sense of confusion as she is confronted by behaviour and language that is alien to her.

Question 16

My parents anxiety stirred like a loose tooth

Answer 16

Simile
Conveys something that’s annoying in the background that can’t be ignored
Enjambment reflects anxiety over move

Question 17

I want our own country

Answer 17

Italics indicate speech- reflects beginning
reference back to the first line of stanza one
Suggests that it may have been
constantly repeated during this upsetting transition

Question 18

But then you forget

Answer 18

Contrast in feeling
Change in tone settled in and adapted to new environment

Question 19

Or don’t recall, or change,

Answer 19

list emphasised change can be difficult

Question 20

Swallow a slug

Answer 20

Brother has adapted to the new environment
fully assimilated into his new home, with the simple alliteration indicating that this was a straightforward process for him

Question 21

A skelf of Shame

Answer 21

Metaphor
Use of Scottish dialect feels attached to the Scottish roots and doesn’t want to let them go
She still feels out of place

Question 22

Shedding of its skin like a snake

Answer 22

Talking about her tongue
Unconscious outcome didn’t mean to change
Lost her accent without realising

Question 23

Do I only think
I lost a river,culture speech,sense of first space
And the right place?

Answer 23

Lists of all the things she’s lost
She still doesn’t know the answer to her question even though she is at the end of the poem

Question 24

Now,where do you come from?

Answer 24

Questioning out won sense of identity and belonging

Question 25

Originally? And I hesstate

Answer 25

Is where we come from truly our home

hesitation reveals that even though she is older, the speaker continues to have mixed feeling about her true origins.