Before You Were Mine - Carol Ann Duffy Flashcards
Before You Were Mine
The poem shows how parenthood changes a person as they have more responsibilities and must make sacrifices for their children, giving up their freedom.
It also brings out a message that a child can never really know what a person their parents were before they were born.
‘Before You Were Mine’
The title is repeated twice in the poem and ends the poem. This emphasises how the speaker’s mother changed her personality after she had a child.
The possessive pronoun in the title implies that the speaker feels possessive of her mother and wishes she had known her mother’s youth.
‘Maggie McGeeney and Jean Duff’
I - the speaker mentioning her mother’s friends could be because :
1. Her mother has mentioned them
2. They are still their mother friends
3. The speaker is jealous and wishes she has been a friend in her mother’s youth
‘Marilyn.’
L - metaphor
The speaker compares her mother to Marilyn because she was glamorous. This suggests she thinks her mother was glamorous as well.
L - caesura
It emphasises the comparison of Marilyn and the speaker’s mother in the speaker’s perspective.
The use of present tense even the poem is looking back to the past
L - present tense
It shows that the speaker wants to be there in her mother’s youth. She is imagining herself in that moment.
Use of first person pronouns
L - first person pronoun
It emphasises that the poem is only from the daughter’s limited perspective.
‘a hiding’ ‘reckon’
L - informal lexical choices
C - reflects that the poet has a Scottish working class upbringing.
‘I knew you would dance like that’
‘You reckon it’s worth it’
L - short declarative sentences
Indicates the speaker thinks she knows her mother well
D - however, Duffy makes a point that as a child, we can never truly know what our parents were once like.
‘The decade ahead of my loud, possessive yell was the best one’
L - adjectives
This suggests how the speaker wants her mother’s attention all the time so she suggests that motherhood has changed her mother’s life for the worse. It was better and more fun before then.
‘relics’
L - metaphor
The speaker describes her mother’s red heels as relics shows that she worship her mother.
C - the speaker’s mother is a Catholic and Catholics often worship Catholic relics.
‘I see you, clear as scent’
L - synaesthetic image
It makes it seems like the speaker is almost there.
‘stamping stars from the wrong pavement’
L - alliteration
It emphasises the pavement should be the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The speaker thinks her mother should be a star but she is not.
Perhaps she is feeling guilty because her mother has to take care of her.
‘laugh’ ‘glamorous’ ‘winking’
The speaker describes her mother as glamorous, cheeky, rebellious, extroverted and fun before she had her.
‘I am not here yet’
L - caesura
Emphasises the speaker’s regret that she did not know her mother then but also how the birth of her has changed her mother.
‘before I was born.’
L - caesura
Emphasises how her mother changed after she was born.
