Before You Were Mine Flashcards
(15 cards)
Themes:
Loss, nostalgia, change, time
‘You bend from the waist, holding each other’
‘The ballroom with the thousand eyes, the fizzy’
The present tense and sensory imagery enforces the glamorous and frivolous life which Duffy imagines for her mother, implying a deep love and admiration for her
These images idealise her mother and suggest an almost fairy- tale youth. The imaginary scenes described in the present tense have an eternal quality, like something preserved outside time
‘I remember my hands in those high-heeled red shoes, relics’
-religious imagery of ‘relics’ which are possessions/parts of the body of a saint which are venerated by catholics
-image suggests the ‘death’ of the mothers useful era
-provokes an admiration and reverence in the daughter who treats her mother’s shoes an an object of veneration
-‘red’
‘Till i see you, clear as scent, under the tree’
The simile is an example of synaesthesia, which Duffy utilities to illustrate just how vivid the speaker’s imagination of their mother is
‘Stamping stars from the wrong pavement’
-reference to stamping suggests that her mother was energetic and trying to establish a definite direction for her future
-the stars acting as symbols for aspirations she craved, even though the route she took was the ‘wrong’ one
-the ‘stars’ may also be a reference to the earlier line about Marilyn Monroe
-the ‘right pavement’ may also refer to the Hollywood Walk of Fame with the stars’ footprints showing it is believed her mother belonged to a life of glamour
-also could be used to show the obliteration of the mother and how she was previously (sparks flying could refer to crushed potential and the expectations placed on her now)
‘I wanted the bold girl winking in Portobello’
‘That glamorous love lasts where you sparkle and waltz and laugh before you were mine’
-repetition for the movie star metaphor
-‘sparkle’,’waltz’,’laugh’ make up a triplet, a verbal cluster to describe her mother
-the words hold a rhythmic, bubbling quality
-suggests that the mother, in the speakers mind, is still the same person now as she was when she was young
-reinforces the admiration for her mother
-syndetic list used to suggest the pure joy
-though it could also suggest that the glamorous mother no longer exists only in memory
Summary:
Centred around a daughter reflecting on her mother’s life before she was born, and her life during the speakers childhood. It explores an intimate, yet distant, maternal relationship between the speaker and her mother.
‘Your polka dot dress around your ankles. Marilyn’
-typical fashion of the time with bright colours, bold patterns and full skirts
-50s glamour, party
-intense and fleeting
-joyous and pure and youthful nature
‘The three of you bend from the waist ,holding each other, or your knees, and shriek at the pavement’
-the assonance vowels stretch out the ‘ee’ sounds in ‘three’,’knees’,’each’,’shriek’ imitating the ‘hee,hee’ of laughter
-adopted a pleasure seeking culture
Structure:
-rigid (represent the transition from youth to parenthood + setting of the play + maybe control of the daughter by mother?)
-cyclical structure
-analeptic episodes (flashback and snapshots)
Context:
-the poem acts as a eulogy and a tribute to her mother
-insight into the mother and daughter relationship
-represents the social life of teenage girls in Glasgow in the 1950s with the idealisation of Hollywood and movie stars
-perhaps a somewhat autobiographical poem as an ode to her mother
Critic: Lewison
‘memories return to linger over moments of transient happiness’
Critic: Duffy ‘Before you were mine is…
…essentially a kind of love poem addressed to my mother. It is entirely autobiographical’
