Before you were mine Flashcards
(11 cards)
“ I’m 10 years away”
“ I’m not here yet”
“ the decade ahead”
The first three stands is each start with a reminder of the distance in time between the narrative birth and her mother youth and fun
“ your polkadot dress blows around your legs, Marilyn”
Compares her mother with mother Marilyn Monroe she was a grammars and desirable film star but also tragic figure took her own life at age 36. This could hint unhappy to come as something bad is going to happen to the mother.
“ the fizzy, movies tomorrow’s”
Figurative language that suggests energy and exciting possibilities she may have hoped for a life like a movie heroin which can also link back to the Marilyn Monroe comparison
“ before you were mine, your ma stands at the close”
The narrator see her mother is having freedom before she was born, but she’s also restrained by her own mother. It also links back to the title before you have mine as a sort of cyclical structure
“ who is small bites on your neck, sweetheart”
Sounds like something a parent would say to their child, but here it is the other way round the roles have been reversed
“ stamping stars”
Alliteration stresses her Mum’s defiance and energy
“ sparkle and waltz and laugh”
Repetition of and emphasises how many energetic qualities the narrator thinks her mother had
Form
This poem is made up of four equal standards for five lines is consistent or steady passage of time and it never changes that time brings
Structure
The poem begins and ends with the mother on a pavement at the beginning. She’s having fun with her friends and at the end she is walking with her daughter. This emphasises the change times division between before and after the poet was born.
Exciting language
A lot of the words and phrases used to describe how exciting fun and glamorous the narrator Mum! life was before the narrator was born
Possessive language
The speaker believes that when she is born and she took control of her and took away her freedom this reverses a typical idea of children wanting to break free from their parents in this poem as the child stopping the parrot from having fun
