Confession Flashcards
(10 cards)
“Come away to this dark cell tell your sins to a hidden man”
-imprisonment rather than sanctuary
- the hidden man is anonymous and shadowy
- cannot interact on a personal level yet is supposed to trust him
- sinister tone
-high ting how religion can feel intimidating or secretive
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“ your guardian angel works your conscience like a glove puppet”
-It’s deeply manipulative image
-Implying that the confession is conscience is not their own but controlled by a religious figure or idea
-A glove puppet suggest lots of autonomy
-Reinforcing the themes of psychological control and institutional power
-The absence of punctuation enables Duffy to suggest multiple interpretations
-So the hidden man is both the guardian angel and a glove puppet suggesting the duality
-The good and evil of the priest
-And by extension, the religion
“ smells in here/like a coffin”
-The sensory detail intensifies claustrophobia
-Comparing the confessional to a coffin links with death and decay and fear
-Rather than redemption
-Critiquing the idea that religion brings life
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“ out with them sins, those little maggoty things that wriggle in the soul”
-since I described to be like maggots
-Dehumanising and disgusting
-The grotesque imagery can suggest how religion can instill deep self loathing
-Emphasising how sin is made to feel shameful and corruptive even before forgiveness is offered
-Leading to the idea of the sins that have to be confessed which were into the soul just like maggots eat the body
“ Just how bad have you been? There’s no water in hell Merely to think for the wrong as evil is doing it.”
-it echoes the catholic moral teaching
-Even thoughts can be sinful
-Reflecting the rigidity of religious doctrine
-And the net impossible standards
-Holy water washes away sins but the interrogator once that there is none in hell suggesting there can be no absolution
-Doctrine also insists that merely to think of an evil deed is as bad as committing it
-Showing how the church wants to control thoughts
“ Pendants will cleanse your soul like a good bar of soap”
-The simile is ironically mundane in commercial
-Reducing spiritual purification to something mechanical or superficial
-Like washing with soap
-Mocking the idea that a few words or actions can truly cleanse the soul
-Representing oversimplistic teaching that confession is hygienic and healthy
-Soap can only cleanse skin deep not inside
“ on your knees, let’s hear that we voice/recite transgression in the manner approved”
-It’s an order
-Submissive and humiliating
-The wee voice is patronising like speaking to a child
-The manner improved implies that even confession must follow strict scripts
-Critiquing the formalism and power structures within religious rituals
-Suggest that if you say in a certain way then you are forgiven making it sound false
-There is no room for freedom
-Approved suggests that you can only reach salvation by methods to church give you
“ your white hands classing each other like Hansel and Gretel in the big black wood”
It sounds almost like a fantasy, not real
- he also evokes childlike fear and vulnerability
-The wood is a metaphor for spiritual or moral confusion
-With religion offering little guidance, just fear
-Suggesting that people approach confession with the same fear as children lost in the dark forest
-It implies danger
“ remember the vinegar and sponge there’s a light on the other side of the door”
-this refers to the crucifixion of Christ
-A moment of extreme suffering
-This evoke Christine imagery but here it feels like more guilt trip than salvation
-The light suggests towards Hope
-But it’s conditional and hard to access
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“ Jesus loves you”
The concluding line is starkly different in tone
-simple and reassuring
-However placed after the series of threatening guilt images it feels deeply ironic or tragically sincere
-A last attempt at comfort
-Or a critique of how such phrases can feel hollow after fear based indoctrination
-It shows the religion to be confusing and contradictory
-It’s controlling and manipulative
-It’s ironic as nothing seems loving
