Genetics Flashcards
(14 cards)
What is the name of the poetic form used in Genetics?
villanelle
What is the extended metaphor used in Genetics?
Hands. ‘My father’s in my fingers, but my mother’s in my palms.’
Why might Genetics be formed as a villanelle?
A villanelle requires two alternating lines which represent the parents, who are separate from each other but together through their child (the speaker) A villanelle is also a circular form, coming back in the final couplet to where it began. It forms a ring, echoing the imagery of marriage in the poem.
In Genetics, what is the speaker’s attitude when she describes ‘I lift them up and look at them’ (her hands)
This conveys the speaker’s fascination and awe-struck attitude as she contemplates how she is a permanent record for a long-forgotten love.
Why does the speaker in Genetics describe how her parents have been ‘repelled to separate lands, to separate hemispheres’.
Repelled suggests a forceful, irreversible divide; the repetition of ‘separate’ reiterates this divorce.
What technique is used in this line from Genetics: ‘friends who quarry for their image by the river’
Metaphor/natural imagery
Why does the speaker in Genetics describe her parents now as being ‘friends who quarry for their image by the river’
This metaphor is intended to convey how the parents struggle to recognise the people they once were and the love they once shared.
In Genetics, why does the speaker use a children’s finger game to re-enact her parents’ wedding?
To reimagine the young innocence and untainted purity of their former love.
What technique is used in this line from Genetics: ‘my body is their marriage register’
Metaphor or Synecdoche
In Genetics, why does the speaker describe how ‘my body is their marriage register’?
She sees herself as a living document of the love they once shared.
How is there a shift in the final stanza of Genetics?
The speaker moves to the second person - ‘so take me with you’ - seemingly addressing her own lover/partner.
In Genetics, what does the speaker mean when she says ‘so take me with you’
She addresses her lover/partner, suggesting they have their own child to permanently bond them together and immortalise their love.
What technique is used in this line from Genetics: So take me with you, take up the skin’s demands’
Personification. The skin is presented as an undeniable living force that has its own wishes beyond human comprehension.
In Genetics, the speaker imagines her parents’ marriage, referring to the ‘chapel’, ‘priest’ and ‘psalms’ - why?
This religious imagery presents their marriage and former love as holy and profound.
