Marking time (sex and masculinity)

Question 1

Structure

Answer 1

• Sonnet form (typically about love or death). However many argue that it is a sonnet without typical features of a sonnet (eg, no couplet at the end, heptets, rhyme scheme). Therefore it can be seen as an act of rebellion against typical sonnets. It is not a poem of love, but rather lust.

Question 2

Context

Answer 2

• Reference to ‘brand burning’ often associated with farm work, he grew up with close proximity to farming as his grandfather was a farmer.
• Thought to be based on some of his past relationships.

Question 3

‘we’ ‘our’ ‘us’

Answer 3

• Collective language to convey the intertwining of them both

Question 4

‘lust wouldn’t wait for bed’

Answer 4

• Passive language is used around the personification of lust.
• Convey’s how dominanting the lust is in their relationship.
• Defines it.

Question 5

‘a brand-burn secret in the small of your back’

Answer 5

• Negative word association. Possesive. Ownership of women’s bodies.

Question 6

‘disturbance’ ‘broken’

Answer 6

• Conveys that the relationship is struggling with the effects of time.

Question 7

‘the equation of their names equalld by an arrow that buckles under time but never leaves’

Answer 7

• An everlasting emotional connection to the person stays despite the cracking of their relationship.
• Adverb ‘never’

Question 8

‘the loving scar remains’

Answer 8

• Juxtaposition ‘loving scar’ conveys the toxicity of the relationship.
• Scar reflects on the permancy of the emotional impact their relationship had, also conveys the owernership of women.
• Through sex, she becomes his (definetly could compare to stella’s pregnancy).