Keyways

Modern times concepts presented in Keyways (5)

* Changing relationships
* Lack of understanding/resolution
* The failure of romantic relationships
* Uncertainty
* Fragmentation

Main themes and links within Sheers’ collection in Keyways (2)

* A focus on the past through memories and nostalgia
* Relationships as characterised by ephemerality, uncertainty and breakdown

Analyse “strange then, that…” (2)

* “Strange then” is an example of conversational, prosaic language
* The opening caesura (“strange then,…”) emphasises a moment of pause which sets somber tone and a sense of reflection on the memories of the speaker’s relationship from the offset

Analyse “our last time together.” (the full stop)

The end stop compounds on the sense of finality; this relationship has ended and there is no hope for reconciliation.

Analyse the change in pronouns from “our” to “your” and “mine”

The change in personal pronouns signals a change in the relationship - they are no longer one unit and have individual identities again

Analyse “take back all that’s mine again”

This language suggests the speaker is recapturing something he may have lost - this may be his sense of self

Analyse ‘the hot day outside presses to the shop window glass” (2)

* Pathetic fallacy reflects the emotion of the speaker
* There is a sense of the heat being oppressive and confining

Analyse “like lucky charms along a bracelet”

The simile creates a sense of immaturity, naivety and youth - reflects the beginning stages of a relationship which is why the speaker says that it is how he “felt” at the beginning of their relationship

Analyse “an uncut key, a smooth blade, edentate”

The male speaker is presented as a tabula rasa, subverting the way women are usually presented as tabula rasas in modern literature

Analyse “waiting your impression, the milling and grooves of moments in time”

Sheers presents the idea that each memory has worked itself into the speaker’s personality, shaping him like a locksmith does to a key - this a reflection on the workings of memories

Analyse the use of religious imagery “chapel” “Messiah”)

The religious imagery suggests there is a spiritual, sacred element to this relationship and compounds on the idea of its perfection

Analyse “our breaths rising and falling in unison”

Here, there is a sense of harmony between the couple as they are presented as being physically in sync

Analyse “touching at elbow, shoulder and hip” (2)

* The triple connection may reference the Holy Trinity
* Pure and innocent physical intimacy

Analyse “like a pair of Siamese twins sharing one lung” (2)

* Suggests that the couple needed each other to survive - sense of unity?
* However, this simile may also suggest unhealthy codependency and reliance in the relationship in foreshadow its eventual breakdown

Analyse “our combinations matched” and “our tumblers aligned precisely”

The speaker draws on the semantics of locks and keys to present how perfect the couple was for each other

Analyse “when you slept facing away from me”

While this may convey a moment of intimacy, it also reflects a sense of distance and the fact she is not facing him may suggest a lack of communication

Analyse “So when did the bolt slip? The blade break in the mouth?”

* These rhetorical questions convey the speaker’s confusion and uncertainty as he is questioning what happened
* The imagery of the blade breaking in the mouth is violent and unsettling and reflects a sense of shocking, unexpected pain

Analyse “useless now”

* Sense of powerlessness - suggests his reflection is futile

Analyse “to try to unpick the months”

* Reflects the speaker’s micro-analysis of his own relationship - this emphasises his sense of disbelief and lack of understanding

Analyse the image of waiting for the “expected click@@,@@ which never came”

* The ‘click, which never came’ is the ultimate image of the failure to connect.
* Sheers employs the word ‘click’, which has connotations of clicking with someone, referencing the spark between them.
* The word “click” is also a continuation of his extended metaphor.
*  The gaping caesura coming right after the word acts as a physical manifestation of the silence, the lack of a ‘click’: the lack of connection

Analyse the use of the final couplet

* The final couplet creates a sense of closure - however the fact it doesn’t rhyme may reflect the wrongness the speaker feels about its end
* The shortness of the final stanza creates a sense that things have been left unsaid
* The caesuras in the middle of each of these lines represents the gap between the couple and their separation
* The full stop shows that this is a definitive end