Aunt Julia

SQA Higher English 2022

I could not answer her

I could not understand her

Summary

The poet describes his childhood memories about his 𝗲𝗰𝗰𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗰 𝗔𝘂𝗻𝘁 𝗝𝘂𝗹𝗶𝗮 who lived on a small island and only spoke her native Gaelic language.

Themes

❥ Isolation (speaker is frustrated by his inability to communicate with his relative)
❥ Loss
❥ Nature (Aunt Julia symbolises elements of heritage that are at risk disappearing forever in the modern world)
❥ Communication (although there is a lack of verbal communication between the two, emotions often transcend language as there is still a connection)

Characters

❥ Aunt Julia
❥ Speaker

Structure

❥ Free verse (allows a conversational tone and see speaker's reflections)
❥ Use of enjambment and repetition (allows poet to emphasise key aspects of the poem)
❥ Autobiographical poem (therefore the poet employs a first person narrative stance)
❥ Divided into five stanzas that each deal with a specific focus
1. Introduces us to Aunt Julia
2. Describes the aunt and the objects that are strongly associated with her
3. Perspective moves from the Aunt to how the poet felt about her (this stanza has no endstops, creating a sense of pace and excitement)
4. Poet uses personification to create a sense of her character
5. Reflects on the poets frustration about not being able to communicate with her, yet also expresses his admiration for her

'Aunt Julia'

❥ Title
❥ MacCaig's aunt
❥ The start of every stanza gives reference to her
❥ The first line of the poem starts with 'Aunt Julia' and this repetition shows the importance of this character

'very loud and very fast'

❥ She is a vibrant, dynamic, extroverted character
❥ Repetition acts as an intensifier and shows how hard it was to understand his aunts language
❥ Highlights the inability he had to communicate with his aunt
❥ Despite the language barrier he still expresses an affectionate tone and emphasises how even without a common language, strong bonds can be created

'I could not [...] I could not understand her'

❥ Repetition
❥ He couldn't even do the basic thing of understanding her as she spoke
❥ This immediately establishes the theme of frustration at barriers in communication
❥ Parallel sentence structure emphasises his despair and frustration caused due to his lack of understanding

'men's boots'

❥ Symbolic of her practical, ragged way of life
❥ She took on masculine work, showing she is physically strong and hardy

'when she wore any'

❥ Closeness to the land
❥ She walked around barefoot, showing her being one with nature

'paddling with the treadle'

❥ Onomatopoeic (plosive 'p')
❥ Repeated heavy consonant sound
❥ Repetition of the 'dl' mimics those of a spinning wheel (suggests labour and hard work)
❥ Highlights the length of time the process takes, showing how his aunt is always moving and is active

'her right hand drew yarn'

❥ Long vowels elongates the line
❥ Conveys the impression of wool being stretched out

'marvellously'

❥ Magical, supernatural (shows his admiration)
❥ It was almost entrancing for the poet to watch

'Hers was the only house'

❥ Pronoun emphasises her significance to him
❥ Highlights the uniqueness of this place, Aunt Julia's craft is unique, exciting and special

'absolute darkness'

❥ Nighttime
❥ No light pollution
❥ Sense of all-encompassing darkness
❥ It seems it should be frightening for the boy but instead he is so comfortable that everything is enjoyable

'crickets being friendly'

❥ Anthropomorphism
❥ Crickets are usually loud but they aren't now
❥ Aunt Julia's house is safe and secure
❥ Magical proximity of nature

'flouncing'

❥ Transferred epithet (when an adjective associated with a person used to describe an inanimate object)
❥ Constantly moving, the energy cannot be contained
❥ Describes the deliberate, vigorous way she moved
❥ She performed her manual tasks so quickly and energetically
❥ Identifies her with nature by suggesting she was water

'winds pouring wetly'

❥ Alliteration emphasises fluid and the sound of elements he associates with her (she is so close to nature that she is a part of it)
❥ Word choice 'pouring' suggests an extreme nature of weather

'brown eggs, black skirts'

❥ These metaphors describing country eggs and traditional clothes define her life and link her to hard work
❥ She is natural and traditional

'keeper of threepennybits'

❥ Distinctive look
❥ Thrifty, frugal existence
❥ Aunt had a sense of pride and dignity about her (shown through her dedication to work and her unity with the natural elements)
❥ She was independent, saving small amounts of money so she could remain self-sufficient
❥ The poet obviously admires the honesty to this lifestyle despite the arduousness

'Aunt Julia spoke Gaelic / very loud and very fast'

❥ Cyclical structure as the poet remembers her as a child to his reflection of her now as an adult
❥ Brings the poem to a neatly rounded end
❥ Repetition shows the importance of her language and its incomprehensibility

'silenced'

❥ Enjambment emphasises the contrast between her loud nature and the quiet of death
❥ Sudden change
❥ Her loud Gaelic voice is her most memorable feature

'absolute black'

❥ Finality
❥ Links back to the darkness in stanza 3 (back then it gave comfort but now it leaves emptiness)
❥ Subtle shift from 'darkness' to 'black' conveys the frighteningly bleak empty void of death

'sandy grave'

❥ Returns her to the earth that sustained her life

'But I hear her still'

❥ Change in tone
❥ Shows the continued importance and impact she's had on his life

'seagull's voice'

❥ Loudness and incomprehensibility of her voice
❥ Identification with wild nature
❥ She has left such a strong impression that he can still vividly imagine her calling

'getting angry, getting angry'

❥ Repetition emphasises frustration of not being able to communicate
❥ Anger is a powerful emotion

'unanswered'

❥ Tone of regret
❥ Inability to understand one another
❥ Enjambment reinforces the speaker's enduring sense of frustration
❥ Ambiguous ending