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Winter Swans – Love
“The clouds had given their all – two days of rain and then a break.”
Analysis: Pathetic fallacy – The storm reflects tension in the relationship.•
Metaphor – “Given their all” suggests emotional exhaustion and past conflict.
Message – Conflict is natural in relationships, but resolution is possible.
Winter Swans – Love
“Like a pair of wings settling after flight.”
Analysis:Simile – Suggests stability and peace after emotional turbulence.
Symbolism – Swans represent lasting love and reconciliation.
Contrast – Earlier conflict transitions into unity.
Winter Swans – Love
“They mate for life you said as they left, porcelain over the stilling water.”
Analysis:Symbolism – Swans symbolize commitment, mirroring the couple’s reconciliation.
Imagery – “Porcelain” conveys fragility but also beauty, showing love’s delicate strength.
Message – Love is enduring but requires understanding.
Winter Swans – Love
“Slow-stepping in the lake’s shingle and sand.”
Analysis: Movement as a metaphor – Careful steps reflect rebuilding their emotional bond.
Natural imagery – Suggests grounding and stability.
Contrast – Shows progression from discord to harmony.
Winter Swans – Love
“I noticed our hands, that had, somehow, swum the distance between us.”
Analysis:Metaphor for reconciliation – Physical closeness represents emotional healing.
Gentle tone – “Somehow” implies natural resolution rather than forced reconciliation.
Water motif – Reflects fluidity and renewal in relationships.
Porphyria’s Lover – Love
“She shut the cold out and the storm, and kneeled and made the cheerless grate blaze up.”
Analysis:Pathetic fallacy – The storm mirrors the speaker’s emotional turmoil.
Porphyria as warmth – She brings comfort and light into his world.
Context – Challenges Victorian gender roles by portraying a woman taking control.
Porphyria’s Lover – Love
“That moment she was mine, mine, fair, perfectly pure and good.”
Analysis:Repetition of “mine” – Shows obsessive love and possessiveness.
Irony – The speaker believes he is preserving her purity through control.
Context – Victorian fears of female independence are reflected in the speaker’s need to dominate.
Porphyria’s Lover – Love
“In one long yellow string I wound three times her little throat around, and strangled her.”
Analysis:Euphemism – The detached description makes the murder seem methodical.
Symbolism – Her golden hair, once beautiful, becomes the tool of her death.
Psychological aspect – Explores the dangers of obsessive love.
Porphyria’s Lover – Love
“And all night long we have not stirred, and yet God has not said a word!”
Analysis:Religious imagery – The speaker believes his actions are justified.
Delusion – He expects divine approval for his crime.
Theme of power – He exerts total control over Porphyria in life and death.
Porphyria’s Lover – Love
“No pain felt she; I am quite sure she felt no pain.”
Analysis:Repetition – Reflects the speaker’s need to convince himself of her peaceful death.
Psychological instability – His justification shows detachment from reality.
Theme of love turned to violence – Passion is corrupted into destruction.
The Farmer’s Bride – Love
“I chose a maid.”
Analysis: Possessive language – The farmer sees his wife as property.
Context – Reflects arranged marriages and women’s lack of agency.
Message – Explores forced relationships and emotional distance.
The Farmer’s Bride – Love
“She turned afraid of love and me and all things human.”
Analysis:Triplet – Highlights her complete detachment from human connection.
Theme of fear – She rejects intimacy, leaving the farmer isolated.
Context – Shows the consequences of coercion in relationships.
The Farmer’s Bride – Love
“Shy as a leveret, swift as he, straight and slight as a young larch tree.”
Analysis:• Animalistic imagery – Compares her to a hare, emphasizing fear and vulnerability.
Simile – Suggests fragility and innocence.
Message – Women’s fear in oppressive marriages.
The Farmer’s Bride – Love
“We caught her, fetched her home at last and turned the key upon her, fast.”
Analysis:Trapped imagery – Shows her lack of freedom.
Rhyme (“fast”) – Reinforces her imprisonment.
Theme of male dominance – The farmer exerts control over her life.
The Farmer’s Bride – Love
“The soft young down of her; the brown, the brown of her – her eyes, her hair, her hair!”
Analysis:Repetition – Shows his growing frustration and obsession.
Fragmented syntax – Reflects his struggle with unfulfilled desire.
Message – Explores the impact of repressed emotions.
Follower – Family
“His shoulders globed like a full sail strung.”
Analysis:
Simile – Compares father’s strength to a ship, symbolizing admiration.
Theme of admiration – The son idolizes his father.
Follower – Family
“I stumbled in his hobnailed wake.”
Analysis:
Contrast – Shows father’s skill vs. son’s clumsiness.
Foreshadowing – Roles will later reverse.
Follower – Family
“But today it is my father who keeps stumbling behind me, and will not go away.”
Analysis:Role reversal – Son now leads, father follows.
Theme of aging – Parents become dependent on children.
Follower – Family
“An expert.”
Analysis:
Short sentence – Emphasizes admiration and certainty.
Theme of legacy – Highlights skill and respect.
Follower – Family
“I was a nuisance, tripping, falling, yapping always.”
Analysis:Contrast with father – Shows childlike energy.
Message – Relationships evolve with time.
Mother Any Distance – Family
“The line still feeding out, unreeling years between us.”
Analysis:Extended metaphor – Tape measure symbolizes their bond.
Theme of growing up – Speaker is moving towards independence.
Mother Any Distance – Family
“Anchor. Kite.”
Analysis:Juxtaposition – Mother grounds him, but he seeks freedom.
Message – Parents provide security but must let go.
Mother Any Distance – Family
“To fall or fly.”
Analysis:Metaphor – Uncertainty of adulthood.
Contrast – Risk vs. success.
Mother Any Distance – Family
“You at the zero-end, me with the spool of tape.”
Analysis: Symbolism – Mother represents origin and stability.
Theme of separation – Child moves further away.
Mother Any Distance – Family
“Your fingertips still pinch the last one-hundredth of an inch.”
Analysis:Imagery – Suggests a final moment of connection.
Theme of love – Letting go is difficult but necessary.
Before You Were Mine - Family
“Your polka-dot dress blows round your legs. Marilyn.”
Analysis:Imagery – Creates a vivid picture of the mother’s youth and glamour.
Allusion to Marilyn Monroe – Symbolizes beauty, freedom, and tragedy.
Theme of admiration – The speaker idolizes her mother’s past self.
Before You Were Mine - Family
“I’m ten years away from the corner you laugh on.”
Analysis: Time motif – The speaker reflects on a past she never experienced.
Contrast – Carefree youth vs. responsibility of motherhood.
Message – Parenthood changes identity.
Before You Were Mine - Family
“The thought of me doesn’t occur in the ballroom with the thousand eyes.”
Analysis: Metaphor – “Thousand eyes” suggests excitement, romance, and being admired.
Contrast – The mother’s pre-child freedom vs. future responsibility.
Theme of sacrifice – The mother’s life changed with the child’s arrival.
Before You Were Mine - Family
“Your ghost clatters toward me over George Square.”
Analysis:Metaphor – The mother’s younger self is like a “ghost” haunting the speaker.
Theme of loss – The mother’s past self is gone, replaced by responsibility.
Tone – Slightly mournful, acknowledging inevitable change.
Before You Were Mine - Family
“You’d teach me the steps on the way home from Mass, stamping stars from the wrong pavement.”
Analysis:Contrast – The mother’s old rebellious spirit vs. current motherhood.
Symbolism – “Wrong pavement” suggests lost dreams.
Message – The child sees glimpses of the mother’s past but knows it’s gone.
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Flashcard (20)