Higher English - Valentine KO

Valentine by Carol Ann Duffy

Not a red rose or satin heart.

Clarity - makes it clear what they will not give on Valentine’s Day.

Satin - glossy/shiny/ostentatious/vulgar

Heart - symbolically associated with love.

Rose - traditional symbol of love - sentimental/tacky. They reject these cliches

I give you an onion.

Ordinariness - common - antithesis of a valentines gift - cheap and unconventional

It is a moon wrapped in brown paper.

Moon => symbol of love + Shape and colour of an onion

Wrapped in brown paper => signifies the brown ski; of an onion and ordinary cheap mundane brown paper wrapping when you buy an onion - implies that Valentine’s Day wrapping is gaudy and kitsch

It promises light

The onion/love - both promise light but fulfilment is not always guaranteed.

Enjambment suggests the emotional/sexual “undressing” isn’t always a promise fulfilled.

like the careful undressing of love

Enjambment (from previous line)

Love => the word love is accentuated - it’s unexpected after careful undressing as it’s placed at the end of them line and the verse?

Here.

Single-word, single-line minor sentence - monosyllabic - suggest a domineering way of giving you a present. (Maybe a touch of contempt?)

It will blind you with tears

like a lover.

An onion can blind you with tears

Enjambment => makes the ambiguity of it clear. Love/onions can both blind you. The enjambment emphasises the continual act of crying(???)

It will make your reflection

a wobbling photo of grief.

Tears can distort your reflection (in the mirror)

Wobbling - love has the ability to disorient/unbalance

Grief - w/c suggests the loss of love can cause - people who give themselves to romance love are vulnerable

I am trying to be truthful

single sentence, single line - conveys the central theme of the poem. Honesty is preferable to deceit.

W/C => trying suggests either not easy to be truthful or the lover does not want to hear the truth.

Not a cute card or a kissogram.

Repetition of the idea of the first line of the poem rejecting hackneyed gifts

Alliteration of hard C, the K and hard G are guttural sounds - draws attention to the meaning - the gifts they will not give. Cute here is used with a pejorative tone (contempt/disapproval) of cliché

I give you an onion.

Repetition of the gift of stanza 2 (like a refrain)

It’s fierce kiss will stay on your lips,

Transferred epithet - the kisser is kissing fiercely - the onion/love taste of an onion is also like a kiss.

possessive and faithful

as we are,

for as long as we are.

Personification- fierce kiss - stays on your lips - possessive (unpleasant characteristic) faithful (pleasant) - contrast between these.

Enjambment - surprise - cannot guarantee

Everlasting love - this is another comment on the nature of love.

Take it.

Imperative (command) - does it refer to onion/love/both? They have built up their reasons for gifting the onion - now they use the two word sentence to instruct in an insistent/dominant tone.

It’s platinum loops shrink to a wedding ring,

if you like.

Synecdoche - image represents the colour and layers of the onion

Platinum - precious, expensive metal

Wedding ring - represent the relationship/marriage of the two lovers.

Shrink - pejorative - the value of platinum is reduced to the size of a wedding ring. The image is reductive, demeaning, emphasises the constrained nature, physically and emotionally, of marriage # the original platinum loops of love (value and preciousness) are eventually reduced to a mere wedding ring.

Loops suggests ongoing inescapable repetitiveness.

Lethal.

Word choice associated with killing but can mean extremely harmful. - position and shortness of line draws attention to the violence that love can cause.

Its scent will cling to your fingers,

cling to your knife.

Repetition of cling - reinforces the idea of scent - the scent of love and/or the onion will cling to you or ‘your knife’. Cling also suggest emotional dependence- this metaphor conveys a lack of escape/ being smothered

The last word of the poem is knife - connotations of the violence of love/its ability to cut/or be cutting.