GCSE (9-1): Literature: Poetry: AQA Love and Relationships: Before You Were Mine: Structure

general characteristics of the poem's structure

we get a sense of a passage through time, each stanza marking a shift in time or place

a structure of memories

Duffy moves from "I'm not here yet" to "I remember my hands in those high-heeled red shoes" and "You'd teach me the steps"; just like our memories, there's no sense of beginning or ending

effect of the structure of memories

we shift fluidly between the memories in the exact same way our memory does; there is a sense of linear progression, from her mother's teenage years to the first years of motherhood, but it isn't clearly defined

allusion

a reference to earlier pieces of literature or, sometimes, history

allusion in 'Before You Were Mine'

Your polka-dot dress blows round your legs. Marilyn.' - Allusion to the famous actress Marylin Manroe and the atmosphere of the 1950s

effect of allusion in 'Before You Were Mine'

Marylin Monroe is often seen as a symbol of the female desire to break free from the constraints of society through self-promotion in order to achieve full independence and financial success

point of view definition

the type of narrator in the text

4 types of points of view in literature

first-person point of view (I), second-person point of view (you), third-person point of view, limited ("he" or "she") - the narrator is outside of the story and relating the experiences of a specific character - and third-person point of view, omniscient. The story is still about "he" or "she," but the narrator has full access to the thoughts and experiences of all characters in the story.

point of view in 'Before You Were Mine'

second-person point of view

effect of the first person point of view in 'Before You Were Mine'

puts the reader in the position of Duffy's mother; the reader may also get the sense of being an intruder in something that is intimate and personal

the interwovenness of the past and the present

normally authors construct the past and present so that they contrast each other, but here they are more interwoven

effects of the interwovenness of the past and the present

the past is always wound around the present, so that they can't really be separated and in the speaker's loved one, the love is always present, like a mystical force, even before they met - perhaps we can see Duffy as the present and her mother as the past, but they are, in fact, inseparable

Setting

The physical location as well as time period in which the story takes place

setting in 'Before You Were Mine'

Duffy's imagination of her mother's life during the 1940s and 1950s

symbolic meaning of Duffy's setting

Duffy imagines that it represents a time when her mother free of the responsibilities of motherhood

pararhyme

partial rhyme between words with the same pattern of consonants but different vowels - 'pavement', / 'Marilyn', 'occur / tomorrows', 'dance / close'

effect of pararhyme in 'Before You Were Mine'

the structure of the poem can be seen as reflective of rebellion; controls have been rejected in the rhyme scheme, just as they were, in the context of the poem