GCSE (9-1): Literature: Poetry: AQA Love and Relationships: Before You Were Mine: Author's Purpose

to illustrate how the past and present are intertwined

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

to indulge in her imagination of what her mother's life was like during an iconic era

in the poem, Duffy is constructing her mother's past, imagining how it was; ironically, she as the poet is in control of her mother's story in the ways in which she presents her mother to us

to illustrate how the child takes possession of the mother

by constructing her mother's past through her own memory, Duffy is adding another layer of possession to the poem; in writing about her mother, she is creating a past for her - the image we are presented may not actually have been true

to explore the sacrificial nature of parental love

love is proved in the letting go' - reflects the sacrificial nature of parental love; he lets his son go to define his identify and find his way through the world, despite how painful it is for the father to let him go

to illustrate the changing nature of parent-child relationships

The poem also explores how relationships change over time like 'Follower' by Seamus Heaney and 'Mother Any Distance' by Simon Armitage

to explore the post-war culture of the 1950s

While this poem is about a mother-daughter relationship, it is also a poem about a time and place; post-war culture in the 1950s and the social life of teenage girls in Glasgow.

to give women a voice

The decade ahead of my loud, possessive yell was the best one, eh?' - here, she is talking directly to her mother, giving her a voice and, perhaps, the women of that era a voice too

to understand her mother as an individual

Duffy's work is traditionally about seeing beneath the restrictions imposed upon her characters by their society and about understanding of the speakers as individuals.

to expose the predetermindness of women's lives

The controls that Duffy is referring to here is the predetermined nature of women's lives in the sense that they are destined to become mothers, who are forced to leave the 'best years of their lives' behind to fulfil their duties of child-rearing

selfhood definition

A noun denoting 'the quality that constitutes one's individuality; the state of having an individual identity'

to explore her mother's need for selfhood

Duffy explores what she imagines her mother's personal identity to be life, laughing with her pals, rebelling against her mother's rules, etc

to illustrate the beauty of the female spirit

the polysyndetic list in 'you sparkle and waltz and laugh' emphasises how dynamic, bright and full of life her mother was 'before you were mine'; also illustrates the lightheartedness of the female spirit

to express her attraction to the image of the rebellious woman

I wanted the bold girl' - 'bold' has connotations of adventurousness and bravery; this line suggests that Duffy was always attracted the image of the rebellious female spirit

to express women's desire to be free of the restrictions of society

the whole poem is filled with symbols of feminine rebellion: 'Marilyn... a hiding for the late one. You reckon it's worth it... those high-heeled red shoes... bold girl...' - Duffy speaks about these symbols in a celebratory tone suggesting this rebelious lifestyle excites her