‘I give you an onion’- She uses a metaphor. ‘It’s fierce kiss will stay on you lip’ the bitter taste on an onion remains on a person’s lips. The memory of a kiss can stay with one forever. ‘Possessive and faithful as we are, for as long as we are’ She suggests that love affairs only last for the time that two people are interested in each other. She insists that he accepts her gift ‘Take it’. She denigrates marriage. She compares the loops of an onion to a wedding ring and implies that marriage can deaden love and passion. Marriage is lethal in her opinion. In the extended metaphor she expresses her sentiments, sometimes people never recover from a broken romance. They will continue to experience heartache, pain, bitterness. ‘Its scent will cling to your fingertips, cling to your knife.’ The repetition of the word ‘cling’ is effective. The word ‘knife’ conveys the image of a wound. The poet has obviously been very badly hurt during previous relationships or has been exposed to the unpleasantness that occurs during the breakdown of love.
To contrast the poet views, another poem, ‘Before You Were Mine’, was also reviewed. This poem written by Carol Ann Duffy is about the mutual love between a mother and a daughter. There are several different romances in this poem. The poet considers the mother from the daughter perspective at three different periods throughout their lives.
In the first stanza, the daughter imagines her mother as a teenager, ten years before she was born. ‘I’m 10 years away from the corner that you laugh on with your pals’. She imagines her mother’s life, she is young, carefree and without responsibility. She enjoys the company of her friends, they shriek with laughter. ‘The three of you bend waist hold each other on you knees and shriek at the pavement’ She imagines her mother in a polka-dot dress of the time. In her mind an image appears of the late sex-goddess Marilyn Munroe in a scene from the film ‘Some like it hot’. ‘A polka-dot dress blows round your legs, Marilyn’ Once again Carol Ann Duffy uses enjambment to give an impression that she is trying to recreate the past in her imagination.
Caesura is used in the poem to introduce the girls’ names. The names Maggie McGeeney and Jean Duff suggest they are ordinary working-class, fun loving girls.
The poet continues to think about her mothers’ carefree days. ‘I’m not here yet’ Her mother is unaware of the future that lies ahead. ‘The thought of you does not occur’. The mother enjoys herself at ‘dances in the ballroom with the thousand eyes, the fizzy movie of tomorrows.’ She still has dreams and hopes for the future, she dreams of the glamour seen on the big screen. Caesura is used to show her thought process. At dances they hoped that they might meet their future partner. ‘I knew you would dance like that’ She looks back at the days when her mum was free and uninhibited. She admires her mother.
She then introduces the title of the poem ‘Before You Were Mine’. The reader is then able to sense a strong bond between mother and child. The possessive pronoun ‘Mine’ enforces the idea of a close mother daughter relationship. She can imagine her mother ‘ma’ waiting to reprehend her for being late. Knowing her mother has spirit, she will think that the punishment was nothing compared to the fun she had just had. ‘You reckon it’s worth it’. Carol Ann Duffy realizes that her birth changed her mother’s life dramatically; she had to be responsible and look after her from a child through to adulthood.
In the third stanza, she states that the ten years before she was born were probably the best years of her mother’s life. ‘The decade ahead of my loud possessive yell was the best one, eh?’ She uses a rhetorical question. She does not really want her mother to confirm that statement.
In her imagination, she sees her mother clattering in high heeled shoes ‘I remember my hand in those high heeled red shoes relics and now your ghost clatters towards me over George Square’- the image is vivid she uses an effective metaphor to show this is like ‘a scent’.
She indicates once more that her mother was a free spirit ‘and those small bites on your neck, sweet heart?’- Another rhetorical question.
She remembers as a child dancing to the ‘cha cha cha on the way home from mass’- She was confident and wanted to express herself, but alas her mother has not realized her full potential; she married young and has the responsibility of motherhood. The poet yearns to be the young girl from the past ‘even then… Portobello’ the glam image will never fade. She uses alliteration to show that her mothers’ qualities are time less. ‘The glamorous… You were mine.’
The two poems are very different to each other. As I mentioned before, ‘Before You Were Mine’ was based on a mutual relationship between mother and daughter whilst ‘Valentine’ is about a love relationship that has gone horribly wrong and has left one of the lovers stranded in an emotional and desperate state.
She will always have that close bond with her mother. What ever happens they will always be there for each other? However, when you are dating other people you never know what their true intentions are. You can never spend enough time with some one to get to know their true personality or intentions. One can conclude, that the poet has experienced the pain of romantic separation and feels the desperation of a mother held back by parenthood, in both situations the poet is demonstrating that the imagery of life as express in youth is often tarnished by the constraints of reality. One’s perception and imagery changes over time and the visions of youth are often misleading.
She idolizes and adores her mother, she looks up to her and has done ever since she was a child, and this is why she loves her. On the contrary she loves her lover because she wants to get to know that person. She finds them interesting and different.
In "Before You Were Mine" there are several references to time and it is one of the main topics. She refers to the past and compares it to what it is like in the present. This suggests that the bond with her mother will be there for eternity. Whereas in "Valentine" time isn't such a big issue and is barely touched upon throughout the poem. It is written in the present text. She doesn’t think about past relationships. This may suggest that she has been in only one relationship with a man and will not go back to him or another man because of the hurt that she has experienced.
The measure of time used in "Before You Were Mine" is puzzling, but it does allow the poet to demonstrate the never ending love that is generated between a mother and a daughter, and the price that one party to the affair pays for that love, unlike "Valentine", "Before You Were Mine" explains how much the poet idolises and adores her mother and how this love changes overtime, but is not diminished by time.
Both poems focus on the subject of love although in "Before You Were Mine" this is the true love that exists between a mother and daughter and this concept of love is a lot more obvious and genuine than in "Valentine" which is about the love that develops in a relationship between a man and a woman. In this poem she compares that love to the unpeeling of an onion, which inevitably leads to tears and pain as the true nature of the love is discovered at the heart of the onion. The tears and pain of love are profound throughout the whole process, but the poet has used time, but in a limited way by suggesting that the love that is generated between a man and a woman is measured by the time it takes to unwrap an onion. The poet also suggest that the longer you unwrap the onion the greater the perceived strength of the love that is enjoyed and the deeper the pain that occurs on its ending
"Valentine" is very cynical and "Before You Were Mine" is very caring, and through this poem the poet expresses her never ending love for her mother, but clearly in ‘Valentine’ the poet is demonstrating that real love has escaped her.
Both poems are full of imagery giving the reader visions of how it may have been, as she reminisces in ‘Before You Were Mine’ she considers the expectation and joy of life and demonstrates this by ‘thinking of her mother dancing her way home from church ‘cha cha cha’’. This is a happy picture of a young woman embracing life. However in ‘Valentine’ Carol Ann Duffy uses the imagery of an onion to conjure up pictures of suffering and pain which she links to the process of cynical love which inevitably leads to heartbreak.
The poet uses effective ways and different techniques to portray her ideas and entertain. In both poems, terms such as similes, "like a lover", used in "Valentine”, he repeated ‘l’ sounds almost as if the poet was teasing us, as if she knows the relationship will not work out. However "clear as scent", as used in "Before You Were Mine", gives the feeling of sincerity.
She also uses interesting metaphors, "Like a moon wrapped in brown paper" this creates an air of mystery around the subject. And alliteration, "trying to be truthful" the repetition of the ‘t’ sound gives a feeling of sincerity and honesty. Enjambment and caesura are used in "Before You Were Mine" as well as rhetorical questions, creating interest, "the decade ahead of my loud possessive yell was the best one eh?"
I enjoyed studying both ‘Valentine’ and ‘Before You Were Mine’. But I preferred ‘Valentine’. It interests me how Carol Ann Duffy conceived the idea of comparing love to an onion. I would like to ask her what inspired her in writing this poem, as it is unusual and clever. There is a lot of truth in this poem, but it is represented in a very different way to what the reader would of expected from its name. This poem represents the true conundrum of Love.
