How does Carol Ann Duffy explore relationships in her poems?

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How does Carol Ann Duffy explore relationships in her poems?

The poems I have decided to write about are Valentine, Before You Were Mine and Stealing. All these poems have something to do with relationships, but all of them have a different type of relationship in them. Relationship means an emotional association between two or more people. There are still different types of relationships, for example in Valentine it’s a relationship between two people that is very close, in Before You Were Mine it still is a relationship between two people but is a distant one, whereas in stealing it is about a boy looking for a relationship.

        In Valentine the whole idea of the poem is about one person giving a gift to the other, giving gifts is usually all part of a relationship, but below this there are many other ideas. One idea is that the gift is a peculiar one, not a gift you would usually give to someone, that is why I feel that Carol Ann Duffy has called this valentine, because valentine is usually associated with roses and hearts and chocolates, then Carol Ann Duffy goes into the first and second lines with completely the opposite, “Not a red rose or a satin heart” then it goes on to “I give you an onion”. This is where the reader gets a shock of  ‘this poems not what it said in the title’.

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        Next in the poem are the many ideas that lay behind the onion, for example, its layers of love. This poem does not have much structure to it, it is all over the place, and it has no set stanzas, this is how, I feel, that Carol Ann Duffy portrays love and this is how she feels relationships go; it has no set way to go. Love is all mixed up, of feelings and emotions, it does not always go the right way, the right things do not all ways happen. Consequently the poem also has an effect on this ...

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