Then he says that sometimes the sun is too hot and is hidden by clouds but her beauty is never hidden and she is perfect. “Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines. And often is his gold complexion dimm’d” He then uses a double metaphor to explain that every living this is doomed to die and that nature cannot stop itself from dying out and it also means that she doesn’t need trimming to stay alight like a candle does which indicates that she is the acception and her beauty wont die “By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed.”
Then he uses personification to describe Death and that it won’t be able to kill her “Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade” because her beauty will live on in the poem
He then explains that every that everything dies and loses its beauty but she wont because she will live on in the poem “ When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st” the he says “ So long as men can breather or eyes can see. So long lives this and this gives life to thee.” Meaning as long as people are alive can see and read and write her beauty will always live on.
Duffy’s attitude differs from shake spear’s attitude because she is cynical about love but Shakespeare is more romantic.
At the beginning of Valentine it is similar to Sonnet 18 because she decides not to give her lover a traditional Valentine gift because she feels it doesn’t show him how she loves him and she wants him to think about their relationship so she decides she will give him an onion. This is similar to sonnet 18 because Shakespeare decides not to do that traditional comparison to describe his lover and Duffy decides not to give her lover the traditional valentine gift.
She says the onion is “moon wrapped in the brown paper” the brown paper is the skin and the flesh of the onion is the moon.
She compares the onion to the moon because moonlight is associated with romance and it also could be a symbol of her madness for him.
She has a complex attitude towards love she sees the onion as having a sexual nature when she says, “ It promises light like the careful undressing of love.”
Also as she writes this poem it seems like her lover is there.
She also decides that she will give him an onion because, like lovers, onions can make cry and love can distort your vision of people like onions distort your vision.
She says like the taste of an onion loves starts of intense and fades. This means that for a while love is possessive and faithful but then it fades.
She says that she may be offering him marriage but marriage can trap you and marriage could kill their love and he will always have the guilt with him if their marriage fails which is described as the “scent” of the onion.
