A critical analysis of 'The Two of Us' by Simon Armitage.

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A critical analysis of 'The Two of Us' by Simon Armitage  

The poem ‘The Two of Us’ is about two men who are very similar, except one has an extremely lavish lifestyle while the other is very poor. The poem is written from the point of view of the poor man about their relationship.

The poem is made up of mostly eight line paragraphs except one nine line paragraph and one two line paragraph. The two line paragraph is used at the very end of the poem. The fact that it is separated from the rest of the text makes this final statement more poignant and stays in the readers head for longer.

Mr Armitage uses a lot of non-standard English - ‘sat sitting’, ‘I cant see it me’.

This is used as a method of exaggerating the difference between them. Hearing a stereo-typical common accent to describe these predominantly upper class things makes them seem even more unattainable. The accent also serves to create a detailed image of the speaker in the mind of the reader.  The writer uses several methods to show how one man has things in excess and the other has nothing. ‘Someone’s seen you swimming lengths in gold top milk, me parched’.  Now this is obviously litos but shows the sort of wealth this man has, and again reinforces the huge difference between the two men.

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In the opening paragraph the writer continually repeats the words ‘You’ and ‘Your’, this is a very impolite way of addressing someone and so from the very beginning the audience can tell the tone of the poem and that this is a very angry piece. All of the sentences in the first paragraph begin with ‘You’, this suggests that the writer is speaking directly to the other person. Although later in the poem when he begins to list all their differences in detail it becomes evident that the writer is ranting about him.  This makes the piece very fluid ...

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