Compare the ways that family relationships are presented in Carol Anne Duffy's poem

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Sophie Grant Cumberbatch 11 KLE          19th November 2004

Compare the ways that family relationships are presented in Carol Anne Duffy’s poem “Before You Were Mine”, and the way family relationships are presented in one poem by Simon Armitage, and two poems from the Pre - 1914 poetry bank

In Carol Anne Duffy's poem “Before You Were Mine”, Carol Anne Duffy is the daughter looking at a photograph of her mother as a young woman, and describing how she used to be before she was born. The poem is written as if spoken by Carol Anne Duffy to her mother, and moves between the present and different times in the past.

This relationship is presented as loving and affectionate by the poet, as it paints a fond picture of a mother making sacrifices to be able to bring her daughter up, such as going out, dancing and enjoying herself with friends and it also celebrates the glamorous life her mother once had, and the way the poet says “your polka-dot dress blows round your legs. Marilyn” gives us the image of Marilyn Monroe in “the Seven Year Itch” in the glamorous scene when her skirt is blown up by an air vent. The mother is described as having been sparkling, waltzing, “laughing” and “winking”, before the poet was born, before her mother belonged to her.

The poet shows us that her mother did her best, and also was able to have fun with her daughter, after completing her responsible “motherly” duties. This is shown in the poem by the was she teaches her daughter dance steps, the “Cha cha cha!” on the way back from a Church service,” on the way home from Mass”. This is a touching memory, and places this poem in the past, as the cha cha cha is an old, glamorous dance, from the mother’s youth, which is rarely danced today.

The way the poet says “I’m ten years away…” “I’m not here yet.”, my loud possessive yell”, and the way she repeats “Before you were mine” also suggests that the poet is a little guilty that her being born forced her mother to have to give up her old life, make her stop coming home late from ballroom dances and leave “the fizzy movie tomorrows”, that only walking home with someone special the night before can bring, behind her, and settle down to motherly life, and the fact that her “loud possessive yell” also marked the end of her mother’s happiest times. “I'm not here yet” shows us that the scene at the start of the poem comes before the birth of the poet. Carol Anne Duffy imagines a scene she can only know from her mother's or other people's accounts of her as a young woman.

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Simon Armitage’s poem “Mother, any distance…” is literally about his mother helping him to measure up rooms, windows, floors and what seems like, to him “the acres of the walls , the prairies of the floors” in his new house or flat. His mother is the “second pair of hands” that he needs the help of to measure “any distance greater than a single span”. He travels around the house while his mother stays still, and  he reels out a tape measure, calling figures for her to record. Eventually he reaches the limit of the tape - as he ...

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