‘I give you an onion It’s fierce kiss will stay on you lip’ the bitter taste you get from an onion stays on your lips and the memory of a kiss can stay with you 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 compares the loops of an onion to a wedding ring and implies that marriage can take away the love and passion of a relationship. In her opinion marriage is lethal.
She shows that she feels that sometimes people never recover from a broken romance. They continue to have heartache, pain and bitterness. ‘Its scent will cling to your fingertips, cling to your knife.’ The repetition of the word ‘cling’ is effective. The word ‘knife’ makes you think of an image of a wound. The poet has obviously been hurt in previous relationships.
Another poem by the author Carol Ann Duffy titled ‘Before you were mine’ is a great contrast to ‘Valentine’. This poem is about a mutual love between a mother and a daughter. There are several different romances in this poem. The poet considers her mother at three different times, in the first stanza she imagines her mum as a teenager, ten years before I was born. ‘I’m 10 years away from the corner that you laugh on with your pals’. She imagines her mum’s life, she is young, carefree and without any responsibility. She enjoys the company of her friends, as they shriek with laughter. ‘The three of you bend waist hold each other on you knees and shriek at the pavement’
She imagines her mum in a polka-dot dress, which was typical of the time. In her mind she imagines the late Marilyn Munroe out of a scene from the film ‘Some like it hot’. ‘A polka-dot dress blows round your legs, Marilyn’. The names Maggie McGeeney and Jean Duff suggest they are ordinary working-class, girls that like to have fun.
The poet continues to think about her mum’s carefree days. ‘I’m not here yet’ Her mum doesn’t know what future is ahead of her. ‘The thought of you does not occur’. She hasn’t even begun to think about her future, she is living for the present. Her mum enjoys herself at ‘dances in the ballroom with the thousand eyes, the fizzy movie tomorrows.’ She still has dreams and hopes for the future, she dreams of the glamour seen on the big screen. ‘with the thousand eyes’ There aren’t a thousand eyes watching her, but the poet is describing, an item such as a disco ball which reflects light in all directions.
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 that in her mum.
Then she introduces the title of the poem ‘Before you were mine’. The reader can feel sense a strong bond between mother and child. The possessive pronoun ‘Mine’ gives us the idea of a close mother-daughter relationship.
In the third stanza she realises that the ten years before she was born were probably the best years of her mum’s life. ‘The decade ahead of my loud possessive yell was the best one, eh?’ She uses a rhetorical question. She doesn’t really want her mum 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 strong in her mind. She shows us again that her mother was a free spirit ‘and those small bites on your neck, sweet heart?’ And she asks another rhetorical question.
She remembers when she was a child and she danced to the ‘cha cha cha on the way home from mass’ She wanted to express herself.
Her mother has not realized her full potential; she married at a young age 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 mums’ qualities are time less. ‘The glamorous… You were mine.’
The two poems are very different to each other. ‘Before you were mine’ was based on a mutual relationship between mum and her child whilst ‘Valentine’ is about a love relationship that has gone horribly wrong and has left one of the lovers stranded in an emotional state, which cannot be resolved.
She will always have a close bond with her mother. Whatever happens they will always be there for each other. But 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 that they are holding back.
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 other hand 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. But in "Valentine" time isn't such a big issue and the poet barely goes into it. The poem is all written in present. 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.
‘Valentine’ is very cynical and ‘Before you were mine’ is caring, and through this poem she expresses her love for her mother.
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 a 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.
Ilshim Sato 10.4GN
