The contrast between the voice of Lizzie and her abuser is extreme, and perhaps Duffy wished for this contrast to reflect the changes one goes through in the transition from child to adult. One technique which highlights the contrast is the use of the same word by the child and adult. For example, “deep in the wood / I’ll give you wood” shows the destruction of youthful innocence and creates an extremely sinister tone, which in turn is designed to disturb the reader.
Sheenagh Pugh approaches the idea of the contrast between youth and adulthood in a different way in her poem Sweet 18. This poem is written as a first person monologue, which makes the content more sinister and shocking to the reader as Pugh is exposing thought’s which would usually remain hidden. This poem also disturbs the reader, but unlike Duffy Pugh introduces the idea of a sexual relationship between the youth and woman. However, Pugh’s Sweet 18 is similar to Lizzie 6 in that it presents the adult as destroying the youth. This is perhaps most apparent in the line “of a young sapling / using his life, sucking it out of him”. This is clearly saying that, if given the chance, the old and mature can destroy the young.
Lizzie six is not the only poem in which Duffy raises ideas surrounding youth. Boy is a first person monologue presented from the view of a man who wishes he was still young. This poem focuses on the security most people feel when they are children, and the line “The world is terror” clearly demonstrates that this voice has not made the usual transition from boy to teenager to man, and psychologically he feels more like a child. The character’s mental child-like state is conveyed by Duffy through a mixture of language and his use of short sentences. In this poem some sentences comprise of only one sentence, “Just like that. Whoosh. Hairy.” , and this simple structure projects the idea that the character feels like, and thus talks like, a child. However, in the last two stanzas the tone of the poem becomes a little more sinister. Firstly, Duffy suggests that this man had been in a sexual relationship with a woman who he called “Mummy”. This breaks a strict social taboo concerning parents, children and sexual relationships, and as a result of this the reader is somewhat shocked and disturbed. In the final stanza the voice changes fairly dramatically “Now it’s a question of getting the wording right for the Lonely Hearts verse”. Written in the 1980s where the lonely hearts were the equivalent of Internet dating, the voice suddenly becomes more mature, and is almost brusque in tone. This reminds the reader that the character is not a boy, and once again adds a more sinister dimension to a subject matter – childhood – which would normally be considered innocent, as well as making the Lonely Hearts adverts, which are often ridiculed, a means for this disturbed individual to contact others.
Sheenagh Pugh’s poem ‘She was nineteen and she was bored’ focuses on a girl who grew up wrong, as opposed to Duffy’s ‘Boy’ who never grew up at all. There is no trace of innocence in this character, who, at age nineteen was barely out of adolescence. Pugh’s use of alliteration in the line “murderous crew of mediocrities” simulteaneously presents her as a normal girl with a spark of evil which was ignited. Whilst the innocence of youth was long destroyed for this girl, Pugh does convey her youthful rashness, and an inability to weigh up the consequences of her actions. However, though condemning the girl – “it’s no excuse she did what we might” – the final lines of the poem do suggest that there was someone or something else which helped her become the malicious and evil guard. The words “those who made her” implies that others, probably older than her, possibly those who influenced her childhood, were guilty in helping to create a young woman capable of committing atrocities, who left the innocent security of childhood far behind.
Finally, Duffy presents the idea that it is the duty of the adults who surround children and teenagers to educate them. In her poem “Comprehensive” Duffy uses ventriloquism to adopt seven separate voices, which creates a multi-dimensional poem and also conveys the idea of a multicultural melting pot for all races and religions. However, whilst the teenagers have the capacity to know and understand each other and each other’s cultures, Duffy shows that they are pitifully ignorant about one another. The structure of the poem, with one stanza, creates a blank space on the page between each voice, which could be symbolic of the gaps between the voices socially. The words “Paki-bashing… he’s a bit dark” show the reader that unless the youths are taught about each other by elders then the superficial differences between them can create fear and tension. It is possible that through the contrast of the title “comprehensive” and the ignorance the youngsters demonstrate Duffy is suggesting that it is the duty of adults to teach children more than mathematics and science, that they should also teach youngsters tolerance and understanding.
This idea is developed in Pugh’s “Geography was peculiarly taught”. This poem reveals the thoughts of a person remembering lessons from their youth in a monologue. The most revealing line in the poem is “a people popular with examiners, because they fit nicely into half a term”. Although this is still a line within the monologue, it appears that a little of Pugh’s own voice emerges here with the message that adults should not decide what children learn based purely on ease of teaching, and that education should be a rounded experience for young people. Pugh’s message is made even stronger by the words “I should say ‘weren’t”. This reveals that in the future where this character now lives the Masai no longer exist. This truly reinforces the message of both Pugh and Duffy: that education should be designed to teach young people about life as well as subjects like science, otherwise the young will turn into ignorant adults, by which time it will be too late.
Overall, Duffy and Pugh’s poetry carry similar messages in terms of youth, such as the security of childhood, the fragility of innocent youth and how easily it can be broken by adults, and the message that adults are failing in their duty to educate young people thoroughly about society.
