She then reiterates what she is doing again, by saying, “Not a cute card or a kissogram”, “I give you an onion”. This reprise is needed to show the lover and reader the poem is about to move onto harder even less conventional truths. This leads onto the third comparison where she describes the fierceness and intensity of the passion the relationship has and compares it the pungency in the taste of the onion, which can almost be overwhelming if strong, also appealing to another one of the readers senses. She then continues this and talks about the nature of their relationship by saying rather cynically, “possessive and faithful as we are, for as long as we are”. This implies the relationship although has been committed so far, is about to deteriorate, as the line, “for as long as we are” suggests that someone is about to become unfaithful which sounds as if Duffy is doubtful about the duration and future of her relationship.
A rather forceful and frustrated tone is created when she says, “Take it.” At the end of all relationships there comes a point where the two people have to decide whether to make the commitment of marriage, or to go their separate ways and move on. It seems to the reader as if this point has been reached, and the receiver of the onion seems hesitant and reluctant to accept it. She says the onion and therefore the relationship “shrink to a wedding ring” and then she goes onto say, “if you like” implying that she wants to get married, and compares the ring to the centre of an onions core where there shiny, circular rings left. It is implied by Duffy that the decision of marriage is up to her lover; as if she is fed up of not knowing what commitment they have to offer. Her cynical take on things goes on further when she describes the relationship as being “Lethal.” This strikes a very dramatic tone insinuating that they have come to a sour point in their relationship, where “the scent will cling to your fingers.” Cling is a very strong verb, expressing the depth of how she feels; it suggests the unavoidable nature, and desperation of the point they have come to. An onion has a pungency that leaves a lasting impression. The verb to cling is repeated again, this suggests the inescapability of the memories they have, the way the relationship is constantly being painstakingly processed through the mind as well as the physical associations “finger” the relationship also has.
The poem is finalised on the last and fifth comparison the poem makes “cling to your knife”. A knife is a very strong noun it has associations of death, pain, misuse and of general endings. This is what it represents in this poem. Duffy states “your” knife, as if it belongs to her lovers, the point has been reached where she has expressed her views entirely honestly by thinking through what she wanted to say, and the time has come where her lover has to make the decision whether to end the relationship or to move on to the next step.
Before you were mine is also a poem about love and relationship, except this is about the love between a daughter and a mother. Duffy also writes this poem in first person, this means that like Valentine we immediately get a sense of openness and honesty about what she is saying. This poem is all about the changes her mother went through in life, from growing up, to having relationships with men, and then to finally having children and settling down. It is clear throughout the poem Duffy has an opinion on what she thinks her mother went through in order to have her, she is aware of the sacrifices she made and the responsibility she was faced with and almost seems bitter that that was how her life as a baby started.
The poem starts with the line “I’m ten years away”, so automatically we are taken back into the past where her mother is a teenager and we get a feel for how Duffy imagined her mother spending her childhood. She sees her mum as a fun loving, popular girl, “you laugh on with your pals, Maggie McGreeny and Jean Duff”. She mentions the names of these two girls, which gives the reader the impression that her mother has told her stories and tales of her past, who she was friends with and Duffy has imagined and filled in the spaces of what she has been told. She definitely has an opinion of what she looked like as a girl, “Your poker-dot dress blows round your legs. Marilyn.” This gives the reader the impression Duffy thought her mother to be a wild, sexy, beautiful, older, experienced young lady, a character who is maybe quite seen as quite sexually experienced and reasonably mature for her age. The way she says simply in a one word sentence, “Marilyn.”, as if that name sums up everything her mother was about at that age. It is hard to tell here whether Duffy approves and likes this character, but she neither hint towards a negative description, the main focus of this stanza is to show the reader how much fun and laughter her mother had before she was born.
The second stanza begins again with the statement, “I’m not here yet.” Implying that the fact she is not there yet, is an important factor to her mother’s character and life at that point in time, and also to start a new point, a different maybe slightly later period of her mother’s life. “The thought of me doesn’t occur in the ball room with the thousand eyes”. Her mother at this point is quite obviously a beautiful and attractive woman, care free and enjoying “the fizzy, movie tomorrows”, receiving a lot of attention from men, the thousand eyes. Duffy seems to have a solid interpretation in her mind of what her mother was like before her, presumably from stories her mother has told her and also through knowing her mothers character and the type of person she is, this is shown when she says, “I knew you would dance like that.” She then moves onto looking at the difference of roles in her life, when her mother was a child, who had a “Ma”, and had to obey her, like Duffy has to do with her mother. “Before you were mine, your Ma stands at the close with a hiding for the late one”, this suggests a lot about Duffy’s interpretation of what her mother’s character was. She seems to know her mothers character – rebellious, passions, feelings and how her mind worked, she new her mother would think: “You reckon it’s worth it.”
The next two stanzas reveal the change in her mother’s character after the birth of her daughter. Duffy asks a rhetorical question, “The decade ahead of my loud, possessive yell was the best one eh?” She asks the question knowing she wouldn’t get an answer and almost as if she doesn’t want a reply. Duffy uses strong words, “loud” and “possessive”, suggesting the responsibility and changes her mother had to go through. Her mother had to suddenly adapt into an almost entirely different person, she could no longer be carefree, mysterious, flirtatious and sexy and free; after the birth of her baby she quite obviously had to make sacrifices, and it is clear in the tone of Duffy’s writing that she was aware of the sacrifices and changes her mother had to make, almost to the point were she wished she hadn’t been the person responsible for changing her mothers personality. She feels guilty, even though it wasn’t her fault, that she was responsible for having to make her mother change. “I remember my hands in those high-heeled red shoes, relics”. This is a perfect metaphor and example of what Duffy is feeling in relation to her mother. Her mother didn’t wear those shoes any more. The red fancy insensible shoes are a symbol of her past that is over and dead. The “relic” suggests history and that there are a lot of memories attached to the red shoes and what they represent to her mum. The fact that her hands are in her mother’s shoes, and not her mother’s feet, shows how much her daughter has taken over her life and that she is the present, this also suggests a certain amount of resentment towards her daughter for her current responsibilities. She sees her mother’s past like a “ghost clatters towards me”, the mix of past and present where when she daydreams and imagines her mothers true character sitting on the bench in the park with love bites on her neck. It is clear that Duffy can only see her mother’s happy, content, free personality in her past and is sad at the fact that she has had to make her mother change. “Even then I wanted the bold girl winking in Portabello, somewhere in Scotland, before I was born” and goes on to say, “That glamorous love lasts” as if to say, she couldn’t never be anyone other properly, than that young care free girl that she affected so much.
Duffy expresses a great deal about how she feels about her mother and the regret she had for being the course of such a drastic change in her life.
In both poems she speaks honestly and is not necessarily completely forthright about how she directly feels, but she describes the situation she is in very well and allows the reader to put herself into Duffy’s place and make assumptions of what it would be like for themselves. This is a very powerful way of creating a character for the people as it is almost like being the character ourselves. So ultimately she creates such a great sence of situation and describes what its like using such extensive flawless metaphors, it allows use to make ussumptions and investigate how she feels.
