The first stanza describes Duffy’s experience in her teacher, Mrs Tilscher’s, class. This was when she was about 11. The poem begins with the line ‘You could travel up the line’. This shows the immense possibility and lack of physical limitation in the classroom setting. This travelling happens which ‘Mrs Tilscher chanted’. The word ‘chanted’ implies the hypnotic, spellbinding effect Mrs. Tilscher’s narration has on the children. It takes them into a world of imagination and blinds them from reality. The words ‘Tana. Ethiopia. Khartoum. Aswan.’ Are separated by full stops which create long caesuras. This auditory imagery recounts the ‘chant’ and also shows how distinctive the ritual was that Duffy remembers it years later.
The ‘chalky pyramids rubbed to dust’ shows the sense of power the students have in their classroom but also their disillusionment since their big ideas are really nothing. There is a sense of structure and time in the actions: ‘That for an hour, then, a skittle of milk’ shows that there is a predictable, rhythmic plan in their lives when they are children.
The second stanza primarily explores Duffy’s love for school and its impact on her being. The strongly positive words like ‘enthralling’ and ‘glowed’, the childlike comparisons to sweetshops and sugar paper and the caesuras that compound those ideas as definitive opinions on school. It shows her unflinching love for her childhood life. The juvenile metaphors and similes show her innocence. This is contrasted with the horror of ‘Brady and Hindley’, the child assaulters and murderers in the. Again, the suspense created by the caesura leads to a let down where she claims that the murderers ‘faded’. That phrase shows the sense of security and safety school provides. Then there is the statement that ‘Mrs Tilscher loved you’. This directly shows the love and happiness she received in school. It creates a sense of seemingly endless joy. The transferred epithet in ‘good gold star’ furthers the notion of contentment. The last line of the second stanza, ‘a xylophone’s nonsense..’ introduces a new concept- growing up. The children consider their old toys as ‘nonsense’ which shows the beginning of their maturation.
The third stanza focuses on the approaching change from childhood to adulthood. It begins with the phrase ‘Over the Easter term’. This presents the concept of the passage of time. The tadpoles and frogs are metaphors for the children. The comma, a pause, becomes an exclamation mark, an abrupt and sudden expression. This shows the abruptness of the change. The frogs are ‘freed by a dunce’, perhaps implying that it was stupid to chase after adulthood. Then, Duffy goes on to describe the rough boy’s disclosure of ‘how you were born’. The contrast between ‘kick him’ and ‘appalled’ shows that the child is reluctant and even horrified to learn the harsh realities of life.
The final stanza focuses on the period of adolescence. The diction is particularly prominent, with the repetition of words with sensual connotations. The transferred epithet of ‘That feverish July’ shows the agitation and intensity of the children, now growing into adults. The words ‘electricity’, ‘hot’ and ‘heavy’ are all indicative of a storm. This shows that the children do not know what is really in store in adulthood. The transferred epithet in ‘heavy, sexy sky’ shows the maturity of the children. The attitude towards Mrs. Tilscher changes. She is no longer worshipped but treated more as an equal. Mrs. Tilscher represents the preserved innocence of childhood when she avoids answering the question. The penultimate sentence, ‘Reports were handed out’, ends with a full stop and gives the poem a sense of finality. The diction, as characterized by the words ‘report’ and ‘handed’ become more serious and reflect the adulthood attained. This also shows the order and structure of childhood that the students leave behind when they impatiently run after adulthood, ‘into a thunderstorm’. This implies the loss of security and structure that is juxtaposed with the neat ‘skittle of milk’ in the first stanza. The last line hence gives Duffy’s final stance on the difference between childhood and adulthood.
The tone of the poem is one of nostalgia. The positive light she holds her childhood in is evinced through the use of the words ‘enthralling’, ‘loved’ and ‘good’. The mood evoked is remembrance because of the ubiquity of pining for childhood. The tone becomes progressively troubled as the poem progresses. ‘Brady and Hindley’ initially evoke fear. Then words like ‘electricity’ and ‘storm’ exacerbate this apprehension. The mood towards the end of the poem is perhaps wistful or melancholy.
Quotes:
- ‘You could travel along the Blue Nile’
- ‘Tana. Ethiopia. Khartoum. Aswan’
- Mrs. Tilscher chanted
- Chalky pyramids rubbed to dust
- That for an hour, then a skittle of milk
- Laugh of a bell
- This was better than home
- Glowed like a sweet shop
- ‘coloured paper’ ‘enthralling books’
- ‘good gold star’
- ‘Mrs. Tilscher loved you’
- ‘slowly, carefully, shaved’ – asyndeton (without and)
- ‘xylophone’s nonsense’
- inky tadpoles changed from commas to exclamation marks
- ‘jumping and croaking out of the lunch queue’
- dunce
- kicked him
- stared at your parents, appalled, when you got back home
- smiled, then turned away
- ‘hot, fractious untidy’
- air tasted of electricity- gustatory
- ‘sexy sky’- alliteration, pathetic fallacy
- ‘’sky split open into a thunderstorm’