Before You Were Mine - Carol Ann Duffy

Before You Were Mine - Carol Ann Duffy

1. Context

   • Autobiographical
   • Writing about her own personal experiences
   • Perhaps her own mother

2. Feelings and Attitudes

   • her mother was happiest during the 10 years before she was born.
   • She wanted to be like this more often, but realises that her mum was only really fun-loving and glamorous before she was born.
   • The narrator imagines her mother when she was younger, possible informed by her mother’s own memories and anecdotes.
   • Narrator admires her mum’s glamour and her headstrong, rebellious approach to life
   • She wishes her mum was still fun-loving and carefree

3. Structure

   • Beginning- having fun with her friends End- walking with her daughter
     • Emphasises the changes that time has brought There’s a clear division between before and after the poet was born
       • Present tense
         • trying to make her mother's past as real as possible
   • ‘I’m 10 years away.’ ‘I’m not here yet’ ‘The decade ahead’
     • Each first 3 stanzas start with a reminder of the distance in time between the narrator’s birth and her mum’s youth and fun
   • ‘Before I was born.’
     • Caesura
       • Emphasises that the narrator’s birth was the turning point in her mum’s life

4. Exciting Language

   • describe how exciting, fun and glamorous the narrator’s mum’s life was before the narrator was born
     • ‘that glamorous love lasts where you sparkle and waltz and laugh
     • Visual Imagery
     • Lexical Field
   • ‘Your polka-dot dress blows round your legs. Marilyn.’
     • Compares her mother with Marilyn Monroe, a glamorous and desirable film star
   • ‘the fizzy, movie tomorrows’
     • Figurative language that suggest energy and exciting possibilities
       • She may have hoped for a life like a movie heroine
   • Repetition of ‘and’
     • Emphasises how many energetic qualities the narrator thinks her mother had
       • Stresses her mum’s defiance and energy
         • romanticises her mother and the glamorous life she used to lead.

5. Possessive Language

   • The speaker believes that when she was born, she took control of her mum, and took away her freedom
   • This reverses the typical idea of children wanting to break free from their parents
     • The child does not let go of the parent ; the child owns the parent
   • Here, it’s the child stopping the parent from having fun The child cannot let go of the parent
   • ‘before you were mine’
     • Repetition of the word ‘mine’ throughout the poem and in the title
     • Emphasises the difference between then and now It also develops the possessive tone
   • ‘till I see you, clear as scent’
     • Simile
     • Show that her imagination is so vivid, that she can smell her mother

6. Colloquial Language

   • Creates an imaginary conversation with her mother Suggests that they have a close, familiar, informal relationship
   • Was the best one, eh?’
   • ‘And whose small bites on your neck, sweetheart?’
   • Creates a conversational tone
   • Sounds like something a parent would say to their child But here, it’s the other way around

7. Key Themes

   • Parent and child
   • Admiration
   • Nostalgia
   • Memory