Valentine - Carol Ann Duffy

Analysis
1. The onion represents a relationship which may occasionally cause you pain 'IT WILL BLIND YOU WITH TEARS LIKE A LOVER' - simile - truth/honesty - suggests love can cause distress.
2. The oxymoron 'ITS FIERCE KISS WILL STAY ON YOUR LIPS' creates a vivid image of the speaker remembering clearly on the experience.
  1. The adjective 'FIERCE' has connotations of danger and is negatively used in this sentence especially when Duffy creates sibilance showing how sly/sexual the relationship was.
    1. The concrete noun 'KISS' is usually associated with passion, romance or lust but because the contrast is strong, the oxymoron may seem quite ironic because the couple may not be as close and perhaps that's why their personalities are different showing that they may clash together or compliment each other.
      1. The verb and noun 'WILL STAY' also portrays the sentimental feelings that the speaker has. This may also present a sense of force and violence as the reader is told that the kiss 'WILL' be stuck upon them for a long time. It could convey that the onion is a gift representing the layers being so strong that they will stain your body like the images of the relationship.
        The tone is a forceful, intimate one as the first line on each stanza has an imperative which commands a minor sentence. For example 'HERE' and 'TAKE'. This may imply the pressure they put on one another but also shown in a gentle way like making a peace offering.
        Valentine is written open form (free verse) which may show the reality of relationships as they aren't set to go a certain way.
        The use of minor sentences are frequent to show love is permanently damaging with the full stops creating the impact as 'LETHAL'
3. Valentine explores how a relationship works in reality and the title being misleading as that represents conventional ideas of love like flowers chocolates and teddybears but the speaker gives a gift of an onion as an extended metaphor.
Themes
1. DESTRUCTIVENESS OF LOVE
2. BREAKDOWN RELATIONSHIPS
3. PAINFUL EMOTIONS CONNECTING WITH LOVE
4. LOVE IS = BLIND, BITTER, FIERCE, POSSESSIVE, LETHAL
Summary
1. Valentine is a poem that rejects conventional expectations and classic tokens of love 'red rose'/'satin heart'
  1. The poem itself is an extended metaphor and explores the concept of love through unrealistic comparisons and unusual imagery because an onion is a very unflattering, rancid and unromantic object
    1. Each stanza also shows different phases of love beginning with positive feelings and then deteriorate into misunderstandings and violence
      1. Duffy uses the extended metaphor of an onion to show her speaker's increasing frustration that the gift of an onion has been rejected. Eventually, the speaker, overwhelmed by the rejection resorts to threatening/almost violent language
Comparisons
1. Beachcomber
  1. Painful emotions but not connecting with love, traumatic event experienced as a child, nostalgic
2. Before You Were Mine
  1. Break down relationship similar, DAUGHTER LOOKING UPON MOTHER, love is blind for both poems
3. The Captain of the 1964 Top of the Form Team
  1. Time, nostalgia, disillusionment, childhood CLEVER TV STUDENT NOW NOT KNOWN
4. Nostalgia
  1. Nostalgic, longing for home, MENTAL ILLNESS, creates universal message
5. First Love
  1. Nostalgic, powerful memory of love - YOUNG COUPLE IN LOVE QUICK BUT NOW ITS OVER
6. The Biographer
  1. Obsessive, could be over Charles Dickens, affection, similar as love is possessive
7. Litany
  1. Childhood memory, nostalgic, LITTLE GIRL SWEARING
8. Stafford Afternoons
  1. LITTLE GIRL GOES THROUGH HEDGE AND FINDS MAN, similar painful emotions with love, nostalgic
9. The Cliche Kid
10. Small Female Skull
11. Never Go Back
12. Close
  1. TOXIC RELATIONSHIP, LUST, PAST AND FUTURE MOCKING, similar by themes - destructiveness of love, breakdown relationships, commanding, love is possessive, painful emotions attached
13. Mean Time
  1. COMPARES LOSING TIME TO MISTAKES IN RELATIONSHIP, breakdown relationship, creates universal message

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Valentine - Carol Ann Duffy

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	Creado por Anna Bant hace casi 7 años