Carol Ann Duffy
Analysis by theme – Carol Ann Duffy
CHILDHOOD
Notes from “Originally”
Repeatedly returns to the metaphor of childhood as a “country” – echoes of
L.P. Hartley’s “The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there. Notion of past being intimately associated with place, and that adulthood is a journey away from it.
“All childhood is an emigration.”/ “I want our own country”. Fear of being in an alien place as a child reflected in the alienation of adult life.
“I lost a river, culture, speech, sense of first space and the right place” – Duffy reflects on moving house as a child, and the way she lost her first senses of the world as the became accustomed to somewhere new.
“I stared at the eyes of a blind toy, holding its paw.” Metaphor – the past, her childhood is now lifeless but she clutches to it hopelessly.
Notes from “Captain of the 1964 Top of the Form Team”
“a fizzing hope, Gargling/ with Vimto” – Sense of excitement and sweetness conjured in the onomatopoeia of “fizzing” and imagery of “Vimto” – childhood was sensual and exciting.
“The smell of my clever satchel” evokes a particular fragrance and evokes ideas that the satchel itself is clever, that this symbol of childhood is synonymous with the intelligence he felt in 1964.
He continues lamenting the ease he felt in childhood, before the complexities and compromises of adult life. Everything seemed black and white, right or wrong: “The Nile rises in April. Blue and White./ The humming bird’s song is made by its wings…” His achievement is reflected in the image of him “salut(ing)” the answers to his teacher and the predictable tone of “Sir?... Correct.”
It is summarised by his enthusiasm for life at the time, “no hands, famous, learning…” The first of these images is suggestive of a recklessness, a sense of invincibility and assurance which is shown as hubris by the poem’s end.
Again, Duffy gives this period of life a geographic “country” but in the final stanza
CHILDHOOD
Notes from “Originally”
Repeatedly returns to the metaphor of childhood as a “country” – echoes of
L.P. Hartley’s “The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there. Notion of past being intimately associated with place, and that adulthood is a journey away from it.
“All childhood is an emigration.”/ “I want our own country”. Fear of being in an alien place as a child reflected in the alienation of adult life.
“I lost a river, culture, speech, sense of first space and the right place” – Duffy reflects on moving house as a child, and the way she lost her first senses of the world as the became accustomed to somewhere new.
“I stared at the eyes of a blind toy, holding its paw.” Metaphor – the past, her childhood is now lifeless but she clutches to it hopelessly.
Notes from “Captain of the 1964 Top of the Form Team”
“a fizzing hope, Gargling/ with Vimto” – Sense of excitement and sweetness conjured in the onomatopoeia of “fizzing” and imagery of “Vimto” – childhood was sensual and exciting.
“The smell of my clever satchel” evokes a particular fragrance and evokes ideas that the satchel itself is clever, that this symbol of childhood is synonymous with the intelligence he felt in 1964.
He continues lamenting the ease he felt in childhood, before the complexities and compromises of adult life. Everything seemed black and white, right or wrong: “The Nile rises in April. Blue and White./ The humming bird’s song is made by its wings…” His achievement is reflected in the image of him “salut(ing)” the answers to his teacher and the predictable tone of “Sir?... Correct.”
It is summarised by his enthusiasm for life at the time, “no hands, famous, learning…” The first of these images is suggestive of a recklessness, a sense of invincibility and assurance which is shown as hubris by the poem’s end.
Again, Duffy gives this period of life a geographic “country” but in the final stanza