{"id":40872,"date":"2024-09-09T23:43:46","date_gmt":"2024-09-09T23:43:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/essays.homeworkacetutors.com\/2024\/09\/before-you-were-mine-by-carol-ann-duffy-essay\/"},"modified":"2024-09-09T23:43:46","modified_gmt":"2024-09-09T23:43:46","slug":"before-you-were-mine-by-carol-ann-duffy-essay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colapapers.com\/us\/before-you-were-mine-by-carol-ann-duffy-essay\/","title":{"rendered":"Before You Were Mine by Carol Ann Duffy Essay"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\u201cBefore you were mine\u201d is a poem written by a daughter about how she imagines her mother\u2019s life ten years before the daughter was born. The author describes the photo of her mother with two of her friends. They \u201cshriek at the pavement\u201d and seem to be sharing a joke, young and lightsome (line 4). She knows that the thought of having a child one day doesn\u2019t occur to her mother when she was young and had a lot of dreams.<\/p>\n

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Now remembering her own childhood, Duffy thinks of how she used to play with her mother\u2019s red shoes and imagines when her mother might have worn them.<\/p>\n

She remembers how her mother used to teach her dance steps when she was a little girl. The poem is a four stanza one, each stanza being made up of five lines, with some variation in length of line. The first two stanzas focus purely on the life of the mother before the daughter was born, whilst the third stanza opens with a reference to the daughter\u2019s birth and then moves to the daughter\u2019s vision of her mother in her earlier life, thus providing a link with the previous stanzas.<\/p>\n

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The fourth stanza begins with a recollection from the daughter\u2019s younger life with her mother, and then takes us back once again to the mother\u2019s days of dancing. I consider that the language contributes to the mood of the poem. The poem is written in first person narrative voice. There are many references to her mother as very happy \u2013 \u201cyou laugh \/ the bold girl winking in Portobello\u201d, \u201cyou sparkle and waltz and laugh\u201d(lines 13-15). The author\u2019s mother\u2019s life can be perceived as flashy.<\/p>\n

Her mother is likened to Marilyn Monroe: \u201cYour polka-dot dress blows round your legs. Marilyn\u201d (line 5). Duffy\u2019s mother dreams of \u201cfizzy, movie tomorrows\u201d (line 7). The poem is written in the present tense, as if the events of the photo are happening now. I suppose in this way the poet tries to make her mother\u2019s past as real as possible. It seems juicy to read a poem in which a daughter imagines how full of life and fun her mother must have been before she was born.<\/p>\n

Her admiration of her mother is shown in a direct way, and words such as \u201cshriek\u201d, \u201csparkle\u201d and \u201cfizzy\u201d image the carelessness of youth. Throughout, the poet is very possessive of her mother. References to her appear constantly: \u201cI\u2019m ten years away\u2026 \u201d, \u201cI\u2019m not here yet\u2026 \u201d, \u201cI remember\u2026 \u201d (lines 1, 6 and 12). The word \u201cmine\u201d appears in the title and the poem actually concludes with the same words as the title, as if the poet is locking her mother in a firm embrace of words.<\/p>\n<\/article>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cBefore you were mine\u201d is a poem written by a daughter about how she imagines her mother\u2019s life ten years before the daughter was born. The author describes the photo of her mother with two of her friends. They \u201cshriek at the pavement\u201d and seem to be sharing a joke, young and lightsome (line 4). […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6079],"tags":[8194,8193,8197,8196,8192,8195],"class_list":["post-40872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry","tag-best-essay-writing-website-for-phd-essays","tag-cheap-dissertation-writer-usa-and-uk","tag-custom-essay-and-assignment-writing-australia","tag-doctoral-dissertation-writing-service-china","tag-help-write-my-paper-ai-free-for-students","tag-online-thesis-writing-service-sample"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.colapapers.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40872","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.colapapers.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.colapapers.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.colapapers.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.colapapers.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40872"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.colapapers.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40872\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.colapapers.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.colapapers.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.colapapers.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}