Before You Were Mine By Plath Analysis
Both Duffy and Plath portray many similar themes in their poetry; the theme of family relationships is illustrated in the poems 'Brothers' and 'Before you were mine' by Duffy and in 'Daddy' and 'Medusa' by Plath. All four poems portray a speaker looking back over relationships within their family members, however the context varies; in 'Daddy', it is implied that a relationship between a father and a young girl has been cut short by death, resulting in a psychological battle between the speaker and an image of her father she has created in her head. Similarly in 'Medusa' Plath creates a resentful and mostly negative relationship between a mother and daughter, she uses a variety of poetic devices to illustrate a bond which is only physical
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In Daddy, Plath repeats 'Daddy' throughout the poem; this nomination is usually associated with children, when they talk to their parents. In the poem Plath juxtaposes this with angry, accusatory language, for example 'Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I'm through' (l.80), this is a form of irony, because the speaker is using a term of endearment 'daddy', contrasted with profanity 'bastard' and this portrays, the speakers hatred for the character of 'Daddy’ and how she is finished battling with him. Duffy uses repetition and replacement to reflect a very different tone. Plath also makes use of repetition and replacement in Medusa. The speaker states ‘I didn’t call you/ I didn’t call you at all’(l.21/l.22), by adding ‘at all’ when the sentence is repeated, Plath creates a tone of building anger, where the speaker is growing more infuriated with her mother’s persistence to help her, when she doesn’t want or need it. In Brothers, the speaker describes seeing 'a boy practicing scales, / a boy playing tennis' (l.6/l.7), the noun ‘boy’ is used to show how little the speaker knows about the boys she is remembering, this creates a tone of regret because the speaker has few memories to look back on, suggesting an estranged relationship between the speaker and the subjects of the
In Daddy, Plath repeats 'Daddy' throughout the poem; this nomination is usually associated with children, when they talk to their parents. In the poem Plath juxtaposes this with angry, accusatory language, for example 'Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I'm through' (l.80), this is a form of irony, because the speaker is using a term of endearment 'daddy', contrasted with profanity 'bastard' and this portrays, the speakers hatred for the character of 'Daddy’ and how she is finished battling with him. Duffy uses repetition and replacement to reflect a very different tone. Plath also makes use of repetition and replacement in Medusa. The speaker states ‘I didn’t call you/ I didn’t call you at all’(l.21/l.22), by adding ‘at all’ when the sentence is repeated, Plath creates a tone of building anger, where the speaker is growing more infuriated with her mother’s persistence to help her, when she doesn’t want or need it. In Brothers, the speaker describes seeing 'a boy practicing scales, / a boy playing tennis' (l.6/l.7), the noun ‘boy’ is used to show how little the speaker knows about the boys she is remembering, this creates a tone of regret because the speaker has few memories to look back on, suggesting an estranged relationship between the speaker and the subjects of the