Before You Were Mine Sylvia Plath

Compare how Duffy & Plath present “Family relationships” in “Ariel & Mean Time”
Carol Ann Duffy and Sylvia Plath have written aboutfamily relationships in a positive view as well as in a negative way too, in poems Medusa and Before you were mine, whether it’s about in favour or against family Love and relationships. In this extract there are four poems written by Carol Ann Duffy and Sylvia Plath. Which are, “Brothers” and “Lady Lazarus” including “Medusa” and “Before You Were Mine”. All four poems discuss the issue of family love and relationships well, from two different points of views and thoughts about families. Sylvia has written “Medusa” which creates a negative feeling as soon as it starts. Whereas Duffy has written “Before You Were Mine” and this poem describes the thoughts of a daughter when she is thinking and looking back at her mother’s youth.
“Medusa” written by Sylvia Plath, is about the negative relationship between her and her mother.
“Off that land spit” gives a feeling as if the speaker is spitting at us, shows Plath’s feelings about being a daughter of such woman who Plath does not get along with a lot. “Did I escape, I wonder?” and how she feels about whether she would ever be able to get rid of this blood relationship with her mother. As she is fully ashamed to be her mother’s daughter, she wonders would she ever get escaped from this feeling of being trapped with her mothers’ blood in her. “Old barnacled umbilicus, Atlantic cable”, emphasizes the connection, the umbilicus cord, which connects mother and the baby together before a baby is
born.
“Who do you think you are?” This poem by Sylvia Plath is simply about the negative relationship between her and her mother. She uses both Greek mythology references and sea imagery to describe her mother. This poem is ambiguous, in that, she seems dependent on her mother and wants a positive relationship with her but at the same time she is critical of her mother and her mother's religion. The colour symbolism of red throughout this poem stresses her life blood that her mother can either take away or give to her!
“Before You Were Mine” by Carol Ann Duffy, a total opposite of Sylvia Plath’s Medusa and shows a very positive relationship between her and her mother. Written beautifully and delightfully about how a daughter remembers her mother. “I’m ten years away from the corner you laugh on “The three of you bend from the waist holding”, “I’m not here yet”, explains that Duffy has shown an image of her mother when she was not born and she is remembering the memory of her mother being beautiful, young lady.
“With your pals, Maggie, Mcgeeney and Jean Duff”, now we know that the daughter is looking at the picture of her mother with her three other friends. As the daughter is recalling the memory of her mother through a photograph, she remembers everything. “Your polka dots dress…” After describing her mother’s dress sense, and the gorgeous sense of wearing things is still in daughter’s mind and she is describing her mother’s youth so delicately and softly through these words she is using for her mother.