Notes from class:

Havisham

 

• “Beloved sweetheart bastard”
• Use of oxymoron
• Aggressive language of “bastard” catches your attention.
• The opening is unexpected, revealing the writer’s conflicted feelings.

 

 

• “I stink and remember” – She cannot move on with her life.
• “A red balloon bursting” – symbol of celebration has been destroyed.
• “I stabbed at a wedding cake” – Shows the anger she felt when she was jilted.
• “whole days in bed cawing nooooo at the wall” – she is dehumanised by her grief.

 

 

• “not a day since then I haven’t wished him dead” – she wants to kill the man who left her.
• “ropes on the back of my hands I could strangle with” – she is obsessed with killing him.
• “I stabbed at a wedding cake” – anger directed at a symbol of marriage.

 

 

• “hole days in bed cawing noooo at the wall” – “cawing” – animalistic noise, shows she is less than human.
• “puce curses that are sounds, not words” – “sounds, not words” – she cannot form words because she is so grief-stricken.

 

 

• “b-b-b-breaks” – The stuttering sound shows that love can drive you mad.
• “don’t think it’s only the heart” – the mind can be affected by love, too.

 

 

Commonality

 

• In Havisham, the love has been turned to bitter hatred, which is unexpected.
• In Valentine Duffy avoids all romantic clichés to produce a surprising
• In Anne Hathaway, Duffy compares love to the act of imaginative writing, which is unusual.

 

Havisham

 

• “Beloved sweetheart bastard” – Oxymoron – The line expresses the contrasting feelings the character has.
• By expressing love and hate the reader is taken by surprise.

 

Valentine

 

• “Not a red rose or a satin heart” – The writer refuses to use clichés about romance.
• This is surprising in a valentine’s poem.
• “I give you an onion” – Duffy gives an object which is not at all romantic.
• This proves she is trying to be original/ surprising.

 

Anne Hathaway

 

• “Item I gyve unto my wife my second best bed.”
• This is unexpected because a reader would expect a wife to be left the best bed.
• This item has romantic connotations.