poetry compare and contrast
... is similar to the love they give, it can be amazing but yet it can also be bitter, painful and can cause heartache. Duffy indicates that a true love that is passionate is very hard to forget and will remain in the memory of the lovers possibly for a long time after the relationship has ended, just like the lasting and overpowering scent and taste of an onion. Duffy says, ‘Its fierce kiss will stay on your lips Possessive and faithful’ Duffy draws comparisons between the rings of an onion and a wedding ring. ‘Platinum rings shrink to a wedding ring If you like’ The fact that the lover says ‘if you like’ puts forward the idea that there is a proposal of marriage. The poem doesn’t indicate the sex and this could mean it is the woman asking the man, this shows that women are more independent now than in the twentieth century, they are more independent and have more freedom to do as they wish. The poem ends with a warning that perhaps love itself can be deadly, ‘Lethal Its scent will cling to your fingers Cling to your knife’ Here the implication is that perhaps after a marriage breaks up, after a divorce or separation, the couple will remember it, it leaves a mark in their memory just like the onion leaves its scent on the knife used to chop it. The poem is written in free verse, which means that there is no obvious rhyme scheme or fixed rhythm. The word ‘not’ is the first word used in the poem: this is emphatic. Duffy adds impact to her point by repeating the structure of the lines, using single line verses repeatedly for emphasis. She uses short lines to emphasise her plea, ‘If you like’ She is very cautious in choosing words and phrases that create images to express exactly how the lover feels. The start of the poem conveys the positive characteristics of love. As the poem progresses there is more of a focus on the strength and on the power of a relationship. She uses words such as ‘fierce’, ‘possessive’ and, ’faithful’. All these words are meaningful and suggest strength in a relationship. Yet, she is also using other words such as ‘blind’, ‘tears’ and ‘wobbling photo of grief’. These words suggest the sorrow and heartache that also is involved in a relationship based on ‘true’ love. Rapunstiltskin, written by university lecturer is a post twentieth century poem, much like the poem Valentine, by Carol Ann Duffy. The poem starts with an ‘&’ symbol which suggests to the reader that they are in the middle if a story. The poem is about a ‘maiden’, who is initially waiting to be rescued by a prince, ‘Along came This Prince With absolutely All the wrong answers’ Liz Lochhead however does not inform you of the questions that the Prince has ‘all the wrong answers’ to, signifying that the Prince himself does not know them himself and is unsure of whom he is. Superficially the poem is about ‘This Prince’ rescuing ‘our maiden’ from her tower. The tower could be symbolic for her being trapped and for her isolation. When it comes to the end of the poem the maiden ‘screamed, cut off her hair’. The Prince responds to this by saying, ‘Why, you’re beautiful?’ The fact that this is a question suggests that the maiden was the more dominant partner of the relationship, thus showing the changes in women’s roles in the twentieth century. Whereas in the poem Valentine both partners seem to be equally dominant as there is no indication of the sex of either partner, even though in Rapunstiltskin the Prince would be ‘Shimmying in an out Every other day as though He owned the place, bringing her The sex manuals and skeins of silk’ The reality of the Prince bringing the maiden sex manuals suggests that he would be expecting her to be there to tend to his every need. The poem then continues to say ‘…Skeins of silk From which she was meant, to eventually To weave her own escape’ This shows that now the Prince is perhaps not al that he seems, as he is meant to be rescuing her but instead he is bringing her things so as she can rescue herself showing that the roles of women have become more independent and do not need a man to provide for them and protect them. The maiden then feels that she has had enough of the Prince and cannot cope any longer, ‘She shrieked and stamped her foot so Hard that it sank six cubits through the floorboards “I love you?”...