Family relationships
In this essay, I will be comparing ang contrasting the faimly relationships in the poems 'The Way My Mother Speaks' by Carol Ann Duffy and 'Sorting through' by Liz Lochhead.
In Duffy's poem 'The Way My Mother Speaks' or WMMS, it has a very peaceful and nostalgic mood as Duffy is looking back at some of the words that her Mother has spoken too her "The day and ever" and repeats it in her head or repeating the words under her breath, this use of repetition shows the link between Mother and Daughter, and the respect she has for her mother, not wanting to for get her words. While in Lochhead's 'Sorting through' or ST, starts off with a upbeat and happy mood as Lochhead imagines her Mother's past, as she wore bright colourful dance dresses and sliver shoes"turned from colours they really were to colours I imagine them to be." this shows how much she loved her Mother, the fact that she sees her Mother dressing in fancy clothes, and how beauitful she looked in them. But toward the second half the mood becomes depressing. "I manhandle whole outfits into bin-bags for Oxfam" now that she has to send off the clothes to charity, she feels sad that she has to get ride of all these outfits that her mother owned, because they are part of how she remembers her Mother "the saddness of dispossessed dresses".
Duffy writes about how taking a train home from her Mother is 'slow' this shows that she is already begining to miss her, every second becomes boring and tedious, as the sky turns from 'Blue' too 'Cool grey' it shows the mixture of emotions she is feeling about leaving her Mother's home to go back to her own, , "Only tonight I am happy and sad like a child" having seen her Mother, her child side wants to stay near her Mother, but her adult side knows that she needs to go back to her own child. "Nothing is silent. Nothing is not silent." This line is Ironic