Discuss How Carol Ann Duffy Makes Effective Use Of Metaphor.

Discuss How Carol Ann Duffy Makes Effective Use Of Metaphor.

In ‘Valentine’, Carol Ann Duffy uses metaphors to illustrate and

attempt to explain the complex subject of love. ‘Valentine’ is a very

poignant, meaningful poem which is on a very personal level with

C.A.D. It seems as if she is drawing on personal experiences.

The general tone of the poem appears to be one of bitterness and

resentment. Forceful comments such as, ‘…Here..’ and ‘…Take it…’

suggest that she still holds hidden anger towards the events from

which she is drawing her memories.

The main metaphor that she uses is of course an onion. She uses an

onion to compare the different aspects of love in a number of ways. In

the first instance of C.A.D’s use of an onion she uses it to compare

the fact that both an onion and love have many layers. She proposes

that this is a huge similarity between the two apparently unrelated

objects.

Secondly, C.A.D uses the onion’s shape and colour to reflect how life

changing love can be. She describes the onion as ‘…a moon wrapped in

brown paper…’ What she means by this is that love can light up your

heart but that it often becomes clouded by other issues and problems-

the brown paper symbolizes the ‘barrier’. In another way, the brown

paper could symbolize boundaries people sometimes erect because they

are scared or cynical.

C.A.D. seems to be cynical about love-all throughout the poem she

seems to want to escape the clichés and what most people would

consider as romance. Perhaps this may be because she has had a bad

experience of love which she has then illustrated through words in her

poem.

Just after this she states ‘…it promises light..’ which means that

C.A.D is suggesting that sometimes a...

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...reak.

In the final stanza, C.A.D writes, ‘…the air tasted of electricity..’

She is referring to the charged atmosphere caused by adolescent

hormones. Obviously the classroom is going to be full of hormones

because of all the children. Another reference to the heavily charged

atmosphere is, ‘…the heavy, sexy sky..’ which just supports the

atmosphere being hormonally charged.

Carol Ann Duffy’s use of metaphors is very effective and

illustrative-it causes readers to form subconscious links between

objects which in reality are apparently unrelated. Without the use of

metaphors, her poems would be entirely different and I am not sure

they would be as flowing or as descriptive. The metaphors are often

the basis upon which C.A.D’s descriptions are built. She uses them to

great effect by blending and layering metaphors with other adjectives

and descriptions.