Carol Ann Duffy Notes

The poem closes with reminders of oppression, control and confinement. Possibility that was once unfathomable for the dolphins now has limits imposed upon it that provide become impossible to bear. The realisation give probably hasten the creatures death, signalling that there is as oftentimes at position from a psychological perspective as there is from the fleshly circumstances. repress of natural impulse and behaviour can have fatal consequences. The shaping toy is a further reminder of the indignity visited on this majestic creature of the ocean.The artistic style until the whistle blows is potentially ambiguous. In one level it simply refers to the lordly device used by the keeper unless on some other the poet might be reminding us that this flesh of cruelty will hap until somebody exposes it for what it is. Duffy does effectively blow the whistle on much(prenominal) practices. The final line, with its reservoir to our mind, neatly links the plural possessive pro noun with the singular noun mind indicating a collective voice for a species.The tense change to we will draws attention to the oppose between what the dolphins had, what they have now and can expect in the future. As a result, the dolphins assume an almost mythic status in that they appeal to prototypic impulses in us and in constitution they are non simply the creatures who form part of it. The Dolphins may just as easily be read as a poem roughly human disillusion, perfidiousness and loss of direction as it is about animals. As an interpreter of eff it offers us a new nomenclature into which we would do well to scan ourselves.Foreign Duffys preoccupation with language is dealt with here form the perspective of its pagan significance as much as its ability to say whateverthing. To the immigrant, the landed estate to which he or she has moved out of economic necessity will always be foreign but the indigenous population will indirect request them as foreigners. The fa ct that living in a foreign subtlety is something that is not easy to get used to is emphasised in the gap line of the poem. Despite living in a city for twenty years it remains strange.The immigrant is aware of his or her own foreign accent as it sounds to others. The tension of thinking in one language and having to translate into the speech of some other cannot always be sustained and this is sensitively pointed out through the physical detail in the final stanza And in the delicatessen, from time to time, the coins / in your care will not translate. The breakdown in communication in an everyday, exposed transactional situation is intensified through the articulates Inarticulate and point.Duffys empathic feeling for such people is further expressed in her presentation of other actions such as writing home, a way of maintaining contact with others of the homogeneous culture. The local anesthetic dialect in the immigrants head is coupled with the memory of his or her mot her singing. These are elaborate with which any sympathetic person might identify and throw into neat relief the actual experience of seeing racist graffiti sprayed in red (line 12). Duffys use of the simile, Red identical blood to describe the paint is effective because of its syllabic directness of observation.It as well as resonates with a famous and terrible speech disposed by the Conservative politician Enoch Powell who, on 20th April 1968 warned that increased immigration into Britain would result in a river of blood. There is, then, a stark contrast between the uses of language as a sign system of cultural inclusion (stanza 2) and its deliberate use as a weapon of racial exclusion (stanza 3). The hate name of the racists is sprayed on a brick wall the harshness and unyielding nature of which is symbolic of the mentality of those who do such things.The unfamiliar, snowy weather and semisynthetic neon lights create the postage for the immigrant that the country moved to is coming to bits. This ensure of fragmentation is, though, not entirely imaginary as he or she has a life splintered from all that is familiar and constantly experiences a brain of alienation. The italicised words at the close of the poem give voice to the immigrant but this only gives away a difficulty with face. The unfinished verbs, Me not know and It like they only are drawn attention to by Duffy in beau monde that the contributor may ponder what it would be like to face the same language problem.The final words of the poem, Imagine that remind us of the gap and there is quite a clear impression that Duffy is adopting an undisguised didactic stance. As a skilled and empowered user of the English language herself she is drawing attention to the lot of those who are marginalised because of their deficiency in its use. point in time of English The poet is introduced to the class by the Head of English who has very persistent views about what poetry should be. As in Co mprehensive, the school in school principal is a multi-ethnic innovation.It is significant that the teacher should be dismissing the live charr poet because she does not conform to the Keatsean ideal in the teachers mind. She is not dead and she is not male. How anyone with English second language is expected to relate to dead white English men is clearly a challenge laid down in the poem. The five six line stanzas are indicative of a controlled, contained environment, the institution and the teacher are reflected in this. Duffy does not choose to use frost throughout (as the teacher predicted) but reserves some obvious rhymes for the teacher to use.This is a very subtle use of a poetic proficiency to satirise someone who is complaining about its absence from innovative poetry. So, simultaneously, Duffy is using a poetic technique to show that the teacher is wrong about it being absent from modern verse whilst showing that the rhyme, being obvious, is the sort needed by the te acher. The reference to Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) is significant for a number of reasons. His poems do rhyme very regularly, and a number of them are redolent of British imperialism and nationalism in the Victorian period.This is actually grossly offensive in a multicultural context. Winds of change is a wittily ambiguous phrase since it refers to the words of Harold Macmillan, British Prime Minister 1957-63 speaking of political events such as the civil war in the Congo following the granting of independence from Belgium. It also tells us that the teacher is referring to flatulence, as well as reinforcing her own fasten views. Duffy is ironically drawing attention to the fact that Calliope, the Muse and source of afflatus, breath of ingestion for poets is interrupted by an unwelcome allusion to noxious gases.The control possible in adopting a persona in the dramatic monologue is clear. Single word sentences, a hallmark of Duffys verse, work very well in capturing the terse, br utal attitude of the teacher. Still. (stanza 2) Right. (stanza 4) and Well. Really. (stanza 5) show that she is singularly unimpressed by what she has heard. Here, it is what is implied by Duffys scotch use of language that is so effective in building an impression of what this woman is like.The idea of someone being in charge of an English Department who cannot see that it is she who actually has the outside view is worrying. The fact that she devotes a unscathed lesson to assonance also indicates the deadly boring teaching methods she employs. She obviously teaches technique out of context in the same way that she cannot accept modern poetry as belonging to a literary tradition. Like any poor English teacher she views tradition as something strictly to do with an unreachable past.It is striking that it is the silent space between the fifth and ordinal stanzas that the poet has been allowed to read. Despite having encouraged pupils to ask questions after all were paying twos core pounds, the teachers response to the poets reading is telling as she instructs the class to run along. The reader wonders just what insight the teacher has actually gained. Also, her pupils are unlikely to derive much from her teaching. More worrying, though, are the entrenched attitudes of a person who should not be in charge of the most expansive of subjects studied at school.