Before You Were Mine (DP IB English A: Language and Literature: HL): Revision Note
This study guide to Carol Ann Duffy’s poem ‘Before You Were Mine’ contains:
Overview
Authorial purpose
Authorial choices and textual features
Themes
Connections to other Duffy poems
Overview
The poem was first published in 1993
It is about Duffy imagining her mother before she was her mother:
Duffy explained that she found a photo of her mother as a young woman, and the photo inspired the poem
She imagines the carefree young woman before motherhood constrained her
She details carefree moments, friendships and romances juxtaposed with adult responsibilities
The poem explores the love between Duffy, as an adult woman, and the woman her mother was before she was born and who she is now
Authorial purpose
Duffy’s work often gives a voice to women previously unheard:
Here, she reminds the reader that our mothers had lives before they became mothers
Duffy often imbues the past with a sense of wonder:
In the poem, there is nostalgia for the young, carefree time pre-motherhood
Writing in 1990s Britain, Duffy draws on settings and experiences that are familiar to her readers:
Although inspired by personal experiences, the poem also explores universal feelings
The details of her mother’s youth in the names of places and friends make the poem personal and immediate
However, many details would be familiar to a British reader of Duffy’s generation
The emotions explored in the poem transcend context
Authorial choices and textual features
Form
‘Before You Were Mine’ is a free verse poem:
The lack of a regular rhyme scheme makes the poem feel conversational and personal
The poem has four stanzas, each of five lines
The title is repeated in the second stanza and again in the last line
The poem is an apostrophe: an address from the speaker to her mother
Structure
The title suggests a romantic love poem:
But the love is a complex one that moves from the present to a partly-imagined, partly-real past between the speaker and her mother before the speaker was born
Each of the four stanzas offers a snapshot of the mother’s life:
The first is on a street corner with friends
The second is at a dance
The third is with a young child
The fourth is walking with the child
Time is fluid in the poem as we move from the present to the near past and the more distant past
Duffy uses contrasting sentence length with caesura and enjambment:
Enjambment makes the poem flow smoothly and quickly, like the unnoticed passing of time: ‘I’m ten years away from the corner you laugh on//with your pals’
Caesure emphasises moments of truth: ‘Your polka-dot dress blows round your legs. Marilyn.’
Language
Sensory imagery conveys the energy and beauty of the young woman:
The energetic imagery of ‘fizzy’, ‘shriek’, ‘sparkle’ and ‘waltz’ imbues the poem with joy
But the contrasting imagery of ‘relics’, ‘ghost’ and ‘clatter’ adds a tone of regret
Proper nouns locate the poem in the mother’s lived reality:
This makes the poem autobiographical and a personal dedication to Duffy’s mother
The colour red is often symbolic in Duffy’s poetry:
Red has a connotation of passion, sensuality, danger and blood
Here, the red shoes convey the woman’s youthful energy and vivacity before they become ‘relics’
Duffy uses alliteration and assonance to link versions of the poem’s subject in the reader’s mind:
‘On the way home from Mass//stamping stars’ merges the fun-loving young woman with the mother in the present
‘The thought of me…with the thousand eyes’ links the beautiful dancer with the future mother
The language is colloquial:
The poem feels conversational and intimate
The use of terms of endearment, shortened words, exclamations and rhetorical questions makes the poem feel loving and familiar
Examiner Tips and Tricks
When analysing structure, avoid simply identifying the shift between past and present. Strong responses explain how the movement between the glamorous pre-motherhood past and the domestic present highlights a sense of loss, positioning the speaker’s existence as both an act of love and a form of displacement.
Themes
Complex womanhood
Duffy’s work broadly is concerned with the complexity of womanhood. She resists notions of a singular, static identity and celebrates the plurality of the self. In ‘Before You Were Mine’, she applies these ideas to her own mother. She reminds the reader that motherhood is one aspect of the women we know as our mothers, and she celebrates the complex beauty and vivacity that these women hold.
Theme | Quotation | Analysis and interpretation |
Complex womanhood | ‘I’m ten years away from the corner you laugh on// with your pals, Maggie McGeeney and Jean Duff.’ |
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‘Your polka-dot dress blows round your legs. Marilyn.’ |
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‘I’m not here yet. The thought of me doesn’t occur// in the ballroom with the thousand eyes, the fizzy, movie tomorrows// the right walk home could bring.’ |
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‘Before you were mine, your Ma stands at the close//with a hiding for the late one. You reckon it’s worth it.’ |
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‘The decade ahead of my loud, possessive yell was the best one, eh?// I remember my hands in those high-heeled red shoes, relics’ |
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‘That glamorous love lasts// where you sparkle and waltz and laugh before you were mine’ |
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The passage of time
Duffy explores the inevitable passing of time and expresses nostalgia for the past. Memory and engagement with the past influence present-day identities, and her poetry reminds the reader not to allow the passage of time to erase core parts of the self.
Theme | Quotation | Analysis and interpretation |
Passage of time | ‘I’m ten years away…I’m not here yet’... ‘The decade ahead of’ |
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‘The three of you bend from the waist, holding//each other, or your knees, and shriek at the pavement’ Vs ‘relics, // and now your ghost clatters toward me’ |
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‘Before you were mine, your Ma stands at the close//with a hiding for the late one. You reckon it’s worth it.’ |
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‘Cha cha cha! You’d teach me the steps on the way home from Mass,//stamping stars from the wrong pavement.’ |
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‘Even then // I wanted the bold girl winking in Portobello,’ |
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‘That glamorous love lasts//where you sparkle and waltz and laugh before you were mine’ |
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Connections to other Duffy poems
When studying Duffy’s poetry, it is important to make connections across her work, as many poems explore similar ideas through different speakers and situations.
Representation
Duffy frequently aims to represent the truth of the female experience. In this poem, she strives to represent the complexity of her mother and of all mothers by reminding us of their lives and identities before they were mothers. She explores how motherhood means responsibility and care replace freedom and silliness, but also how joy and beauty are ever-present across generations of women.
‘Warming her Pearls’ | ‘Standing Female Nude’ | ‘Demeter’ |
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Sources:
‘Before You Were Mine’ by Carol Ann Duffy (https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/before-you-were-mine/ (opens in a new tab))
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