Originally (DP IB English A: Language and Literature: HL): Revision Note

This study guide to Carol Ann Duffy’s poem ‘Originally’ contains:

• Overview

• Authorial purpose

• Authorial choices and textual features

• Themes

• Connections to other Duffy poems

Overview

• The poem was first published in 1990

• It is about Duffy’s childhood experience of moving with her family from Glasgow, Scotland to Stafford, England: 

  • Duffy describes the family’s journey and her reactions to her new home from a present-day perspective looking back at the past

• She details childhood experiences in the family, classroom and neighbourhood

• The poem moves between past and present perspectives as the speaker reflects on the impact of the childhood experience on her present sense of self

Authorial purpose

• Duffy moved from Scotland to England as a child:

  • She draws on this personal experience to explore the emotional impact of displacement

  • Through the speaker’s memories of migration, Duffy explores how migration can disrupt a child’s sense of belonging and shape their identity

  • It encourages the reader to reflect on how place, language and memory shape who we are

• ‘Originally’ was published in Duffy’s collection The Other Country

  • The collection details literal and metaphorical journeys

  • Like Duffy’s other work, the poem deals with questions of belonging or not

• Writing in 1990s Britain, Duffy draws on recognisably British settings and experiences:

  • Although inspired by personal experiences, the poem also explores universal feelings

  • The details of place and people in the poem reflect typical British childhoods in the late 20th century

  • The poem invites readers to relate to the experience

  • The personal theme about a specific family’s migration becomes a shared theme about the unsettling process of growing up

• Duffy grew up in a working-class family in Thatcher’s Britain:

  • The poem hints at families moving for economic reasons and the ensuing anxiety and stress this causes

  • Thatcher’s policies were generally not popular in Scotland; the poem presents home (Scotland) in a positive light and describes the alienation the child feels in England

Authorial choices and textual features

Form 

• ‘Originally’ is a free verse poem:

  • The lack of a regular rhyme scheme makes the poem feel rambling, like a person’s memories

  • The lack of regular rhythm emphasises the complex emotions and uncertain identity that the speaker is exploring

• The poem has three stanzas with a shifting focus across memory and reflection:

  • The first stanza focuses on the day of leaving, the second and third include details of transformation in the new environment and reflections on that

  • This emphasises the scale of impact childhood experiences have on the adult self

• The poem frequently shifts between past and present tense:

  • This emphasises the impact of past experiences on present identity

Structure

• The speaker repeatedly addresses her child self as another person, ‘you’:

  • This use of a second-person address creates a sense of a split or fraught identity between the past and present self

  • It also inserts the reader into the poet’s experience as the reader becomes the ‘you’ addressed, thus, the personal becomes universal

• Duffy uses contrasting sentence length with caesura and enjambment:

  • Short sentences suggest harsh truths that the unsettled child must face, such as ‘Others are sudden.// Your accent is wrong.’

  • Long sentences suggest complex, layered emotions and a feeling of being lost, such as ‘Corners, which seem familiar,// leading to unimagined pebble-dashed estates, big boys//eating worms and shouting words you don’t understand.’

• Repetition and italicisation of ‘Home’ and ‘our’ create a strong sense of belonging to Scotland:

  • Displacement from this home is traumatic and results in a complex journey of forging identity

  • The connotations of both words expand the meaning from literal houses/places to shared and communal values around identity, nationalism and belonging

Language

• Imagery creates an unsettling impression of the move and the new environment:

  • The migration takes place ‘In a red room’, likely a car or train carriage

  • Red has a connotation of anger and danger; this conveys the speaker’s feelings at the time of the move

  • The child looks to ‘The eyes of a blind toy’ for comfort

  • The toy becomes symbolic of a lack of comfort and reassurance in the face of big change

• Duffy uses metaphor and simile to convey complex and layered emotions and experiences:

  • The metaphor ‘All childhood is emigration’ conveys the universal experience of growing up and the changes that are beyond anyone’s control

  • Duffy extends her poem from the personal experience of her own childhood migration to the universal experience of growing up

• Duffy uses alliteration, sibilance and assonance to create a shifting mood and convey sensations that are otherwise hard to articulate:

  • The soft ‘f’ in ‘Fell through the fields’ emphasises the sensation of slipping and having no control or grip; the reader feels how unsettled and lost the child is

Themes

Identity and transformation

The poem explores how a change in environment can change one’s sense of self. This displacement results in the child longing for the security and familiarity of home, while the speaker struggles to forge a sense of belonging in the new environment. Duffy also suggests that growing up is a similarly transformative experience to emigration, as becoming an adult involves leaving behind one’s childhood identity.

Loss

Duffy explores the losses involved in relocating as a child and in leaving childhood behind. The loss of a familiar home results in the loss of security and comfort, replaced by shame and discomfort. When the speaker reflects on what she (and her family) lost, she concludes that it was more than her homeland or culture: it was a sense of stable identity. 

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.

Perspective

Duffy frequently uses personal perspectives to explore complex emotional experiences that extend beyond the individual speaker or poet. By drawing on her own experiences and presenting events through the perspective of an individual speaker, she allows the reader to access the character’s thoughts and emotions directly. This helps reveal how people interpret moments of change, loss or personal transformation. 

Sources:

‘Originally’ by Carol Ann Duffy (https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/originally/ (opens in a new tab))