Key Quotes & Comparisons
English Lit: AQA GCSE Poetry - Love & Relationships, topic 12.1.3
Key Quotes in Before You Were Mine
Here are some examples of key quotes in Carol Ann Duffy's Before You Were Mine:
‘That glamorous love lasts...'
- ‘That glamorous love lasts / where you sparkle and waltz and laugh before you were mine’.
- This shows the glamour of her mother's life as imagined by the narrator.
- This also shows the narrator's desire to possess even the memories of the past ('before you were mine').
‘The decade ahead...'
- ‘The decade ahead of my loud, possessive yell was the best one eh?’
- In this poem, the poet suggests that motherhood can be a burden, especially compared to the excitement of life before the 'loud, possessive yell' of a child takes over.
Key Comparisons: Before You Were Mine
Here are some suggestions for poems you could compare Before You Were Mine to. Remember, there are endless options!
Mother, Any Distance/Walking Away
- Compare:
- Distanced family relationships.
- Looking to the past.
Eden Rock
- Compare:
- Distorted presentation of the parents and the past.
- Both poems use an amalgamation (mix) of memories and imagined scenes.
Test yourself on Key Quotes & Comparisons
Which poem, other than Before You Were Mine, gives a distorted image of the past?