Before You Were Mine - Carol Ann Duffy (Born 1955)

English Lit: AQA GCSE Poetry - Love & Relationships, topic 17.1.12

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...'

  • ‘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...'

  • ‘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.

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