Technique/idea Key Quotes and analysis
Key themes: What does Family relationships The poem details the relationship
this poem explore? Old age and illness between a son and his mother. The
Regret mother used to cook as it was
‘giving love the only way she knew’.
The speaker’s mother is quite ill,
possibly mentally, having poured
‘drink after drink’ and was admitted
into a ‘psychiatric ward’.
Regret is a feeling that both the
mother feels towards her husband
‘only now he was dead’, did she put
on her ring, whereas the son feels
regret toward his mother who’d
‘disdain’ at her love of soap operas.
Language: Any patterns Symbolism The mother’s hand ‘that was always
of language? Poetic Metaphor scarred’ is symbolic of the sacrifices
techniques? Eg: similes, Alliterative consonants and love that she put into her family.
metaphors, verbs, etc. Quotation marks ‘The knives that lay in wait’ is
Oxymoron metaphoric for the pain and
Hand imagery ungratefulness that offspring inflict
onto their parents.
Alliterative ‘r’ consonants of
‘knuckles reddened, rough’
highlights the amount of pain the
mother has been through to show
up for her family.
There is a sense of ingratitude from
the speaker’s younger self with the
quotation marks around ‘abroad’,
creating a sense of sarcasm and
dissatisfaction that the ‘holiday’ was
not what he wanted.
Oxymoronic ‘stared unseeing’
symbolises the mother’s mental
state, she is in another world
mentally.
The repeated use of hand imagery,
at the start, ‘I held her hand’ and
later on, ‘blotched and crinkled
hand’ highlight the closeness
between the mother and son. In
addition the ‘gold strap’ watch on
her wrist was later replaced by a
‘thick rubber band’, symbolising her
rather tragic decline from
sophistication to illness, which the
speaker is upset about.
Ideas: What is the poem The poem is about the In the ambiguous opening the
Key themes: What does Family relationships The poem details the relationship
this poem explore? Old age and illness between a son and his mother. The
Regret mother used to cook as it was
‘giving love the only way she knew’.
The speaker’s mother is quite ill,
possibly mentally, having poured
‘drink after drink’ and was admitted
into a ‘psychiatric ward’.
Regret is a feeling that both the
mother feels towards her husband
‘only now he was dead’, did she put
on her ring, whereas the son feels
regret toward his mother who’d
‘disdain’ at her love of soap operas.
Language: Any patterns Symbolism The mother’s hand ‘that was always
of language? Poetic Metaphor scarred’ is symbolic of the sacrifices
techniques? Eg: similes, Alliterative consonants and love that she put into her family.
metaphors, verbs, etc. Quotation marks ‘The knives that lay in wait’ is
Oxymoron metaphoric for the pain and
Hand imagery ungratefulness that offspring inflict
onto their parents.
Alliterative ‘r’ consonants of
‘knuckles reddened, rough’
highlights the amount of pain the
mother has been through to show
up for her family.
There is a sense of ingratitude from
the speaker’s younger self with the
quotation marks around ‘abroad’,
creating a sense of sarcasm and
dissatisfaction that the ‘holiday’ was
not what he wanted.
Oxymoronic ‘stared unseeing’
symbolises the mother’s mental
state, she is in another world
mentally.
The repeated use of hand imagery,
at the start, ‘I held her hand’ and
later on, ‘blotched and crinkled
hand’ highlight the closeness
between the mother and son. In
addition the ‘gold strap’ watch on
her wrist was later replaced by a
‘thick rubber band’, symbolising her
rather tragic decline from
sophistication to illness, which the
speaker is upset about.
Ideas: What is the poem The poem is about the In the ambiguous opening the
