Technique/idea Key Quotes and analysis
Key themes: What does Memory The speaker mentions the loss of
this poem explore? Loss “department stores”, “homely
Motherhood props”, and “hankies”.
Relationships She then mentions the loss of her
mother “who died not leaving
hankies”, tying her mother with the
previous generation of nostalgia
which is no longer her.
The speaker struggles with the
difficulty of motherhood, she wanted
her “brood” to cling onto
“innocence”, but they have lost it.
The ending of the poem has the
speaker imagining what her mother
would say to her if she were alive,
“this is your material… to do with,
what you will”. This highlights the
accepting nature of the speaker’s
mother.
Language: Any patterns Simile The speaker remembers how her
of language? Poetic Personification mother always carried hankies, “as
techniques? Eg: similes, Repetition if she had a farm up there”. This
metaphors, verbs, etc. Hypallage simile gives rather maternal
Rhetorical question connotations to the mother,
Plosives highlighting her domestic nature.
“Where dried up hankies fell in love
and mated, raising little squares” is
personification for the nature of life.
Birth. Love. Childbirth. Death. It
symbolises how life goes on, even
in this metaphoric ‘hanky’ world.
The repetition of ‘step together’
suggests that the generation
between the speaker and her
mother has fallen out of sync, and
it’s likely that the speaker and her
children will also fall out of sync.
The speaker uses a rhetorical
question to highlight her thoughts
and get the reader to appeal to her
point, why should she carry hankies
like her mother, “when handy packs
are only 50p”.
The speaker alludes to her anger at
herself through the plosives “bought
biscuits I would bake”, the ‘b’ sound
is quite harsh and violent,
highlighting her self-hatred.
Key themes: What does Memory The speaker mentions the loss of
this poem explore? Loss “department stores”, “homely
Motherhood props”, and “hankies”.
Relationships She then mentions the loss of her
mother “who died not leaving
hankies”, tying her mother with the
previous generation of nostalgia
which is no longer her.
The speaker struggles with the
difficulty of motherhood, she wanted
her “brood” to cling onto
“innocence”, but they have lost it.
The ending of the poem has the
speaker imagining what her mother
would say to her if she were alive,
“this is your material… to do with,
what you will”. This highlights the
accepting nature of the speaker’s
mother.
Language: Any patterns Simile The speaker remembers how her
of language? Poetic Personification mother always carried hankies, “as
techniques? Eg: similes, Repetition if she had a farm up there”. This
metaphors, verbs, etc. Hypallage simile gives rather maternal
Rhetorical question connotations to the mother,
Plosives highlighting her domestic nature.
“Where dried up hankies fell in love
and mated, raising little squares” is
personification for the nature of life.
Birth. Love. Childbirth. Death. It
symbolises how life goes on, even
in this metaphoric ‘hanky’ world.
The repetition of ‘step together’
suggests that the generation
between the speaker and her
mother has fallen out of sync, and
it’s likely that the speaker and her
children will also fall out of sync.
The speaker uses a rhetorical
question to highlight her thoughts
and get the reader to appeal to her
point, why should she carry hankies
like her mother, “when handy packs
are only 50p”.
The speaker alludes to her anger at
herself through the plosives “bought
biscuits I would bake”, the ‘b’ sound
is quite harsh and violent,
highlighting her self-hatred.
