"When I awoke a brand-new planet had been given a name "- The
new planet is a metaphor for the speaker’s youth and growing awareness.
Birth is associating with waking – importance of the beginning of
consciousness and awareness. There is a note of naivety in this: The
planet wasn’t new but had just been discovered. Sudden, abrupt opening
reflects disarming nature of dementia-begins in past tense- nostalgia
takes precedence over reality. Symbolically the planet Pluto, being the
furthest known planet at that point in time, represents the remote and
unreachable nature of the past and the man’s sense of isolation in a very
painful and unsettling present.
"this Home...it has the same soap suddenly"-capitalised ‘home’
implies they are in a care home-institution, may also echo the importance
the persona places on the feeling of home and the memories of it that
he's struggling to hold onto. The "same soap suddenly" with its rhythmic
sibilance is a parallel to the discovery of the planet: the old man becomes
suddenly aware of its existence. AI= alliteration creates a sort of stutter-
difficulties with cognitions. Synaesthesia is also used with "soap" as a sort
of memory trigger for the persona-olfactory sense/imagery has a very
powerful effect on our memory recall and retrieval - to show that he is too
weak to recall these memories on his own.
“I’m thinking Pluto, Pluto, Pluto, thrilled, beside myself”- ecstatic
excitement-childlike triadic repetition, or AI=struggling to recall as a result
of mental illness, holds onto name like an incantation, designed to
summon the day to his mind.
“Beside myself”- syntactic ambiguity/polysemy-Typically, this phrase is
associated with extreme emotions, both positive and negative, as if we
are having an 'out of body experience'. Here, there is also the suggestion
that the man's past and present selves coexist –divided dual sense of self
(adult and adolescent). Physically beside his younger self, who seems to
present with him. He is lost in reverie (state of having pleasant dream-like
thoughts) as he reminisces on this memory but is interrupted when he
sees his reflection-‘beside myself’ can also mean uncontrollable upset-
outsider to happiness.
"And then I notice things...brown coins of age on my face the size
of ha’pennies...an hourglass weeping the future into the past"-
explicit reference to the structural mixing of past and present tense
throughout the poem-sharp juxtapositions (influence of modernist
techniques on Duffy’s poetry) =persona’s disorientation (mimetic of
cognitive issues). Personification: creates the sense of the persona's
confusion as a result of old age/mental illness -possibly dementia.
Hourglass imagery poignantly summarises the predicament of all human
beings and the way they are defined by time and are victims of its
unceasing passage. The upper portion of the hourglass represents time
which has not yet passed and, as such, is a potential future indicator of
the passage of time, soon to become the past. Apt metaphor for the
persona's frustration at their inability to turn back in time- no matter what
new planet is a metaphor for the speaker’s youth and growing awareness.
Birth is associating with waking – importance of the beginning of
consciousness and awareness. There is a note of naivety in this: The
planet wasn’t new but had just been discovered. Sudden, abrupt opening
reflects disarming nature of dementia-begins in past tense- nostalgia
takes precedence over reality. Symbolically the planet Pluto, being the
furthest known planet at that point in time, represents the remote and
unreachable nature of the past and the man’s sense of isolation in a very
painful and unsettling present.
"this Home...it has the same soap suddenly"-capitalised ‘home’
implies they are in a care home-institution, may also echo the importance
the persona places on the feeling of home and the memories of it that
he's struggling to hold onto. The "same soap suddenly" with its rhythmic
sibilance is a parallel to the discovery of the planet: the old man becomes
suddenly aware of its existence. AI= alliteration creates a sort of stutter-
difficulties with cognitions. Synaesthesia is also used with "soap" as a sort
of memory trigger for the persona-olfactory sense/imagery has a very
powerful effect on our memory recall and retrieval - to show that he is too
weak to recall these memories on his own.
“I’m thinking Pluto, Pluto, Pluto, thrilled, beside myself”- ecstatic
excitement-childlike triadic repetition, or AI=struggling to recall as a result
of mental illness, holds onto name like an incantation, designed to
summon the day to his mind.
“Beside myself”- syntactic ambiguity/polysemy-Typically, this phrase is
associated with extreme emotions, both positive and negative, as if we
are having an 'out of body experience'. Here, there is also the suggestion
that the man's past and present selves coexist –divided dual sense of self
(adult and adolescent). Physically beside his younger self, who seems to
present with him. He is lost in reverie (state of having pleasant dream-like
thoughts) as he reminisces on this memory but is interrupted when he
sees his reflection-‘beside myself’ can also mean uncontrollable upset-
outsider to happiness.
"And then I notice things...brown coins of age on my face the size
of ha’pennies...an hourglass weeping the future into the past"-
explicit reference to the structural mixing of past and present tense
throughout the poem-sharp juxtapositions (influence of modernist
techniques on Duffy’s poetry) =persona’s disorientation (mimetic of
cognitive issues). Personification: creates the sense of the persona's
confusion as a result of old age/mental illness -possibly dementia.
Hourglass imagery poignantly summarises the predicament of all human
beings and the way they are defined by time and are victims of its
unceasing passage. The upper portion of the hourglass represents time
which has not yet passed and, as such, is a potential future indicator of
the passage of time, soon to become the past. Apt metaphor for the
persona's frustration at their inability to turn back in time- no matter what
