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A* GCSE ENGLISH LITERATURE NOTES "Like an Heiress"

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A* GCSE ENGLISH LITERATURE NOTES "Like an Heiress"

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iLike an heiress, drawn to the light of her *simile

eye-catching jewels, Atlantic draws me

to the mirror of my oceanic small-days.

But the beach is deserted except for a lone

wave of rubbish against the seawall - metaphor melds the human

used car tyres, plastic bottles, styrofoam cups world with natural world

rightly tossed back by an ocean's moodswings. personification

Undisturbed, not even by a sea bird,

I stand under the sun's burning treasury

gazing out at the far-out gleam of Atlantic

before heading back like a tourist

to the sanctuary of my hotеl room

to dwell in the air-conditioned coolnеss

on the quickening years and fate of our planet.




This poem explores themes of identity, cultural inheritance, and self-possession. The
poem speaks to the weight and richness of heritage.The poem is a lament for the
planet and the damage being inflicted upon it. Written loosely in the form of a sonnet,
the speaker describes a beach defiled by a metaphoric “wave of rubbish”. By
metaphorically comparing the surge of human rubbish to the natural phenomenon of
a wave has the effect of amalgamating both words thereby conveying how mankind
is intruding on the natural world. It is our inheritance,as inferred by the word
“Heiress” and we are squandering our inheritance.



The speaker’s description of herself as “Undisturbed” in quick succession to the
description of the sea’s “moodswings” emphasises our seeming oblivion to the
destruction that we are wrecking upon the earth. The speaker includes herself in this
equation, showing that we have a collective responsibility to protect our plant. It is
our inheritance, hence the simile “like an heiress” . The speaker is aware of the

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