“red room”
The metaphor ‘red room’ compares their mode of transport to a red-coloured room, very much a child’s perspective - probably a car.
- Red has connotations of passion or anger, perhaps reflecting her own feelings about being forced to leave the city of her birth and early childhood.
“fell through the fields”
- The metaphor/alliteration fell through the fields, from a child’s point of view, creates the impression of going downhill, perhaps going south and she cannot control it.
“our mother singing our fathers name to the turn of the wheels”
- Mother’s optimistic mood contrasts with the obvious negativity of Duffy
- Ambiguous – is she praying or is the children’s father missing? Or is he there with them?
“My brothers cried… bawling”
(italics)
- The sound images ‘My brothers cried’ and ‘bawling’ create a contrast with their mother’s singing, highlighting the degree of their upset.
- Effective word choice to convey the strength of feeling.
“As the miles rushed back to the city”
Word choice and alliteration - a sense of speed/things happening out of her control, can also be portrayed by personification.
- She wants to go back
“stared.”
“holding its paw.”
- This conveys the insecurity + apprehension of a young child, seeking comfort in a beloved toy; that she ‘stared at the toy suggests her uncertainty and apprehension.
- Symbolic of the situation they are in – heading into the unknown
“All childhood is an emigration”
- The declarative first sentence of the second verse - ‘All childhood is an emigration’ - signals the older persona reflecting on the nature of childhood.
- This involves the progress from one stage to another in the process of maturing.
- The image is both kinetic - she has moved countries - and metaphorical - she is growing up, and her personality, attitudes, emotions, and physical appearance are changing.
“Some are slow, leave you standing, resigned, up an avenue where no one you know stays.”
- The use of contrast indicates the two types of change: some are ‘slow’, an idea reinforced by the long sentence structure.
“Others are sudden. Your accent wrong.”
Then, by contrast, the short abrupt sentences reflect that some changes are abrupt.
- ‘Your accent wrong’ - communication and acceptance are much more complex than merely speaking the same language.
“Corners which seem familiar, leading to unimaginable pebble-dashed estates.”
Her sense of confusion and not belonging is again reinforced.
“parent’s anxieties stirred like a loose tooth in my head.”
- Just as a loose tooth is annoying, as because we can’t help prods it with our tongue, because we are conscious that it is always there, so too her ever-present awareness of her ‘parents’ anxieties’ keeps disturbing her.
“you forget or don’t recall, or change”
- Lists same idea for emphasis of change being difficult to pinpoint/define
“a skelf of shame”
The metaphor suggests that she no longer feels such disgrace or embarrassment at the change in him.
- Scottish dialect is still with her, just like a splinter, something small but it sticks under your skin, just as memories of her former life continue to trouble her.
“my tongue shedding its skin like a snake”
- Simile to convey the idea of change again, leaving the old behind and adapting to suit the new
- Despite these outward signs she has adapted, it is implied that she continues to feel out of place.
- The word choice ‘snake’ has undertones of deception:
- She is betraying her previous identity by accepting her new identity and becoming like the rest.
“Do I only think I lost a river, culture, speech, sense of first space and the right places?
- The question is in the form of a list, asking what it is she has lost.
- Aspects that gave her identity and a sense of self but since the list is in the fort of an unanswered question, she remains uncertain.
“Where do you come from? strangers ask. Originally? And I hesitate.”
- The first question (again in italic font) is from someone who doesn’t know her, but her response in the last line shows her questioning her own sense of identity. further reinforcing her uncertainty.
-Two very different questions – is where you come from the same as your original home? - Final abrupt sentence again emphasises the poet’s uncertainty about her identity and where she belongs
“We”
- Plural pronouns suggest shared experience
“the street, the vacant rooms, where we didn’t live anymore.”
- Use of a list to convey how much has been left behind
“Home, Home”
- The repetition and capitalisation reinforce the misery and overwhelming sense of loss and separation that she associates with this time.
- Enjambment/italics used for emphasis
“I want our own country, I said.”
- It acts almost as a childish lament, perhaps one that was constantly repeated during this upsetting transition and reminds us, like the words ‘big boys’ used earlier, how young Duffy was when this event occurred
- Reminds us again of the autobiographical nature of the poem
- Repeats idea from the opening line, emphasising the idea of belonging / origins
- Italics again used to indicate direct speech
“But”
- Conjunction starts the stanza and indicates a change in the line of thought she meditates on the inevitability of change and adaptation
- The speaker in this stanza is older and more reflective as she considers her own gradual transition.
“you”
- Second person directly exposes the often fragile nature of childhood memory
“swallow a slug”
- Echoes the idea of actions of ‘big boys’ in the previous stanza, showing the brothers now fit in well
- Simple alliteration indicating that this was an easy process for him
“Do I only think I lost”
- Enjambment emphasises sense of uncertainty
- The deliberate inversion of ‘I only’ again emphasises her feelings of isolation and separateness from her family
