AQA Literature Poems: Higher Tier
Poem / Poet
Conceptual Response
‘Havisham’
“Duffy’s agenda in much of
her work…”
Carol Ann Duffy
‘Anne Hathaway’
Carol Ann Duffy
“Duffy’s agenda in much of
her work…”
General Comment on
Meaning
Produces a recreation of
Charles Dickens’ jilted
‘spinster’, Miss Havisham,
to critique the institution
of marriage
Critiques the ways in which
women’s perceptions or
experiences have
historically been
circumscribed – or ‘written’
- by men and patriarchal
society.
Paragraph One
Paragraph Two
Concluding Sentence
Oxymoron – “Beloved…”
suggests her
confusion and further
suggests that her fractured
mind is fragile; she is
unable to distinguish
between love and hate
Likewise, the participle,
‘yellowing,’ is used to show
that her white wedding dress
– a symbol of virginal purity
– is slowly decaying in her
wardrobe, as she dwells
upon her wedding day.
In addition, the metaphor
suggested by the verb
‘cawing’ demonstrates the
dehumanising effect of her
being jilted at the altar;
Duffy indicates, then, that if
a woman fails to conform to
the expectations of a
patriarchal society, she is
perceived as being less than
fully human.
Duffy has used the lexis of
colour to again critique the
institution of marriage,
wherein a bride must
demonstrate that she meets
her husband’s expectations
regarding her purity.
Throughout this poem
Duffy has attempted to
analyse the way in which
marriage – and by
extension other aspects of
a patriarchal society – can
mould perceptions of
women and the dreadful
consequences that may
result. By recreating such a
disturbing yet sympathetic
character as Miss Havisham,
Duffy’s critique is highly
successful.
‘Fantasy’
‘Fantasist’
Lexical field of fantasy and
romance – the “bed we
loved in was a spinning
world / of forests, castles,
torchlight, clifftops, seas /
where he would dive for
Metaphor – “my body now
a softer rhyme to his, now
echo, assonance; his touch /
a verb dancing in the centre
of a noun” – Hathaway
describes Shakespeare’s
Throughout this poem
Duffy has tried to inform
women that they should
live their own life for who
they really are, rather
than being circumscribed
by a patriarchal society.
The fact that Shakespeare
AQA Literature Poems: Higher Tier
pearls”.
Sensual metaphor of a
“Romance /and drama
played by touch, by scent,
by taste”
‘Before You Were
Mine’
Carol An Duffy
“Duffy’s agenda in much of
her work…”
Inhabits the voice of a
daughter who feels
responsible for taking away
her mother’s youthfulness,
femininity, and glamour
simply by being born – to
critique the institution of
the mother-daughter
bond.
Structured like a series of
snapshots from the different
stages of the narrator’s
mother’s life.
In the first stanza, the
“polka-dot dresses”
symbolise her youthfulness,
femininity and glamour, as
does the paratactic sentence,
“Marilyn”, with its link to
Marilyn Monroe. Even this
suggests tragedy, however,
as the reader will be aware
that, though this iconic
figure connotes beauty,
Marilyn’s glamour was
ultimately her downfall, as
she became caught up in the
destructive world of
celebrity and excess.
lovemaking in a way that
echoes his legendary skills
as a writer.
Feminist perspective: he has
circumscribed her
identity.
died in 1616 but the poem
was written in 1999 shows
that this issue has been
ongoing and Carol Ann
Duffy ‘s attempt to resolve
it remains a significant
project.
AQA Literature Poems: Higher Tier
‘Stealing’
Carol Ann Duffy
‘Mother, any
distance…’
Simon Armitage
Duffy’s agenda in much of
her work, including The
World’s Wife and Feminine
Gospels, is to critique the
ways in which women’s
identities are formed in
society.
However, in ‘Stealing’, it
is not the plight of women
that concerns the poet, but
the way in which society
deals with marginalised,
outsider figures.
Simon Armitage’s poetry,
by contrast, often explores
and critiques the fine details
of human relationships as
they change and develop
through our lives.
For example in “mother any
distance” Armitage uses a
variety of poetic techniques
to present a son who is
moving away from his
mother, to explore the
separation anxiety often
In the first instance, Duffy
uses a metaphor and internal
rhyme to show that her
monologist is insecure and
cold minded. She feels she
is only worth with someone
on the same level as her:
someone ‘cold’ and
unfeeling, like a snowman.
The narrator describes an
embrace with the snowman.
She is not looking for
warmth unlike “normal”
people who would. The fact
that she wants to be with
someone whose “torso [is]
frozen stiff” – and is
therefore emotionally numb
- shows her insecurity, and
her desire to feel “a fierce
chill piercing [her] gut”
might suggest a tendency
towards self-harm, perhaps
stemming from problems in
her past relationships.
In the first stanza the
metaphor “a second pair of
hands” has two meanings to
it. The first being the literal
meaning of that, when
measuring distances larger
than the span of one
Duffy’s syntactic choice
here – using a paratactic
sentence for the phrase
“life’s tough” – might make
the reader consider what has
made the narrator believe
this: while the narrator
intends to give the children
a tough life-lesson, the
reader is left to question
what has been so “tough” in
the narrator’s life to make
her act this way. The fourth
stanza again reiterates the
sense of her coldness - she
is “standing alone amongst
lumps of snow”, her
sociopathy – she is “sick of
the world” – and her violent
tendencies – she “booted the
snowman repeatedly.
The paratactic sentences
like “again” show that her
state of mind is confused
and incoherent. Duffy may
have ended this poem like
this as she wants reader
and people in society to
take a look at why people
may commit crimes.
Rather than looking at the
consequences they should
look at the root causes of
social exclusion. Her
suggestion seems to be that
if society were to provide
something constructive perhaps artistic - as a
means to redirect and
channel young people's
energies, many later
problems such as criminal
activity could be avoided.
The sentence “You at the
zero-end, me with the spool
of tape” has been used to
represent his relationship
with his mother. However
the fact that she is holding
the “zero” shows that she is
The most powerful image,
though, is the twin
metaphor of the “anchor”
and “kite”, which has been
used to show that no matter
what, you need a
counterweight. Just as a kite
AQA Literature Poems: Higher Tier
experienced at this stage of
a mother and son
relationship.
person’s arms, you need the
help of another. The second
being metaphorical,
Armitage is suggesting that,
in moments when life is
testing or ‘measuring’ you
or when you are
encountering unknown
realms of life, you will
always need someone
alongside you.
In addition Armitage
describes his room to be
metaphorically as big as
“acres” and “prairies” to
show that while he has
moved on and is free to
explore, the vastness of the
venture is somewhat
daunting.
‘Kid’
Simon Armitage
‘Homecoming’
Simon Armitage
Simon Armitage’s poetry,
by contrast, often explores
and critiques the fine details
of human relationships as
they change and develop
through our lives.
Simon Armitage’s poetry,
by contrast, often explores
and critiques the fine details
of human relationships as
they change and develop
The complex poem
‘Homecoming’, for
example, starts with two
conflicting images: a trust
exercise and the soiling of a
Just as in [Havisham,
Sonnet 130, The
Laboratory, Stealing,
depending on which ones
you’ve written about],
not going to be moving but
he is. This then could
connote him moving on in
life and show he is
gradually gaining
independence. Also her
holding the “zero” shows
that she will always be the
origin of him, to which he
will always be connected.
The “spool of tape” is like
an umbilical cord that,
ultimately, must be cut if he
is to live his own life.
needs an anchor if it is not
to merely float away, an
anchor needs something to
anchor: as such the parentchild relationship is
symbiotic and mutually
beneficial.
The metaphor of the “call
box” can be explained as the
narrator telling her that,
even though she had no one
to call – in other words to
To conclude, Armitage’s
subtle use of contrasting
metaphors, complex time
structures, and a reflective
tone makes this one of the
AQA Literature Poems: Higher Tier
‘Hitcher’
Simon Armitage
through our lives.
“canary-yellow jacket”.
Mother gets angry with the
daughter for getting her
jacket dirty. This suggests
that their relationship is
lacking trust. They have a
feud, child gets angry and
shouts back at her mother.
The metaphor at the end of
the poem describes a man –
the narrator - who has
“caught” her and is now her
“jacket”. This has been done
to show that she now has a
person that she can trust and
rely on.
As in several other poems in
the Anthology, Simon
Armitage dramatises the
ways in which people often
attempt to resolve their
internal conflict through
violence inflicted on others.
In particular, ‘Hitcher’ is a
critique of the
commodified world and the
way in which it enslaves
people to the notion that the
only way to get ahead is
through aggression, and the
best way to resolve conflict
is through violence.
Armitage uses colour
imagery to explore a range
of conflicting emotions.
The colour of the “canaryyellow cotton jacket”, for
instance, symbolises
fragility and innocence; just
as it becomes “blackened”
by the incident at school, so
the girl’s relationship with
her family is blackened” by
the loss of trust her parents
show. Armitage also uses
primary colours – “You
seeing red. Blue murder.
Bed.” – to demonstrate how
primal and how vivid are
the emotions that flow in
her childhood household.
For example the adjective
“tired” in Armitage’s
description of the narrator as
“tired, under the weather” is
used to describe the
consequences of working
long hours in an anonymous
office job. Armitage also
used the brand name
“ansaphone” to emphasise
the narrator’s enclosure
within an increasingly
commodified society; this
trust – when she was young,
she can now “call upon”
him in her adult life. He will
be there to “catch” her, and
embrace her with the
warmth of the canaryyellow jacket.
most moving and affecting
poems in the Anthology.
Also the paratactic
sentence “fired” is used to
show the bluntness with
which people are treated in
a commodified world. The
first stanza is juxtaposed
with the second in the way
that it makes readers aware
that “the truth [is] blowin’
in the wind”: the fact that
Armitage has used a
sentence like this creates a
link with Bob Dylan’s song
The narrator is aware of the
difference between these
two lifestyles. He responds
with violence, hitting him
with a “krooklok” - another
representative of the
commodified world, which
has forced this man to
become a pressurised and
violent person. That he
looks in a metaphorical
“mirror” reinforces
Armitage’s powerfully
AQA Literature Poems: Higher Tier
‘My Last Duchess’
Robert Browning
Robert Browning’s ‘My
Last Duchess’, on the other
hand, constitutes a critique
of both the abuses of
power he saw in
aristocratic nineteenth
century society, and also
the patriarchal structures
therein.
Browning’s dramatic
monologues are especially
highly regarded for the way
in which their ‘true’
meaning is contrary to the
explicit testimony of his
monologists. He often uses
techniques of language,
metre, and syntax in order to
develop a two-level system
of the implicit and the
explicit.
machine, a representative of
the commercial world, is
personified with the harsh
verb “screaming” to show
the pressure he is under.
and the protest movement in
general, suggesting the
possibility of a life beyond
the commodified world the
narrator lives in.
made point that we need to
‘reflect’ on our own lives
before criticising the lives of
others.
For instance, in ‘My Last
Duchess’, disjunctures in
the iambic pentameter
often coincide with
apertures into the mind of
the murderous, controlling
Duke. The lexical stress of
the word ‘Looking’ is
trochaic, which conflicts
with the underlying iambic
pentameter suggested by the
syntactical stress pattern of
the first line. The effect of
this is to emphasise this
word and establish quickly
and implicitly that the
Duchess is dead and so to
begin an exploration of the
theme of appearances.
Later in the poem, the
Duke’s jealousy is
encapsulated in his
suspicions that her “looks
went everywhere”, while he
believes that appearances –
his Royal name in particular
– ought to mean everything.
The Duke, having bestowed
on her a “gift of a ninehundred-years-old name”,
refuses to “stoop” to the
level of criticising her
seemingly flirtatious
behaviour and, in choosing
“never to stoop”, has her
killed: “this grew; I gave
commands; / Then all smiles
topped together”. Browning
incorporates this
revelation at the implicit
level, using paratactic
sentences to suggest the
summary judgement of the
Duke’s rage – opposing the
seeming length of “this
This gives another
dimension to the ways in
which the poets in the
anthology engage with ideas
of [women in society /
violent behaviour /
interpersonal relationships /
whatever else the question
asks for]: in this case,
Browning has brought in
the idea of how class
structures can affect
[women in society / violent
behaviour / interpersonal
relationships / whatever else
the question asks for] and
ought therefore to be
challenged at a political
level.
AQA Literature Poems: Higher Tier
grew” – and the force of his
action.
‘The Laboratory’
Robert Browning
Robert Browning’s ‘The
Laboratory’, on the other
hand, constitutes a critique
of both the abuses of
power he saw in
aristocratic nineteenth
century society, and also
how the patriarchal
structures therein affect
the mental state of women.
At various stages
throughout the poem,
Browning uses variations
around a dactylic trimeter
to emphasise certain ideas.
For example, in the second
stanza, the thought process
of the monologist – an
aristocratic woman who
feels she has been betrayed
by her lover - is captured in
the line “He is with her, and
they know that I know”.
The stresses fall on the
pronouns “he” and “her”,
and the repeated verb
“know”: the effect of this is
to draw attention to the
narrator’s obsession with
her former lover, his
supposed mistress, and her
own knowledge of this
relationship.
Her obsession with the
couple is matched by her
glamorisation of the process
through which the poison is
being made, and Browning
again uses the metre to
show this in the line “Grind
away, moisten and mash up
thy paste”, in which verbs
associated with the
semantic field of the
“devil’s smithy” are
stressed.
However, when in the sixth
stanza, the monologist turns
to the detail of her rival’s
death, she relishes each
body part that will die one
by one; Browning
emphasises the
gruesomeness of this mental
state by changing the stress
pattern to anapaestic
tetrameter, with stress
falling on the body parts
and the word “death”:
“And her breast and her
This glamorisation, as in
[whichever other poems
you’ve mentioned colour
in], is encapsulated in
colour imagery: before its
creation, the monologist
reflects upon the beauty of
the “gold oozing” and
“exquisite blue” of the
poison as she imagines it.
She is ultimately
disappointed, however, by
how “grim” the potion is in
reality: she wishes for this
moment to be “brighter” and
her revenge to be sweet and
“enticing”.
Browning’s critique, centred
on what he saw as the
abuses of power of the
aristocratic class of his age,
is contained in the image of
“carry[ing] pure death in an
earring, a casket, / A signet,
a fan-mount, a filigree
basket!” The narrator’s
sense of her own wealth and
power are conflated in this
image, as she combines
ideas of glamour, symbols
of wealth, and her freedom,
as she sees it, to commit
murder. This might be
compared with [whichever
of Hitcher, Havisham, My
Last Duchess you have
written about], in the sense
that the poet is exploring the
relationship between
violence and power
structures in society.
AQA Literature Poems: Higher Tier
arms and her hands, should
drop dead”.
‘Sonnet 130’
William
Shakespeare
As the most celebrated
exponent of the sonnet,
Shakespeare is synonymous
with this form of love
poetry. Nevertheless, in
Sonnet 130, he subverts the
conventions of the sonnet
form, including the
traditional iambic
pentameter and hyperbolic
declarations of love….
….in order to both
demonstrate the truth of
his love for his mistress,
and also to avoid belying
his “love with false
compare” in the way
habitually practised by other
contemporary sonneteers.
For instance, the
alternating rhyming
couplet “Coral is far more
red than her lips red/ ... / If
hairs be wires, black wires
grow on her head” situates
his description of his
mistress within the lexical
field of colour; however,
Shakespeare does not use
this imagery to emphasise
her physical beauty as he
does in, for instance, Sonnet
73, but instead appears to
criticise her by highlighting
her superficial, visible
flaws.
While the traditional
underlying stress pattern of
iambic pentameter runs
throughout the whole poem,
however, there are instances
of disjuncture in both these
lines: the trochaic lexical
stress of the word ‘Coral’,
for example, conflicts with
the iambic syntactic stress
of the line to draw attention
to his subversion of the
traditional metre, and his
refusal to conform to the
traditional romantic theme
of the sonnet form.
Similarly, the seemingly
insulting description of his
mistress’ hair as “black
wires” forms another
disjuncture as its lexical
stress is spondaic; the
effect here is to heighten the
force of the seeming insult.
As the poem approaches the
volta, however, the reader
begins to realise that this
apparently offensive piece is
in fact a critique of the
falsity and pretence of other
sonneteers: while he is
unprepared to claim that his
mistress is a “goddess”, he
nevertheless believes his
“love as rare as any she
belied with false compare”.
Once again, Shakespeare
embodies this subversion in
his metrical trickery: the
word “heaven” contains an
additional syllable, which
draws close attention to the
divine and otherworldly
condition of his love, no
matter how ‘human’ his
mistress truly is.
AQA Literature Poems: Higher Tier
‘On My First
Sonne’
Ben Jonson
Another poem in which the
poet subverts conventions of
the traditional sonnet form
for effect is Ben Jonson’s
‘On My first Sonne’, written
by the poet in memory of
his seven year old son
whose death he is grieving.
Throughout the poem,
Jonson’s vivid religious
imagery invites the reader
to engage with his
attempts to rationalise his
son’s death alongside his
faith and his need to assuage
his guilt.
The poem largely conforms
to the typical sonnet form in
the sense that it is generally
in lines of iambic
pentameter, and also
engages with the theme of
love. However, Jonson
forgoes the traditional
fourteen-line structure of
a sonnet by ending the
poem after just twelve; this
could connote that due to
his son’s life being
shortened, the poem’s
structure ought to echo this
foreshortening.
Moreover, in the third line,
the trochaic lexical stress
of the word ‘seven’
conflicts with the syntactic
stress, thereby disrupting
the underlying iambic
pentameter: Jonson does
this to emphasise how
sorrowful it was that his son
died so young, while also
providing a phonic echo
with the word ‘heaven’,
thereby echoing the
religious theme of the poem.
The poem’s theme of
rationalisation originates in
Jonson’s feeling that he has
‘sinned’ by having had “too
much hope” of his son and
now must ‘repay’ his debt to
God in the form of his son’s
life. Jonson begins to
rationalise his grief,
however, through the
rhetorical question of:
“For why / Will man lament
the state he should envie? /
To have so soon 'scap'd
world's and flesh's rage”.
This image suggests that
Jonson is trying to convince
himself that his son has
gone to a better place and
will no longer have to suffer
in the way that Jonson
himself is right now.
Whether this
rationalisation will
ultimately provide Jonson
with the “soft peace” he
needs is, nevertheless,
questionable: his
determination to “never like
too much” anything that he
loves seems pitiable, but
also self-pitying. The reader
is ultimately left feeling
sympathy for Jonson, and
concern for whether his
“vowes” will enable him to
overcome his grief.