Lauren, India, Alice, Seren

• Duffy is using this poem to show how quickly a relationship can change from good, loving and happy to bad and decaying.
• She uses natural imagery throughout mirror the evolution of a relationship with the constant change and progression within nature e.g
seasonal change.
• She uses a semantic field of death (images of noose, crow, dead heron, flies, grave) to create a sinister tone.

• 6 stanzas, 24 lines – stanzas are stilted and broken to symbolise their love is broken.
• Jigsaw puzzle stanzas to show that their relationship was once perfect as they fitted together perfectly.
• No rhyme scheme and the irregular line length mirrors the ups and downs in relationships.
• The anaphora of “Learn” encourages the need for stoicism, suggesting that Duffy has given up trying to fight against the pain in the relationship and is now enduring it.
• The poem contains many caesuras to imply a lack of fluidity and ease to the relationship.

• Pg 119 “the lights in his house failed to go one one
Saturday night” – the persona he has built up is beginning to crumble and he is no longer continuing with the façade. The parties had become commonplace and were expected of Gatsby. They were associated with romantic freedom and opportunity. That Gatsby had stopped them implies his romanticised idea of Daisy and his future is slowly fading.
• Link to “ the bigger moon,/ implacably dissolving in the sky” suggests Duffy’s relationship is losing its romanticism and passion since the moon has previously been associated with periods of physical desire.
“implacably dissolving” suggests that this change is gradual but inevitable and relentless.

• Pg 153 “the rooms were musty, as though they hadn’t been aired for many days”. The situation is suffocating/stifling Gatsby. He is losing his façade because they vitality of his AD is weakening.
• Link to “even this stale air/ unloving all the spaces where you were.” Suggests that Duffy’s relationship had become stagnant and stale. It is tarnishing her memories of the lover, creating a bitter but melancholic tone.

• Pg 155 “ at any moment the invisible cloak of his uniform might slip” demonstrating his initial deceit of Daisy. Highlights his awareness of his own façade and his fear that Daisy will discover his true identity.
Their relationship has been built on lies.
• Link to “from the torn veil of web” which again suggests deceit (web of lies). The “torn veil” gives a negative connotation to marriage as thought the initial happiness of the relationship has been marred and torn, although is not irreparable.

• Pg 158 “ghostly birds began to sing among the blue leaves” creates a sinister tone.
• Link to “a crow cursing/ a dead heron” suggests the inevitability of the death of a relationship.
• Birds are usually associated with freedom and vitality but both writers have subverted the image to imply that the relationships have become suffocating and irreparable.

• “A ghost ship on a sea of dusk” relates to “once I tumbled with a sort of splash upon the keys of a ghostly piano”
• Both connote death but more sinister
• The past is haunting them- hanging over them which creates more tension as there is an undertone of fear
• Makes the tone of the poem heavier for the reader in addition to the loss of Daisy in Gatsby

• “Melancholy Beauty”describes the imagery in the Unloving as it uses the beauty in nature to show the pain and sorrow felt by Duffy as she is getting over her love
• “The way they kiss and throw away their leaves”-
There is deep sadness expressed here which juxtaposed with the delicate beauty of the trees and the mention of intimacy of “kiss”

• “turned out the light”(153) in Gatsby links to
“unloving light” in Unloving
• Both connote the idea of absence of light, almost as though both relationships have dissolved into darkness and will not regrow
• Significance of the green light in Gatsby, always been a signal for Daisy but this quote foreshadows the death of any sort of light remaining in their relationship

• “what a grotesque thing a rose is”(168) and “a
Beast’s rose”
• Reference to Beauty and the Beast and both negative images of a rose which is generally a symbol of love
• The usual romanticised rose has been disregarded and they have turned it into something ugly, possibly a representation of the progression of the relationships

• References to religion and the past
• “God sees everything” “You can’t fool God”(166)
• “a church” “our daily bread”
• Used in contrasting ways – Wilson says this is in regard to the advertisement but genuinely believes it – God can see all past and present and you cannot escape
• Duffy presents how she no longer feels like this and is trying to step away from her past of
Catholicism

• "learn from the winter trees, the way they kiss and throw away their leaves" - this symbolises how Duffy give parts of herself away in the relationship, which makes her "turn to ice" as the relationship turns sour.
• Page 59 "He took out a pile of shirts and began throwing them, one by one, before us" - the choice of word "throw" in both Unloving and Gatsby shows that in each relationship, both people are willingly giving parts of themselves to their lover, in the case of
Gatsby he is flaunting what he has in front of Daisy and trying to give her his wealth in order to win her over.
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• Duffy tells the reader to "learn from a rope hung from a branch like a noose // a dead heron mourned by a congregation of flies // from summer's grave" in regards to relationships, conveying the idea that they will result in a feeling of death in the beholder of the feelings.
This is similar to the literal death of Gatsby in
Chapter 8, and Nick's mournful tone as he concludes "the holocaust was complete", showing that this relationship also ended in devastation like Duffy's, and in the literal sense,
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• Both Duffy and Fitzgerald resort to pathetic fallacy when presenting the relationships; as Gatsby and
Daisy first reunite in Chapter 5, the mood of the moment is often mirrored by sunshine and rain as the mood goes from happy to tense. As they first reunite, tension increases significantly and Nick comments on the "increasing rain." Duffy similarly uses the weather to discuss "perpetual rain, nothing like tears" to convey her feelings; 'perpetual' meaning "never ending" shows how the current state of her relationship is irreparable, and unlike tears, the situation cannot be resolved.
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• "Hold their stricken faces in their hands and turn to ice"
• "With every word she was drawing further and further into herself"
• Both Duffy and Fitzgerald present how love turned sour can have physical effects upon the people experiencing it; Duffy explores the personification of trees holding their strikes faces, whilst Fitzgerald portrays Daisy as drawing further into herself. We see that our emotions can be reflected into our physical reactions.
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