Consider how the theme
of love is presented in My
father thought it bloody
queer and three other
poems.
• In your introduction you need to name all
four poems and relate them to the question.
Begin with the poem named in the question
like this:
• My father thought it bloody queer is a
poem about the relationship between a man
and his father; a relationship, the reader
senses, which has not always been easy.
Armitage shows the son’s gradual realisation
of his father’s wisdom and his own stupidity.
The poem shows us the child’s perception of
his father changing and love becoming
apparent as the truth becomes clear.
Though Anne Hathaway, Sonnet
130 and My Last Duchess are
poems about marriage, rather than
love between father and son, in
many ways the poets explore a
similar idea. The relationships we
are initially presented with do not
tell the whole truth.
• Now you need to write your second
paragraph. Focus on ‘Anne Hathaway’
and ‘My father thought it bloody queer’,
discussing how each poet’s use of
language establishes a sense of the
characters and their relationship.
• Make sure you use an example from the
text and analyse.
Point
Evidence
Explanation
When you bring in another poem, use a
compare/contrast sentence opening
such as:
• This is similar to…
• Compare this with...
Talk about how Armitage conveys the
character of the father through
speech, making sure you use examples
for comparison.
The perceived relationship between
Shakespeare and his wife was a loveless one, yet
Duffy portrays a passionate and committed
marriage. She clearly sets out her intention to
dispel the myth by opening the poem with the
epigraph which states Hathaway was simply left
the ‘second best bed’. Shakespeare, previously
characterised as a distant and almost cruel
husband, is to be transformed through the
words of his wife. Similarly, Armitage begins his
poem with language that establishes the father’s
character: ‘bloody queer’ sounds like the
uneducated and homophobic language of the
father’s generation.
The rest of the stanza is largely
comprised of direct speech which is
more clearly intended to represent the
father’s own words. The repeated rhyme
of ‘head’, ‘led’ and ‘instead’ highlights
the older man’s criticism and his son’s
frustration at this apparent lack of
understanding of what it means to be
young. The language is simple and
honest, truthfully exploring the love, or
lack of it, within the relationship.
Now bring in Sonnet 130. Discuss how the
loving relationship is presented here, focusing
on how Shakespeare’s realistic stance might
initially appear unkind.
Compare it with the vivid, figurative language
used by Duffy. Remember to use phrases
which introduce textual references and back
up your points:
• This is highlighted by the phrase…
• The poet emphasises this idea by using the
repeated image of...
Compare these revelations of the truth of love
with Sonnet 130, where Shakespeare himself
objects to the artificiality of traditional elaborate
love poetry. The opening non-simile, which states
his ‘mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun’, is as
surprising as the idea that Shakespeare and Anne
Hathaway lived in a metaphorical ‘spinning world’
that sent them giddy with passion. While Duffy
employs literary and erotic imagery to
demonstrate the height of their love, ‘his touch a
verb dancing in the centre’ of Hathaway’s ‘noun’,
Shakespeare specifically shuns literary
conventions. His mistress has neither snow white
skin nor rosy red cheeks.
It would appear initially that he has little regard
for the subject of the poem, and one could easily
imagine him leaving her very little in his will, if
indeed the poem is about his wife at all. Yet as the
poem continues, our perception of the relationship
changes. We learn that even though this woman’s
voice is not a ‘pleasing’ musical sound, and even
more unpleasantly honest, she has breath that
‘reeks’, she is a real woman and therefore his love
for her is also real. The poet refuses to belie her
with ‘false compare’. Though the poem is a sonnet,
it does not conform in content to the Elizabethan
tradition, and the woman is a believable person
instead of an objectified work of beauty.
• You are now going to bring in ‘My Last Duchess’
and will find more points of contrast than
comparison. Try to focus on:
• The Duke’s opinion of his wife’s appearance
• How this is different from the attitudes
displayed in ‘Sonnet 130’
• The level of communication between husband and
wife
Browning’s poem appears to achieve the very opposite
effect. Here the Duchess, spoken respectfully of to
begin with, soon becomes far less pleasing in the eyes of
the narrator. He does not approve of the beauty
portrayed in the portrait, the ‘spot of joy’ on her cheek
should have been for his eyes alone but the Duchess
apparently had a heart that was ‘too soon made glad’. Her
happy and perhaps slightly flirtatious character, which
might have made her similar to the realistic woman of
Sonnet 130, is here seen as a fault. The Duke, though
unimpressed with his wife’s behaviour, did not seek to
communicate this to her, considering himself above
stooping ‘to blame this sort of trifling’. There is no sense
that he loved his wife or attempted to work at their
relationship and he is far happier now she is dead and can
be fully controlled as an objectified work of beauty.
• Now relate this back again to ‘My father thought
it’, showing that you can compare the two
effectively. Remember to always bring your
argument back to focusing on the poem named in
the question.
• Use the starting sentence,
In contrast, Armitage’s poem shows a father who
has his son’s best interests at heart.
• Try to consider the effects of the father’s
attempts to communicate his worries to his son.
In contrast, Armitage’s poem shows a father who has
his son’s best interests at heart. He also is clearly
unimpressed by his son’s actions, but this seems to be
because he fears for his son’s character rather than
how it reflects on himself. Unlike the Duke, he voices
his concern that his son is too ‘easily…led’ and the
pierced hole becomes a metaphor for their
relationship as it deteriorates into a ‘sore’ and then a
‘wound’ that weeps. As we journey with the son, we
realise that actually his father loved him deeply; it
was just that the son was too stubborn to take his
advice.
(Notice here how a fluent essay will not always follow the
strict PEE structure. Comparison and analysis can freely
incorporate quotations.)
• Finally, conclude your essay, bringing
together all 4 poems and focusing clearly
on the question again.
• Consider:
The relationships portrayed in each
poem
The type of love displayed
The Duke dealt with his problem by calmly disposing of
his wife, the chilling alliteration of ‘all smiles stopped
together’ reinforcing his complete lack of love. In both
the sonnets we see loving relationships portrayed,
Shakespeare offering a more truthful love and Duffy
offering an alternative truth for Shakespeare and
Anne Hathaway. Finally, in Armitage’s poem, we see a
relationship where a father’s love for his son drove a
wedge between them and the son realises it, perhaps
too late, when at the age of twenty-nine his father’s
advice comes back to haunt him, ‘breaking like a tear’.