Introducing 

Prezi AI.

Your new presentation assistant.

Refine, enhance, and tailor your content, source relevant images, and edit visuals quicker than ever before.

Loading…
Transcript

What are the key themes explored in Carol Ann Duffy's "Demeter"?

Demeter's relationship with Persephone

Persephone and Nature

Reflection of Mother - Daughter realtionships

What are the Key themes explored in Carol Ann Duffy's "Demeter"?

Where I lived – winter and hard earth.

I sat in my cold stone room

choosing tough words, granite, flint,

to break the ice. My broken heart –

I tried that, but it skimmed,

flat, over the frozen lake.

Imagery associated with Demeter

  • Dark, cold imagery
  • "hard earth" "cold stone room"
  • "frozen lake"

Represents Demeter's grief

She can't break out of her grief even if she tries (stanza 2)

Winter imagery

"hard earth" "frozen lake"

Duffy also uses cacophony:

e.g. :

"granite, flint"

The same imagery reflects the harsh cold of winter.

Demeter's grief is literally winter.

This is a reference to the orignal myth.

This gives the reader an audio level to the harsh environment

Connection to Duffy

Carol Ann Duffy suffered herself with depression.

She may have empathized with the relationship between winter and depression

Duffy's representation of Demeter

Background information

  • Born in 1955 (Glasgow)
  • University of Liverpool studying Philosophy
  • Roman catholic family

She came from a long, long way,

but I saw her at last, walking,

my daughter, my girl, across the fields,

in bare feet, bringing all spring’s flowers

to her mother’s house. I swear

the air softened and warmed as she moved,

The majority of poems in "The World's Wife" are representations of feminist values. However, "Demeter" focuses on the themes of nature and the bond between a mother and daughter.

The setting, which is from Demeter's perspective, undergoes a rapid change which reflects her changing emotions

Persephone's presence breaks Demeter's grief.

This is being compared to how Spring breaks Winter.

Through natural, innocent imagery:

"spring's flowers" "bare feet"

Syntax in the 3rd stanza

Use of sibilance

Duffy uses sibilance when describing Persephone's return.

"She came from a long long way,

but I saw her at last, walking,

my daughter, my girl, across the fields"

... spring’s flowers

to her mother’s house. I swear

the air softened and warmed as she moved,

the blue sky smiling, none too soon,

with the small shy mouth of a new moon

Enjambement and Caesura:

Short, quick phrases.

Connotes desperation. When read aloud it sounds breathless.

"at last" : suggests she has been anticipating her return.

  • Creates soft, soothing sounds
  • This juxtaposes with the harsh cacophony in the other stanzas

Key Themes:

Shows us Demeter's perception of Persephone

Could symbolise the melting of Demeter's winter/grief.

Exaggerates the difference between Demeter and Persephone, as well as winter versus spring

  • Nature
  • Grief
  • Mother - Daughter relationships

Where I lived – winter and hard earth.

I sat in my cold stone room

choosing tough words, granite, flint,

to break the ice. My broken heart –

I tried that, but it skimmed,

flat, over the frozen lake.

She came from a long, long way,

but I saw her at last, walking,

my daughter, my girl, across the fields,

in bare feet, bringing all spring’s flowers

to her mother’s house. I swear

the air softened and warmed as she moved,

the blue sky smiling, none too soon,

with the small shy mouth of a new moon.

"the air softened and warmed as she moved,

the blue sky smiling, none too soon,

with the small shy mouth of a new moon."

Nature is also personified to welcome Persephone home.

Implies that even nature has been anticipating her return.

History

Metaphorical representation of how important Persephone is.

Blue: calm, daylight, flowers, happiness.

The Myth Behind The Poem

Structure

Demeter was the Greek goddess of grain, the harvest. Hades, god of the underworld, abducted her daughter Persephone. 

Demeter asked Zeus, Hades' brother, to return Persephone.  When Zeus refused, Demeter withheld the harvest from man until Zeus relented. 

He agreed to allow Persephone’s return if she had not eaten while with Hades.  However, Persephone had eaten 6 pomegranate seeds in the underworld. Zeus determined that she would spend 6 months with her mother and 6 months with Hades. 

This is the mythic origin of the six months of spring and summer when Persephone walks the earth with her mother and the 6 months of fall and winter when Persephone must return to the underworld. 

Duffy has used a sonnet structure

There are fourteen lines in a Shakespearean sonnet.

In the three quatrains the poet establishes a theme or problem and then resolves it in the final two lines, called a couplet.

The Mother Daughter Relationship

We can see this in Demeter.

Problem = grief of her loss of Persephone, as well as its impact on nature

Duffy uses imagery and syntax to expose her opinion of the love between a mother and daughter.

Even though they are apart their love is pure and untouched by Hades.

Solution = Persephone returns, and nature rejuvinates.

However, Duffy uses four tercets instead of the typical 3 quatrains of a sonnet

Carol Ann Duffy went on to write other poems exploring the realationships between mother and daughter

For example:

"Catrin" - explores Duffy's own relationship with her daughter.

"my daughter, my girl"

  • Possessive, she feels that Persephone belongs to her, not Hades.
  • Biologically hers.
  • They are both reflections of seasons and nature.
  • "girl"always young or a child in her eyes.
  • Demeter's perception of her relationship with Persephone

Conclusion:

What are the Key themes explored in Carol Ann Duffy's "Demeter"?

Nature: seasons, imagery

Grief: natural imagery

Mother - Daughter relationships is the key theme.

metaphorically shows that her daughter means the world to her

Learn more about creating dynamic, engaging presentations with Prezi