Carol Ann Duffy Notes Brothers

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Brothers Notes Brothers” by Carol Ann Duffy reveals many serious themes including mortality and memory. The poem seems to suggest that once a certain age is reached, there is nothing to do but wait for one’s own passing. The brevity of the poem indicates that life with these four brothers was short. The first stanza indicates that when the narrator does in fact converse with her brothers (from the last line the readers learn that she rarely does talk to them) it is about the past. In fact, she does not even refer to them as brothers in the present: she stares at “these four men.” They are men rather than brothers. This implies estrangement from each other, and furthers the need for the narrator to live in her memories. She lives in the past, suggesting that memories are all that the narrator has, even though the brothers still physically exist in the present. Her memories of them in the next stanza are all simultaneous revealing the relative ages and interests of each person: “an altar boy, a boy practicing scales, a boy playing tennis…a baby…” Her lacks of photographs also increase the significance that memory plays in this poem. However, the memory in the third stanza is not of her brothers, it is of her mother. She hears her mother’s “life in the [names]” and likes repeating them because her mother chose them. Admittedly, I do not quite follow what the narrator suggests when she says “the word that broke her heart.” Insight into this will be very helpful in having a deeper understanding of the poem. The final stanza almost eliminates the importance of the late stages of life. “Now” the narrator has nothing to say to her brothers. This quickly shifts to the narrator buying a coffin and life ending for one of them, herself, or her mother. This very fast shift indicates that life is indeed fast, and will end before the narrator
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