Duffy and Pugh

825 Words4 Pages
Henry Marsh MTG:B Within their poems, Duffy and Pugh are able to express the theme of transformation through the perspective of different personas and language. These express upon readers a right of passage, physical change and a change which the rest of the world as to adapt around due to the effect on others. “Mrs Midas” for example, is affected by the change that happens to Mr Midas; “He asked for a glass of wine. I poured with a shaking hand.” The word “shaking” is used purposely to emphasis fearful emotion, which has been provoked by King Midas’s ability to turn everything he touches to gold. “Mrs Tilscher’s Class will be the secondary salient poem explored for transformation themes, within; Mrs Tilscher’s class, the transformation of right of passage for the ‘big bad world’ – loosing simplicity and innocence of a naive child. Along with Duffy’s poems Pugh’s poems will be looked at and introduced to compare similarities and differences between the writers and how thy express transformation, thus increasing our understanding of these aspects. Pugh’s ‘sweet 18’ will be analysed and interpreted along with ‘Black Ram’ Sweet 18 being similar to ‘Mrs Tilscher’s class; holding onto youth and growing up “unknowing ease of growing up” this is linked to the idea of naivety like so in; Mrs Tilscher’s class. Mrs. Midas shows transformation in mood, it changes as the poem proceeds, reaching its peak of fear in the fifth to eleventh stanza then calmly comes down as Midas draws close to death. The language the character uses informs the reader about the mood of the poem. In the second and third of the first stanza Midas uses personified the kitchen as "its steamy breath gently blanching the windows". This sets the calm relaxing atmosphere of the poem before the crisis. The poem is calm because Mrs. Midas uses smoothly and well-skilled sentences. The intonation changes
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