Carol Ann Duffy - Havisham (Overview - Purpose 1)
Being thence prejudicially inclined, it was with immense joy that I discovered that a verse form had been written to recapture the audio of a shattering heart. Miss Havisham lived on inwards her agony, soundless this fourth dimension circular her thoughts were opened upwards to farther interpretation non limited to details fix downward yesteryear Dickens's 19th century novel.
Carol Ann Duffy's 1993 verse form does Miss Havisham justice, indeed. So much so, inwards fact, that I've spent hours drawing upwards my overview which at three A-4 sized sheets of newspaper is nowhere close completion.
You tin dismiss uncovering the verse form here.
This get-go postal service gives a brief biography, discusses the poem's construction (meter together with rhymes), the sounds acquaint inwards the verse form together with analyzes the persona of Miss Havisham (what is known most her from Great Expectations together with how Duffy treats her case).
Carol Ann Duffy - Havisham
Life
- born 1955, Glasgow, Scotland
- oldest daughter, 4 younger brothers
- family moved to England when she was 6
- she started writing verse every bit a schoolhouse girl; i of her teachers sent her poems to a publisher when Duffy was 15
- at sixteen she went to alive with Liverpool poet Adrian Henri (23 years her senior) for xi years, fourth dimension during which she says he was never faithful
- studied Philosophy, wrote plays, pamphlets, poems
- is right away Poet Laureate of the UK, professor of contemporary verse at Manchester Metropolitan University
- has i fille (biological begetter is poet Peter Benson) during her human relationship with poet Jackie Kay
Structure (meter / rhyme scheme)
- 4 stanzas, 4 verses each
- enjambment (overlapping, i judgement continues inwards the adjacent stanza) is acquaint from stanzas two to three together with stanzas three to 4
- mid-stanza enjambment (one judgement continues inwards the adjacent verse) acquaint inwards every stanza
- mid-verse caesuras (breaks / pauses) acquaint inwards every stanza
- for example: the total stops inwards stanza 1, lines 1 + 2
- similar stanza together with verse length: simply about 10-12 syllables acquaint inwards each verse (what starts inwards iambic hexameter, degenerates into spasmodic instances of iambs, dactyls, spondees that reverberate Miss Havisham’s mental state)
- stanza 1
- verse 1 = 12 syllables (iambic hexameter)
- verse two = 8 syllables
- verse three = ix syllables
- verse 4 = xi syllables
- stanza 2
- verse 1 = 10 syllables
- verse two = 10 syllables
- verse three = 12 syllables
- verse 4 = 12 syllables
- stanza 3
- verse 1 = 10 syllables
- verse two = xi syllables
- verse three = 10 syllables
- verse 4 = xi syllables
- stanza 4
- verse 1 = 12 syllables
- verse two = xi syllables
- verse three = 12 syllables
- verse 4 = 12 syllables
- overwhelming number of one-syllable words throughout the verse form give it a disjointed experience (no mellifluousness is achieved when each stress falls on the i syllable afforded to each word)
- no perfect rhymes are acquaint though a multifariousness of full general rhymes are:
- oblique rhyme: “cake” – “breaks” inwards stanza 4
- slant rhyme: “dress” – “this” inwards stanza 2
- mind rhyme: “I stink together with remember” instead of I “think” together with recollect
- off-rhymes are coupled betwixt stanzas:
- stanza 1, line three (“eyes”) is unopen inwards audio to stanza 2, line 1 (“days”)
- stanza 2, line three (“wardrobe”) with stanza 3, line 1 (“words”)
- stanza 3, line 4 (“bite”) with stanza 4, line 1 (“white”)
- assonance inwards stanza 3, line 4 (“awake”) with stanza 4, line 1 (“hate” together with “veil”) or “veil” with “male” inwards line three of that stanza
- the number created yesteryear these rhymes is an off-kilter dry reason of mind
Sounds
- consonants: plethora of
- plosives / stops (voiced together with voiceless): the consonants p, b, d, t
- fricatives: f, th, h
- sibilants: s, sh
- vowels: no preference shown, though small “a” sounds evoke the hurting Miss Havisham feels
- “ha” sounds are particularly predominant inwards stanza 1 (sweetheart, haven’t, hard, hands)
- diphthongs predominant inwards stanza two (whole, days, Nooooo, yellowing, open, wardrobe)
- diphthongs together with long vowels are too scattered about the verse form to stress Miss Havisham’s hurting fifty-fifty to a greater extent than (prayed, cawing, wall, sounds, mouth, nights, over, fluent, ear, down, awake, hate, behind, white, veil, balloon, face, cake, male, slow, honeymoon, breaks)
- coupled to the hurting the vowel sounds allude to, the overall atmosphere evoked yesteryear the plosives, fricatives together with sibilants is a mixture of
- aggressiveness: air existence withheld inwards the oral fissure together with then released to create the plosives
- weariness / exhaustion: the breathlessness evoked yesteryear the fricatives together with sibilants
- insidiousness: the hissing audio of the sibilants
Persona
- Miss Havisham
- is i of the most memorable characters created yesteryear Charles Dickens who appears inwards his 19th century novel Great Expectations
- she was the fille of a wealthy brewer who remarried together with had a boy with his 2nd wife
- her half-brother colluded with a knave to swindle Miss Havisham out of her fortune
- Miss Havisham falls inwards love together with becomes engaged
- she is jilted yesteryear her fiancé who leaves her on their marriage twenty-four hr menses (it is intimated she institute out every bit she was dressing for the wedding, which is why she has never taken her marriage wearing clothing off together with is seen yesteryear Pip wearing i shoe only)
- she orders the clocks inwards the solid endure stopped at 20 minutes to ix together with all things left every bit they are (the marriage cake every bit well)
- she completely withdraws from society, never leaving her house, living with drawn curtains alongside dust together with cobwebs
- since that devastating experience (both inwards damage of how publicly humiliated together with how privately betrayed she felt), she has vowed to accept revenge on men (by adopting Estella, raising her to endure admired together with loved yesteryear men but preparation her to time out their hearts)
- in this poem, Miss Havisham
- is stripped of her honorific: she is neither married nor unmarried, she is simply a identify unit of measurement name
- ever since the twenty-four hr menses she was left at the altar, her identity / individuality has disintegrated
- she is neither virile someone nor female
- she entirely holds a identify unit of measurement cite which shows her connection to gild every bit existence purely formal (something you’d uncovering inwards a register entry)
- her identify unit of measurement cite was the argue why she felt so humiliated upon existence jilted: gild gossip was certain to ask maintain been rampant when she was left a fortune; if she had been left the brewery, existence a adult woman she would ask maintain had to evidence herself businessworthy inwards the midst of so many other men; the pressure level of many eyes on her makes her failure inwards personal matters fifty-fifty to a greater extent than unbearable given the mental attitude of men towards women at the fourth dimension (believing them flippant, whimsical, incompetent, hysterical)
- her identify unit of measurement cite was connected to (social) wealth which lay at the pump of her relationships with men (her begetter left her the greatest business office of his fortune; her blood brother envied her later she became an heiress; her fiancé was entirely interested inwards her money)
- all this has left a carcass of a cite attached to her with no embellishment whatsoever
- Dickens never gave her a get-go name; neither does Duffy
- refers to herself through the purpose of “I” together with “her”: shows her disassociation from herself, her psychosis
- commingles love together with hatred: she cannot rid herself of him (her longing of him) nor of the degenerate self she sees inwards the mirror
- her experience is sensory: all the senses are recruited to limited the total agony she feels
- sight: “I’ve black greenish pebbles for eyes”, “the wearing clothing yellowing”, “the slewed mirror, full-length, her, myself”
- sound: “curses that are sounds non words”, “cawing”, “Bang”
- touch: “ropes on the dorsum of my hands” “trembling if I opened upwards the wardrobe”
- smell: “I stink”
- taste: “ my fluent natural language inwards its oral fissure inwards its ear”
- her thoughts & feelings:
- longing:
- her nocturnal fantasies of the “lost trunk over” her
- her preference for a dead trunk over the loveless existence she leads
- revenge / murder: thoughts of strangling him
- social humiliation:
- she calls herself a spinster, which is the category gild would identify her inwards (someone who’s happy existence single doesn’t tending what others say most their marital status)
- shame at what she’s become:
- ponders whether she is to blame for her acquaint dry reason (“who” at the terminate of stanza two may endure a relative pronoun every bit good every bit a inquiry word)
- ageing:
- she realizes she is growing former together with her life is slipping away which is why she has murderous thoughts – Compeyson (her fiancé, her dearest sweetheart bastard) has irremediably broken her pump together with cursed her to alive together with perish unloving together with unloved
- this is why the verse form ends with “Don’t intend it’s entirely the pump that b-b-b-breaks.”
- she is aware she has lost her mind, together with right away sees she is losing time: she confounds images of youth together with innocence with sexuality (white veil, reddish balloon bursting)
- the dorsum of her hands are similar "ropes" (as the veins popular out -- the older you lot get, the thinner the peel becomes, making veins visible)
- her eyes ask maintain lost all stance together with piece of employment stones
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