Similarities Between Before You Were Mine And Mother Any Distance

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The poets utilise a fairly wide range of styles in the poems "Mother, any distance" by Simon Armitage and "Before you were mine" by Carol Ann Duffy to illustrate the diverse mindsets towards growing up. While before you were mine, explores her daughter's enviousness over her mother's independence from her youth to the present. However, the mother in Mother, Any Distance exhibits more enviousness over her son as he becomes adulthood.

Growing up is shown in Mother any distance as a crucial part of growing up. The poem Mother and distance explores the feeling of letting go by using several extended metaphors, such as "Anchor, Kite," which implies that the mother is the anchor. This shows that she is a reliable influence in his life while also …show more content…

Her possessive tendency is highlighted by the title "Before you were mine," which uses the pronoun "mine" to imply that the speaker is unwilling to let go of her mother and she owns her. Furthermore, Duffy refers to her mother as …show more content…

'Mother. Any distance' depicts a conventional mother-son connection in which the mother is shown as being possessive and hesitant to let go of her kid. However, the speaker discusses her traditional attachment to her mother in Before you were mine. We observe Duffy refer to her mother as "Marilyn," implying that she was admired prior to becoming a mother. It gives the impression that she destroyed her life and eliminated the excitement. Nevertheless, the speaker's mother is referred to be a "anchor," signifying Armitage's life's steadiness. Armitage writes that his mother "fingertips pinch the last hundredth of an inch," implying that she is possessive of him and hesitant to let him become an adult. However, the 'possessive yell' in before you were mine emphasises the notion that the moment she was born took ownership of her mother's life and made it impossible for her to continue living the fulfilling life she had. When Duffy uses the language technique of a rhetorical question, "Who's small bites on your neck, sweetheart?" it almost appears as if she is resentful of her for maturing. As a result, his mother is unwilling to let him walk away in Mother, Any Distance, despite the fact that they both recognise it's a significant turning point in their