Discuss How Carol Ann Duffy Makes Effective Use Of Metaphor. Essay

Discuss How carol Ann Duffy Makes Effective Use Of Metaphor. In Valentine, Carol Ann Duffy uses metaphors to exposit andattempt to explain the complex subject of love. Valentine is a verypoignant, signifi fundamentt poem which is on a very personal level withC.A.D. It seems as if she is drawing on personal experiences.The general tone of the poem appears to be one of bitterness andresentment. Forceful comments such as, Here.. and Take itsuggest that she salve holds hidden anger towards the events fromwhich she is drawing her memories.The main metaphor that she uses is of course an onion. She uses anonion to compare the different aspects of love in a number of ways. Inthe first instance of C.A.Ds use of an onion she uses it to comparethe circumstance that both an onion and love have many layers. She proposesthat this is a spacious similarity between the two apparently unrelatedobjects.Secondly, C.A.D uses the onions shape and colour to reflect how lifechanging love can be. She de scribes the onion as a moon wrapped in em brownish paper What she means by this is that love can light up yourheart but that it often becomes clouded by other issues and problems-the brown paper lay outs the barrier. In another way, the brownpaper could symbolize boundaries people sometimes erect because theyare scared or cynical.C.A.D. seems to be cynical about love-all throughout the poem sheseems to want to escape the clichs and what most people wouldconsider as romance. Perhaps this may be because she has had a badexperience of love which she has then illustrated through voice communication in herpoem.Just after this she states it promises light.. which means thatC.A.D is suggesting that sometimes a... ...reak.In the lowest stanza, C.A.D writes, the air tasted of electricity..She is referring to the charged atmosphere caused by adolescenthormones. Obviously the schoolroom is going to be full of hormonesbecause of all the children. Another reference to the hard chargedatmo sphere is, the heavy, sexy sky.. which just supports theatmosphere being hormonally charged.Carol Ann Duffys use of metaphors is very effective andillustrative-it causes readers to form subconscious cogitate betweenobjects which in reality are apparently unrelated. Without the use ofmetaphors, her poems would be entirely different and I am not surethey would be as flowing or as descriptive. The metaphors are oftenthe foundation garment upon which C.A.Ds descriptions are built. She uses them togreat effect by blending and layering metaphors with other adjectivesand descriptions.