English and Things



Unseen Poetry: Practice Exam QuestionThe poem ‘Coat’ is about the relationship between a mother and child. One of the main ideas is that the mother is a protective figure, sheltering the child from the harsher elements of life.‘Bitter’ and ‘icy’ describe the winter in New York as harsh. There is ‘wind’ and ‘snow’. The speaker shelters ‘just behind’ her mother, ‘so she would stop the wind and the snow’. Here, the poet uses the weather as a metaphor for the struggles of growing up. This could be pathetic fallacy. The emotions of the young child are reflected in the bitter weather. Also, the poet wants us to think about the safety that the mother provides. All winter, like her walk-in closet,Its yellow light, I would walk into her,Shake out my raw thoughts.The simile of the walk-in closet creates the idea that the mother’s presence provides a safe space for the child. A closet is the American word for wardrobe – which contains the clothes of the mother and so links to the idea of the ‘coat’. It has a ‘yellow light’ which has connotations of happiness and warmth, and the metaphor ‘shake out my raw thoughts’ suggests that this is a place where the speaker feels safe and happy enough to let go emotionally. Another idea is that the mother will not be there forever. ‘...clinging to my mortal mother’The alliteration of ‘mortal mother’ draws attention to the mother’s mortality; the word ‘clinging’ suggests that the child wants to keep her, like this, forever.I think it is called ‘Coat’ because the coat acts as a metaphor for the mother. When you wear a coat it protects you against the cold; it keeps you warm. In the same way, the mother is able to keep her child warm even when she feels (literally and metaphorically) cold. The final image of the poem is the pair making their:‘slow progress down that black, warm street’.The bitter, icy winter becomes ‘warm’; the bright white ‘snow’ becomes ‘black’. Just like a coat, the mother makes even the harshest of circumstances bearable, perhaps even a pleasure.The poem ‘Not Yet My Mother’ is also about the relationship between a mother and a child, but in this case the mother is also the child.One of the main ideas is that children bear the imprint of their parents. The speaker mistakes the photograph of the mother for a photo of himself.But what caught me was your face,which was mine.And I thought, just for a second, that you were me.The line ‘which was mine’ is the shortest in the poem, drawing attention to itself as a key moment. It sounds odd because we know that the face is actually the mother’s, not ‘mine’, but the line draws attention to the strong resemblance between the mother and son, which is so strong that he thinks that ‘you were me’. The monosyllables here slow down the pace and the caesura of the commas has the effect of marking out the moment, or ‘second’ where the speaker mistakes his mother for himself. This reminds us of the connection between the mother and daughter in ‘Coat’. It is as if they are joined as one person, walking as one. Also, the poet wants us to think about age, and how we often make judgements about people because of their age. ‘All of which told me again, That this was you at seventeen, holding a horseAnd smiling, not yet my mother’The phrase ‘you at seventeen’ has a disorienting effect. Already the speaker has mistaken his mother for himself; now he makes the mental leap of his mother being a teenager. It reminds us that all mothers (and fathers!) were children once too, and that we sometimes forget this. In ‘Coat’, the different ages of the mother and child are much more clearly delineated. The image of the child reaching ‘just under her arm’ emphasises the height of the mother in comparison to her daughter. ‘Coat’ celebrates the difference of age, whereas ‘Not Yet My Mother’ plays with the boundaries of it. Another idea is that children not only resemble their parents physically, but take after them in other ways, too. ‘But then I saw the woman’s jacket, Nipped at the waist, the ballooned jhodpurs’Here, the implication is that child is also an equestrian, which is why he mistook the picture for one of himself, but that closer inspection reveals the woman’s riding outfit, and one from a previous era, when jhodpurs were ‘ballooned’.I think it is called ‘Not Yet My Mother’ because of the idea children are a part of their parents even before they are born: ‘although I was clearly already your child.’He sees his future self in his mother years before he was even born. We are connected to each other in strong and profound ways.On the whole, whilst both poems present us with the bond between a mother and child, ‘Coat’ explores the nature of this relationship. In contrast, ‘Not Yet My Mother’ is more detached and philosophical. It is more about biology than relationship, and the way in which our genes determine who we are before we are even born. AO1: Developing a personal response AO1: Backing it up with quotations and referencesAO2: Writing about the writer’s techniques ................
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