poetryarchive.org has an interesting review of the Alan Jenkins collection which includes this poem. In your post on a theme or idea from Effects, you should aim to include a short quote from this review – you can agree or disagree with what has been said. Remember to keep your posts as strongly focused on style as you can.
When you have posted, look out for what others have written. You are looking to find a point of comparison with another poem. When you see a post on a theme/idea/approach where you can see such a comparison, write your response in the form of a reply/comment.
engpoblog 
On her Blindness is not, to me, a painful or disturbing poem. It is startlingly honest ‘if I gave up hope of a cure, id bump myself off’, and highly personal; the poet himself ‘Adam’ is the speaker, and yet despite the overpowering themes of loss and death ‘her eyelids were closed in the coffin’, I still do not find it to be distressing.
The mother is kept central throughout the poem ‘my mother’, ‘she turned’, ‘she kept’, and the poet refers to her respectfully, he has an admiring tone to his voice ‘she kept her dignity’. They had a very close relationship, shown by the mother’s confiding in him ‘she…whispered “its living hell”’, and his taking care of her ‘she turned to me’- she is dependent on him as though the parent/child roles have been reversed. It is endearing to see a fully-grown man looking after the woman who looked after him her whole life. Thorpe uses formal language in the first few stanzas, that could possibly be adopted from his mother ‘one shouldn’t say it’, which is entirely plausible as he echoes her words ‘to be honest’ in the first verse. She has passed on her characteristics to him and I find this oddly comforting; it is as though part of her lives on in her son.
Thorpe is fully accepting of his mother’s disability, shown by his challenge of the Roman view that you should remain strong and stoic when confronted with a difficulty such as blindness, ‘bear it like a Roman’. He uses the inter textual reference to John Milton’s ‘On his blindness’ as a rejection of Milton’s view that one must just accept their blindness and move on; ‘One should’ implies that Thorpe believes, or perhaps has witnessed precisely the opposite ‘its living hell’. Although his mother tries to keep up appearances, dining in a sophisticated ‘Paris restaurant’, and ‘pretending to ignore the void’, she is still struggling ‘not finding the food on the plate with her fork’- she is vulnerable. What I find touching is how Thorpe is fully accepting of this vulnerability, he says anything to try and comfort her ‘the usual sop’, yet cant help but feel ‘inadequate’. In a way this is slightly painful, that the ‘locked in son’ was unable to fully express his emotions (in a way his own limitation, own version of a handicap), however this poem is an sensitive and passionate manifestation, an almost eulogy, where he is finally able to say what he meant, and with blind faith, it was up to him ‘to believe she was watching’, looking over him, hearing his words.
Finally, Thorpe is not only accepting of his mother’s weakness, but also of her death. ‘Her last week alive’ was only ‘a fortnight back’, yet the poem has a very mature outlook- Thorpe is not looking back in hindsight, in regret (apart from his feelings of inadequacy) but rather depicting the steady reduction of his mother’s life, to her last days. The poem is structured in this manner, from the original setting of the ‘Paris restaurant’, to the ultimate setting of the ‘coffin’ and I believe that Thorpe knew that his time with his mother was coming to an end and so chose to remember her doing the things she enjoyed ‘she’d visit exhibitions, admire films’. Just like the leaves falling from the trees year after year ‘the ground royal with leaf-fall’, it is so natural for people to die, such is the circle of life, and I think that this penultimate setting is showing Thorpe’s understanding of the naturalness of death.
In this way I do not find On her Blindness so very painful nor disturbing.
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What an interesting alternative reading – well done. You justify your comments well and include several refs to style. Just be aware of trying to do this every time you quote – so look more at the metaphor of ‘royal’ in your last quote for example.
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(think I’m commenting on the correct poem this time)
This is a poem about Memory:
The poet uses dominant objects in each section of Effects as a central focus to trigger memories of his mother- “her hand” for example, sparks a childhood memory of domesticity “old-fashioned food she cooked and we ate”, a memory of home life. Jenkins uses the immediate past tense “I held her hand” in contrast to the deep past “giving love in the only way she knew”, to create an obvious separation of present and old memory.
At times it as though the poet is trying to keep a memory alive by listing every minute detail he can remember “scent-sprays, tortoise-shell combs, a snap or two”- maybe he is afraid of forgetting her. In this way, the poem is not only about memories, but also about the forgotten, the left behind. This listing may correspond with the guilt and regret he feels at leaving her alone “all the weeks I didn’t come”, the remorseful tone showing the difference in then and now; in the past Mother and Son were far less distant “giving love” and taking a “holiday abroad”.
Not only are the poet’s memories reminisced, but also his mother’s progression of memories is shown through his voice “blinked and poured, drink after drink’”. The heavy use of punctuation here aurally slows the pace, perhaps representing how the mother’s mind (and body “heaved herself upright”) has slowed with old age. “gulped”, a clunky, unsophisticated word demonstrates how the woman has also become so.
In the final sections of the poem, the tense is subtly changed once again to recall the most recent memories the speaker has of his mother “but now she lay here”. Although it may seem to be present tense (“now”), “a thick rubber band… was all she wore” clarifies that it is in fact a memory, however the almost juxtaposition of these two phrases confuses the reader- it is as though the past and the present are perhaps entwined in the speaker’s mind.
This confusion of past/present corresponds with the barely recognizable rhyme scheme- it is very disorganised, representative of the speaker’s jumbled mind, however there are rhymes scattered throughout the poem “knew”//”stew”, as though occasionally the poet is remembering to use them, as though the speaker is recalling memories.
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(You commented on the correct poem ;))
Comparison of “Effects” and “On Her Blindness” on the theme of MEMORY:
Both poems approach the remembrance itself in very different ways, while “Effects” uses objects to trigger memories, “On Her Blindness” seems to follow a chronological narrative of memories. The structure of “Effects” seems almost spontaneous with the narrator’s remembrance, as he notices things are missing in the present time such as “rings” or her “watch” and then relates it back to a memory of his mother in the past. In “On Her Blindness” the structure in comparison seems thoughtfully planned as it follows an order, and each memory seems to link together until reaching her death as the memories go from a “Paris restaurant” to her “coffin” in the penultimate stanza. In this way memories seem more jumbled in “Effects” as they are triggered by specific objects, whereas the memories seem carefully planned chronologically in “On her Blindness”.
The Poem “On Her Blindness” also has a strong link with memory, and also portrays the theme of memory in a similar way to “Effects” in some aspects of the poems. In “Effects” there is a strong feeling on regret and negativity after his mother is gone as he guiltily remembers “all the weeks he didn’t come” to visit her in the hospital. There is a similar feeling of being insufficient for his mother as he refers to himself as “inadequate: the locked-in son”. This gives both set of memories a sense of inadequacy and a negative connotation to the parts of what each son remembers about their mother.
The final sections of each poem follow a similar scheme in terms of tenses, both poems are entirely in memory yet both use unusual tenses in the ending stanzas. In “Effects” the narrator states that “now she lay here” then also says that “a thick rubber band” “was all she wore”, this confliction momentarily disorientates the reader as the tenses are first thought to be brought to the present, but then there is a revelation that the narrator is still within a memory. The past tense is used, and could possibly mimic the narrator’s struggle to cope with the past by trying to bring it into the present. A similar technique is used in “On Her Blindness” as the poet temporarily brings the tense into the present and future by saying “now she can’t pretend” that she can see, then it jumps back to a memory by saying “her eyes were closed in the coffin”. This jump between tenses once again could mimic the narrator’s inability to comprehend his mother’s death and at his attempt to understand he brings the memories into the present to try and cope. Overall both narrators have a struggle to comprehend the death of their mother and weave the present tense into their memories to maybe symbolise past, present and future eventually blurring into one large entity.
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Fantastic, both of you. These are astute and sensitive explorations of technique and effect. A pleasure to read.
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This poem is about LONELINESS: How?
Jenkins explores the effects of a wife losing her husband and how it can create different ways of dealing with loneliness. The mother seems to attempt to pull her husband closer following his death as the son says that “lately she had never been without” her “rings”, and that when her husband was alive she kept them away in a drawer. The idea of a ring could be a symbol for her and her husband’s love, as rings are circular, symbolising that their love doesn’t end. Rings could also link in the reader’s mind with weddings and marriage, and the effect of the sudden loneliness is that the mother misses when she was together with her husband. However the fact that she only wore hers after his death suggests that perhaps they did not have such a happy marriage, but the mother’s loneliness causes her to be desperate to have some link with him still, and she could feel some regret now he’s gone. Later in the poem the mother resorts to drinking, with the son saying that she had “drink after drink” of scotch, things that “when he was alive, she wouldn’t touch” suggesting perhaps it could almost be an attempt to get her husband’s attention, as she would have got his attention if she had done that when he was alive. The repetition of the word “drink” emphasizes the sheer quantity of drinks the mother has, and could possibly show that loneliness affects her, in that she craves her husband’s attention now he’s gone, and the loneliness causes her to do things she would never have done when he was alive.
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This theme of loneliness can also be found in Inheritance by Eavan Boland. Throughout the whole poem there is use of the first person to establish character, however it is constantly singular “I”, never plural we, or our. This creates a feeling of isolation, separation from others. The speaker also appears to be vulnerable- there is no mention of a partner, rather of her taking care of the “first child”, the “daughters” by herself. She is the one who “stayed awake, alert and afraid” and alone.
The tone of voice is rather reflecting, “I have been wondering” suggesting that the speaker has had lots of time to think about “what I have to leave behind”, she is, to use a cliché, soul searching, inward looking. There is a persistent, relentless feeling of negativity throughout the poem, adverse language such as “no good”, “never” and “not” creating a very pessimistic mood and a feeling of hopelessness (“I learned so little from them”)- linking perhaps to the depressive attitude associated with seclusion and solitude.
Finally there is also symbolism used, imagery of the “island of waters” representing the woman herself an island, deserted and unaided with the raising of her offspring. The speaker talks of “women who struggled”- women previous to her generation who have been through what she is experiencing (“to make the nothing… into something they could leave behind”), yet she feels no bond “I learned so little from them”, no connection with them “crafts I never had”. She worries that she hasn’t done as much for her children as these phantoms of the past “crafts I ….can never hand on”. This feeling of self-worthlessness and self-doubt may lead her to feel very alone with nowhere to turn, she is surrounded by “the silence”.
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Strong focus on technique in the first two paragraphs particularly – makes this a great comment – well done. I like the symbolism of the island. It’s a stronger theme, arguably, in Inheritance than in Effects because it is the first person speaker’s direct experience of loneliness. This evaluation of difference is where we will need to go next in our route through comparison.
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Tyler I like your point about the symbolism of the ring and you’re right, it’s cultural value is only real to the mother when she is widowed. Henceforth it becomes a symbol of loss or loneliness or reduction. I’m not sure extrapolating this to suggest an unhappy marriage is going to get us very far. All you can do here is say the poet hints vaguely or leaves unexplored her motivation for not wearing the ring. Perhaps we only value things when they are lost is the idea. You’re right that loneliness drives her to mirror his action of drinking. This seems to reflect a loss of sense of self.
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This poem is about regret
The idea of regret is shown towards the final stanzas of Effects, when we find out that the mother is dying. The phrase “not all the weeks I didn’t come” shows that Jenkins in self-reproaching about the fact his mother is dying and the he himself was not there in her last few days, when he knew he should have been.
The line “the last words she had said were Please don’t leave but of course I left” shows again the regret that Jenkins has. It shows the care and love that the mother had for her son, which contrasts with the carelessness that the son has for his mother. The fact he left in her last few days when she just wanted him there shows the little remorse he has. That line carries on to say “now I was back, though she could not know that, or turn her face to see” shows the way Jenkins is taking advantage of the fact his mother cannot see, but now he regrets not being there, as we learn more about the care the mother had for her son, and he realises he took advantage of that and didn’t appreciate it until she was gone.
The words “a thick rubber band with her name on it in smudged black ink was all she wore” tells the reader that the mother is now classified and contrasts to all the other things in her life that she used to wear, such as her rings and watch, which are now absent in her life. This shows the regret that Jenkins has for not appreciating what he had, his mother, until she literally becomes an object that cannot do anything except breathe.
“Blinked and poured drink after drink, and gulped and stared – the scotch” shows the regret Jenkins has for not being there for his mother when she needed him most in her life. This is ironic and contrasts with the ending where she doesn’t need him but wants him there, and he isn’t, again showing the carelessness and now regret he had when his mother was still alive.
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The theme of regret can be found in a different way in ‘To My Nine-Year-Old Self’ by Helen Dunmore compared with ‘Effects’ by Alan Jenkins. The sense of regret in ‘Effects’ by Alan Jenkins is exposed by the things he wished he had done for his ,other, he refers to himself as ‘inadequate’ and ‘locked-in’. On the other hand, the poet is addressing her younger self in ‘To My Nine-Year-Old Self’, so the theme of guilt is prevalent due to things that the poet wished she had not done, it is almost like an apology- the poet believes she ‘spoiled’ her body. To represent the difference of character with herself now and her younger self, she refers to her body as the something she ‘once shared’ creating a strong sense of detachment. The poem begins with ‘You must forgive me’ which makes it clear that the poet feels guilty, ‘must’ reinforces this need for forgiveness. To emphasise the amount of regretful things the poet did, there are many adjectives, such as ‘run’, ‘leap’ ‘climb’ and ‘lunge’, this sharply contrasts with ‘not all the weeks I didn’t come’, showing Jenkins regret due to his passiveness.
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Good to see you making direct comparisons Mel. Obviously this is a poem we haven’t looked at together yet but I like the way you are moving towards an exploration of PERSPECTIVE. Dunmore’s perspective is unusual – she detaches her current self from her past self and treats the latter as her addressee, whereas Jenkins has no direct address and is very isolated in his introspection. Dunmore has no regret for her past actions – signalled in those lovely active verbs (they are verbs!) you pull out. Her regret is all in the present. Contrast the verbs in Jenkins’ poem eg learned contempt, didn’t come to highlight the negativity.
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Alex you are finding lots of relevant material to support the theme but you need to look for the method. HOW does he communicate the idea of regret? you could, for example, comment on the way his line ‘Not in all the years’ turns to ‘Not all the weeks I didn’t come’ – this is about structure and the way he turns the spotlight onto his own action. You could look at his line ‘before/I was born, or grew up and learned contempt’ and comment on the way he uses the triple structure – surprising us with the harsh self-criticism to follow simple verbs of ‘born’ and ‘grew’. ‘Contempt’ is particularly striking at the end of the line. So – you need to look at method ALL the time!
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This poem is about ‘Things’
Jenkins uses the theme of ‘things’ in the poem as one of the only elements that remains constant throughout. Even when we break the poem up into sections or individual memories we can see that his use of objects such as ‘hand’ and ‘watch’ remain a common theme linking back to the celebrations of his mother. In terms of the form of the poem Jenkins specifically uses the object of the ‘hand’ to think the beginning and the end of the poem. He uses it in the first line ‘I held her hand’ and then a few lines from the end he describes her ‘crinkled hand’. This is cleverly done by Jenkins as he is making this story so personal by talking about something physical to do with his mother but changes it ever so slightly at the end to show a change over their journey.
I also think Jenkins uses the quantity of the objects and things he mentions to show his mother in more than one light. The way we as readers are able to separate the poem into his different memories of his mother shows their obvious placing in the poem, helping to highlight Jenkins’ trail of thought. This use of things rather than possibly emotions helps to highlight the significance of each memory he has with his mother, which then spark the emotions he feels towards her. An example of this is his use of the ‘television’ when describing her watching the television after her husband died, with this clear focus of the object coupled with language such as ‘gulped’ and ‘stared’ we are able to create, as the reader, a clear image in our head of her and what he could see from this memory.
It is also clear to see how Jenkins carefully selects the objects and things he mentions to compliment the storyline of his poem. The way he starts with objects such as ‘rings’, a ‘dressing table’ and ‘food’ gives her a warm character and a lighter mood to the poem. However, as we progress to the end of the poem we can see a shift in Jenkins description of the objects, he talks of ‘rubber bands’, which are able to contrast our earlier image of his mother. Jenkins does this by using his choice language to describe the object to help depict the attitude towards his mother at different points throughout the poem.
Jenkins continual theme of objects and things relating to his mother throughout the poem also help to highlight the way his relationship is with his mother. Whilst it is clear they are close through the language he uses to reference her such as ‘her hand’, he rarely explicitly portrays key emotions towards her. It seems Jenkins shows more of a connection to the ‘things’ and objects relating to her rather than her characteristics as a person or emotions he has towards her. Jenkins does this through a lack of emotive language in the poem contrasting his great detail in including ‘things’ in the memories of his mother.
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Comparing ‘Things’ in ‘Effects’ and ‘Inheritance’
Both ‘Effects’ and ‘Inheritance’ work around the idea of material possessions. In ‘Effects,’ objects such as ‘knives,’ ‘bowls of washing-up’ and ‘old fashioned food’ are mentioned to create an idea of the speaker and his family living a simple life. This is similar to the speaker in ‘Inheritance’ who talks about an ‘oat-straw pillow’ and a ‘wheat-coloured shawl’ as being the minimalist crafted objects that were all she could leave behind for her children. Jenkins goes on to talk about more precious ‘things’ such as ‘rings’ and the ‘classic ladies model, gold strap’ ‘watch’ which indicates that the family had some wealth whereas Boland the progresses to talk about the importance of knowledge and love above actual objects to possess.
In ‘Effects’ the speaker repeatedly refers to the loss or lack of certain objects such as his mother’s ‘rings’ and ‘watch’ and spears to dwell on their absence and what they meant to him; they held precious memories of his and his mother’s past. The speaker in ‘Inheritance,’ however, implies the lack of ever having had such valuable objects and instead comes to the conclusion that the things she had learned from her mother were the things that she felt worthy of passing on to her own daughters. There is much less sense of importance of ‘things’ in ‘Inheritance’ than in ‘Effects.’
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I don’t think she does actually pass on those things does she? ‘…are all the crafts I never had/and can never hand on’. Those are artifacts from her past/her culture but they don’t belong to her. But you are absolutely right that the contrast is marked in terms of the quantity/value of possessions (though I would say the things in Effects are primarily very ordinary – they certainly don’t mark his mother out as in any way atypical do they?) and the focus in Inheritance is the non-material – there is a spiritual dimension in Inheritance that is fundamentally lacking in Effects. In both cases, ultimately, there is little to hand over – life is reduced to nothing or near-nothing.
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Hannah – I think this final point is very telling – it is a relationship through objects, not physical closeness and that makes the image of the hand-holding very special. You’re right to point out progression/structure through objects. What about their symbolic values?
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Effects- this poem is about guilt
The line ‘not in all the weeks that I didn’t come’ suggests that the speaker feels guilty about his absence when his mother ‘poured drink after drink’ and ‘stared unseeing’. He left his mother in a time when she really needed support, the effects of which could’ve marginally changed the last part of her life.
Guilt is also highlighted when Jenkins writes ‘but of course I left’, after his mother said ‘please don’t leave’ again he left her in her time of need; he disobeyed her last words to him. When he returns she couldn’t ‘turn her face to see’ this underlines that he is now back, but it’s too late for his mother to know. This suggests he feels guilty as he put himself first and didn’t care for her enough until it was too late. The fact that his mother ‘could not know’ that ‘now I was back’ emphasises the guilt he feels as his mother never knew that he would come back before she died.
His guilt is emphasised again when he notices that she is missing her ‘effects’, ‘I saw that they had taken off her rings’. The poem is structured around objects which he keeps noticing his mother is missing, he comments to have ‘never known her not have that on’. This suggests that he is feeling guilty that he didn’t take better care of her; the nurses are taking away items which have so many memories attached, parts of her life.
The rhyme throughout most of the poem is scattered, which could be seen to represent the relationship between the mother and her son throughout most of their lives. However at the end the rhyme gets much closer, ‘she’, ‘see’, ‘me’ on the last three lines. This could suggest a much closer relationship between them at the end which would make Jenkins feel much guiltier about leaving his mother as she died.
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Guilt is shown in a similar way in “on her blindness”. Thorpe re-tells a memory of when his mother admits to having thoughts of “bump[ing] [herself] off” and Thorpe replies with the “usual sop”. Thorpe does something different here and includes his own name, “Adam” into the poem which makes this moment seem more sincere and somehow intimate. This makes his “sop” and “inadequate” response seem disappointing. Thorpe may have created this moment to show how he doesn’t feel as though he didn’t do enough for his mother when she was alive, he feels guilty for not having been supportive in her time of need.
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Not sure about the double negative towards the end Dylan! I do like your precise focus on one point though.
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Can you see Kitty how your last two paras have a focus on technique? This is the way to go.
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Exploring the gap between generations
Jenkins effectively portays the gap between generations right from the start of the poem, with the depiction of the mother’s food. Jenkins uses the adjective ‘old-fashioned’ to describe the food the mother would cook. This suggests that to her it was normal food, but for him it symbolised food of another time. The food is described as being very substantial and simple, which could be based around the time war rations were used and so food ingredients had to be kept at a minimum, implying that this was a time in which she grew up, further widening the gap between generations with her and her son. Furthermore, the fact that the speaker puts so much emphasis on the fact their mother did so much of the cooking could reflect outdated societal views of women stereotypically doing the cooking in a household. This creates a gap between generations with the modern day reader and the character of the mother.
A fond mocking tone is created in ‘From the time we took a holiday ‘abroad’’ The fact Jenkins mentions that the holiday was abroad suggests he is mirroring his mother’s words to show how excited she was at this concept. Quotation marks could have been placed around it to fondly mock his mother’s view, as going abroad is a common occurrence for many people in the younger generations, yet is seen as more of a novelty for those that are older. Jenkin also portrays the older generation as being less well-travelled through the line ‘funny foreign stuff’ The ambiguity of ‘foreign’ and ‘stuff’ shows that the mother does not fully understand the cultures of other food. She also speaks of it in a negative aspect, using the adjective ‘funny’. This suggests that she is fairly narrow minded and not multi cultural, whereas the son appears to be more willing to try these foods and travel, creating a contrast between the two characters and voices from different generations.
The structure of the poem also symbolises a gap between generations, as throughout this piece of verse Jenkins creates a loose rhyme scheme, for example, the rhyming of ‘dreamt and contempt’. There is no strict structure to the rhyme schemes, but they tend to be at least a line apart. However, at the climax of the poem, the last three lines all rhyme together, with ‘she’, ‘see’ and ‘me’ The distance between the rhymes suddenly growing shorter could suggest that the death of the mother has combined the two generations, or alternatively, it has left one generation standing alone, closing the gap between generations.
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In ‘Effects’ the theme of marriage first becomes apparent with the mention of ‘the rings’ in the second key section of the poem. The rings introduce this section and so are clearly one of the key images of the poem, prompting Jenkins to remember his mother and her accessories, such as ‘scent sprays’ and ‘tortoise shell combs’. The phrase ‘the rings she’d kept once in her dressing table drawer’ gives an interesting and arguably pessimistic view of the marriage of Jenkins’s parents. The fact that she did not wear them whilst she was alive but instead hid them away in the dresser suggests that her marriage may not have been something she was proud or fond of and so by putting in the dresser she will not be reminded of the marriage and the memories/thoughts it brings with it.
The enjambment of this line, which continues ‘with faded snapshots, long forgotten things’ could also be argued as being pessimistic, as the enjambment means that the rings are grouped with these objects, which lack significance or any vividness, suggests that the marriage, which is the thing that the rings represent, was similar in quality, lacking emotion, romance and excitement. This idea of a marriage lacking spark or excitement is also continued with the line ‘not in all the years they sat together.’ This image could be argued as portraying the marriage as monotonous and unexciting, a uniform and dull existence of this repeated action of sitting down together each evening. However, it could also be argued that this Image does hint at some emotion, in the way that the parents spend time close together at the same time each day, giving them a time in which they can converse and discuss things together
‘Effects’ is a very structured poem, and each set of memories is triggered by a specific item. The rings, symbolic of the marriage of Jenkins’s parents are the second key item within the poem. The first key item is his mother’s hand, and this triggers memories of her role as a caring and supportive mother. The positioning of the rings second with the poem suggests that they are fairly important to Jenkins, however the positioning of her role as another before that of her as a wife suggests that being a mother was her main role, which she put most of her effort into, and her marriage was less important, as transpires through the arguably negative memories that are triggered by the rings.
The line ‘the scotch that, when he was alive, she wouldn’t touch’ also gives some insight into the dynamic of the marriage and what effect it had on the woman. The fact that she only begins to drink after his death suggest that she may have resorted to it as a way to deal with her grief. This suggests that whilst the marriage may have originally appeared monotonous and unromantic, there was clearly some love felt by the woman for her husband, and therefore she is having to resort to something that she would never have considered whilst he was alive, in order to drown her sorrows. ‘The scotch’ is a very specific item and a powerful image, which was clearly has impacted Jenkins, and so hints at alcohol possibly having a significant impact on at least his father, possibly explaining the lack of desire and commitment to the marriage from the mother. The fact that she wouldn’t have touched it whilst he was alive suggests that it may have been something he was very protective of and dedicated to, and also hints at a possible contempt of it from her viewpoint, further emphasising the idea of it having some impact on their marriage.
The line ‘but lately had never been without, as if she wanted everyone to know she was his wife only now that he was dead’ is very important in giving us an insight into the true feelings she had for her husband. The fact that she has suddenly taken the rings out of the drawer now that her husband has passed, maybe in order to try and have some memory of him may suggests that whilst at the time she was not happy in or proud of the marriage, now that her husband has gone she misses him and wants to be with him again.
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Tom – loads of really good stuff here, well done. Just sharpen up on technique – every time you introduce an idea stop and reflect on how the writing is working here. So for example in your first para, the drawer assumes a symbolic value doesn’t it? Astute observations on enjambment. Try to foreground technique a bit more as you do there – so your next long para is really about hints a pond perspective – the way that the narrative content is so fragmented as to disclose only brief glimpses, perhaps reflecting the speaker’ slack of knowledge about the marriage – what can we ever really know as an outsider? Symbolism of the rings is interesting – look at Tyler’s comment and my reply.
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Comparing the theme of marriage in ‘Eat Me’ and ‘Effects’
In ‘Effects’ Jenkins uses imagery to base the marriage around particular items, such as the ‘rings’ and ‘the scotch’. Jenkins may have used these specific images to depict the type of marriage they had, for example, from the line ‘But lately had never been without,’ suggests it was not a particularly happy marriage whilst her husband was alive as she did not want to display the rings, yet when he died it had a different effect on her. Agababi uses the same technique of imagery in ‘Eat Me’ with the descriptions of the cake; ‘The icing was white but the letters were pink,’ Agababi effectively uses adjectives throughout to paint a picture of the dysfunctional relationship that revolves around food. Both poems effectively create imagery, yet Agababi does this with language, whereas Jenkins creates it through structure, showing the development of the effect of their marriage throughout the poem.
Although marriage is a looser and more implied theme throughout ‘Eat Me’, the reader still gets the sense that this couple have been together for a long time, from the contrast of ‘When I hit thirty’ to ‘When I hit thirty-nine’. Agababi creates this poem’s setting through a time lapse of nine years, which is effective in showing that even though their marriage may be unconventional and dysfunctional, there is still something holding her back. Likewise, in ‘Effects’, Jenkins also suggests the the mother had been married a long time, from the line ‘Not in all the years they sat together’, the use of the noun ‘years’ creates a long time span, also suggesting it was a strong marriage in some aspects. The two poems both reference to the lengths of the marriage, however, Agababi does this through the current setting, whereas Jenkins uses the past tense to show that she is now widowed.
Throughout ‘Eat Me’ the poet uses the pronoun ‘he’, for example, in ‘he brought me a cake,’ Agababi may have used this pronoun to create a negative sense of ambiguity from the speaker towards her partner. There are no positive adjectives or use of his name, perhaps implying this is a negative marriage, and subsequently creating a mysterious mood. Similarly, ‘Effects’ also contains the pronouns instead of names, such as ‘That was her way to be with him again.’ Jenkins may have done this to make marriage an underlying theme that contributes to the mother’s illness, and therefore not distract too much attention away from the focal points of the poem. Both poems use the ambiguous pronouns throughout, but ‘Eat Me’ for theme and ‘Effects’ to create an underlying theme that supports and compliments the rest of the poem.
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Emily – good to see you focused on comparison and technique. There isn’t, as you say, any direct mention of marriage and I must admit I hadn’t seen it as that but it is, nevertheless, a close male- female relationship – albeit not a very healthy one! I’m not sure what point you were making about the cake – symbolism? I’d have to look to be sure, but the colours sound stereotypically little girl so might suggest an element of infantalisation from him to her. You are right about the pronoun but note first and foremost the differing perspectives from which the two poems are written – that needs to be a starting point I think. Where would that lead you?
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The idea of Loss in ‘Effects’
Throughout the poem there are various references to loss, both subtly and more outright. It is through Jenkins’ words that we gain the greatest sense of the sorts of losses that both the speaker and the mother experience, for example phrases such as ‘taken off,’ ‘long forgotten’ and ‘it was gone’ all relate directly to loss and the idea that something is missing or no longer around. As well as these more obvious statements of loss there are more hidden mentions of the concept in words such as ‘took her pills’ which may indicate a loss of mind and freedom or the reduction of the words ‘blinked and poured … and gulped and stared’ to ‘blinked and stared’ which implies that the mother was gradually losing her energy and ability to perform simple tasks.
Lines thirty-six and thirty-seven ‘dreamt of when she was a girl, of the time before I was born, or grew up and learned contempt’ introduce the ideas of lost time and youth and the word ‘contempt’ in particular, also implies that there has been a loss of closeness between the speaker and his mother. Despite the indication that there had been some sort of loss in the strength of their relationship, by the end of the poem they seem closer again. The speaker mentions that he held his mother’s hand which implies both a physical and an emotional connection from him to her; however, by that point she is no longer able to reciprocate the feelings because she, herself, has been lost.
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Comparison of Effects and On Her Blindness on the theme of loss
Throughout both On Her Blindness and Effects the theme of loss is prevalent as in both poems the speaker describes the process of losing their mother. In On Her Blindness the mother ‘sat too weak to move’ this is sharply contrasted with when she would ‘drive the old lanchester’ and ‘visit exhibitions’, Thorpe is emphasising the mother’s loss of strength and life as she became more ill. In Effects the mother goes through a similar change, at one point she ‘blinked and poured’ and ‘gulped and stared’ but later in her illness she just ‘blinked and stared’. Jenkins is highlighting how his mother can no longer do simple everyday things; she has lost strength and life.
In On Her Blindness a loss of sight is a main theme in the poem. Thorpe writes that ‘the long, slow slide had finished in a vision as blank as stone’, this suggests that her loss of sight was gradual and had a harsh outcome. Similarly loss of sight is also a theme in Effects, although it is not always literal sight. Jenkins writes that his mother ‘stared unseeing’ and ‘blinked unseeing’, the transition from stared to blinked suggesting a subtle loss of strength. Jenkins is suggesting that she has become emotionally oblivious the world through her grief and illness, she lost her senses and emotions as well as just physical things. In the final stanza Jenkins states regretfully that she couldn’t ‘turn her face too see’, her loss of strength ultimately ended in her loss of life and with it her sight. On Her Blindness ends with the mother’s eyes ‘closed in the coffin’, although she was already blind this is a symbol of finality that ‘now she can’t pretend’ to see as she has lost her life now too.
The loss of life in On Her Blindness is emphasised by the structure, the poem is structured in couplets until the very end where there is a single line. This could be seen to symbolise the mother and son’s close relationship until he loses her and is left alone and isolated, much like the final line. Effects is structured around the loss of objects which trigger memories, It could be seen that the loss of objects symbolise the slow loss of parts of the mothers life. On the other hand On Her Blindness doesn’t include the loss of material possessions but does similarly include a central theme of the loss of life and sight.
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Kitty – I would say your first para relates to the episodic style of both poems doesn’t it? Always try to get in the technique. You do this effectively with your second para.
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Harriet – good first para with well chosen short quotes. You could refer to lexical choices and to patterning t o increase the precision of your analysis – although you are quite right it is language. Irony for the second para perhaps? A very astute observation, linked to structure. Well done – good work.
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The influence of the past on the present-
In Effects the past becomes a reminder of what his mother once was; her material possessions bring back memories of how “she cooked” and of holidays “abroad”, whereas now she can only “blink[ed] unseeing at the wall”. The past also provides a physical impact such as the mothers “scarred” hands and one could say the “drink after drink” she drunk contributed to her demise. The past becomes a reminder of what the mother no longer has; the fact that these familiar possessions have been taking away from her could show that she has lost her identity and she is only a “name.. in smudged black ink” compared to a married woman signified by her “rings” or even a mother, as she can no longer give “love in the only way she knew” (cooking). There is a sense of guilt in the poem as the son regrets “all the weeks I did not come” and one could say he feels responsible for her insinuated alcoholism “gulped and stared”. The mentioning of his mothers last words “Please don’t leave” set in italics show that they are a deep source of regret as he wishes that his mother knew that “I was back”. The last line of the poem “a nurse bring a little bag of her effects to me” could show that without these material past possessions, the speaker would not have remembered all this moments, the objects “effect” him as they represent the past, not the actual present death of his mother.
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This poem is about ‘Love’
Love is prevalent throughout ‘Effects’. However, this poem isn’t only about love; there are other themes such as memory and guilt also. I think it could be argued these other themes are a result of the love the speaker had for his mother.
The poem begins with ‘I held her hand’, in the immediate past; to make it clear they had a close bond. Her ‘hand’ triggers fond memories of her ‘giving love the only way she knew’, which was by cooking for the family and washing-up. The speaker notices little details about his mother, ‘knuckles reddened, rough’; this indicates love as she has his full attention when they were holding hands; he loves and respects her enough to not distracted by anything else. Later on in the poem, this idea of the speaker’s attention to small things is further exposed; ‘lately had never been without’, referring to her ring which triggers memories, this time of her personal possessions: ‘scent-sprays, tortoise-shell comb, a snap or two’, showing that love causes people to hang onto memories and reminisce.
The theme of love becomes clearer when the ‘rings’ are mentioned because they are an obvious symbol of love, more specifically endless love. The idea that their love is everlasting could be being further exposed by there being no stanzas throughout the poem, even when a new episode begins. This makes the poem seem endless to read, which may be mirroring the endless love in their family. The irregular rhyme scheme may also be mirroring the love and closeness as the rhyming words becomes closer towards the end.
The speaker sometimes quotes his mother’s voice, ‘funny foreign stuff’ and ‘poor souls’, this could perhaps be a fond memory of her. The mother’s characterisation changes at the end, due to the way the speaker remembers her. ‘Please don’t leave’ is the last quote from the mother, this is a clear moment of deep love and desperation also. The italics emphasis how important the speaker felt her ‘last words’ were, further exposing his love as well. To portray that the love is continual and on-going throughout this poem her hand is mentioned again at the end: ‘hand I held’.
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Mel – good work here – you’re right of course that the themes blend. I would be a bit more sceptical about his love for her and also the quality of her love for him. You’re right that he lets the objects (including the hand) tell the story and he does notice small things. But it all seems to be too little, too late, signified in the ‘little bag of her effects’ – this is symbolic. It says she had very little effect on him doesn’t it?
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How does Effects express grief?
Jenkins presents grief in various ways throughout Effects, the first of which is its tendency to trigger memories and a want to reminisce about the past. This is shown in how the speaker deals with the loss of his mother, as well as his inability to help her deal with her own grief. The poem is episodic in nature and this fragmented series of events suggests that the speaker’s grief has triggered an almost unstoppable torrent of memories. This suggests a flood-like nature to grief, and an all-encompassing force that is totally overwhelming him, which becomes apparent to the reader in the lurching nature of the structure. This idea of grief triggering memories is reinforced by the use of material items as symbols of the speaker’s mother’s life and these items are what trigger his memories. Things such as ‘her hand’, ‘her watch’ and ‘rings’, all insignificant items before her death, seem to become more meaningful as if these items become part of how she is remembered, as if grief has the ability to take the insignificant and make it precious. Jenkins also uses contrast between the mother’s grief due her husband’s death and the speaker’s own grief. Unlike the speaker, who turns to comfort in memories, his mother seems to lose her sense of self as grief overtakes over her. This is shown in Jenkin’s reduction of the mother’s actions, she used to ‘blink[ed] and pour[ed]’ and ‘gulp[ed] and stare[d]’. However, as her grief progresses she seems to lose these abilities as she becomes more closed off from the world. This is shown by her behaviour in the psychiatric ward where ‘blinked unseeing’. This suggests a spiralling nature to her grief as she continually worsens and as she spirals, her isolation, caused by grief, becomes more apparent. This is emphasised by the metaphor ‘inner weather’ which portrays the mother’s emotional turmoil and suggests a loss of control of her feelings due to comparing her emotions to an uncontrollable entity as the weather.
However, Effects could also be seen as a poem primarily about guilt, and grief could just be seen as a by-product of the speaker’s own inability to help his mother or be there for her like she wanted. This is shown by the mother’s desperate plea ‘please don’t leave’ which is written in italics perhaps to emphasise how desperate his mother is for him to stay but yet again he leaves. This could suggest that the poem is not focused on the speaker’s grief caused by death but in fact his remorse and guilt at not being a better son to his mother whilst she was living.
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The poem is about reduction/degrade
The theme of reduction is evident throughout “effects” and appears in various ways. As stated by other people the poem seems to revolve around “things” and there is a clear link between these “things” and Jenkins’ mother. The first two “episodes” of the poem seem to relive memories which are sparked by his mother’s missing possessions; “her rings” and “her watch”. When talking about the watch Jenkins even goes as far as to even describe its “classic… gold strap”. All these items so far have been accessories and the description of the watch being “gold” hints that it was perhaps expensive. All this is significant as it creates a contrast to the line “a… rubber band… was all she wore”. This is a clear example of reduction in the poem. Jenkins has shown how in life his mother’s possessions were items which were quite opulent, suggested through the noun “gold”, and in death she has been reduced to wearing a “rubber band”. “Rubber” emphasises this reduction as it is a cheap material and clearly juxtaposes the “gold” of his mother’s watch. This reduction of objects value may be symbolic of how Jenkins’ own mother was somewhat reduced to nothingness with time in a similar way. The audience can infer this because it is clear that each of the objects has a sentimental link and represents his mother’s different attributes. However the “rubber band” carries no connotations to his mothers life and means virtually nothing. This nothingness mirrors his mother’s death as she too has become ‘nothing’. This idea of these items being a metaphor for his mother’s last moments on earth is supported by the fact that Jenkins’ mother’s functions seem to degrade with time. His mother transitions from “watching soaps” to “staring unseeing at the television” and finally “blinked and stared”. These quotes are demonstrating how his mother began to degrade physically. That last quote depicts quite a sad image of Jenkins mother. The absence of adverbs or any type of descriptive language makes the sentence appear dull and quite bare. Jenkins may be trying to illustrate that in his mother’s final moments she became a vague shadow of her old self. The verb “stared” echos “staring” which is similar to “watching”. “Watching” suggests that his mother is engaged with the TV however describing her as simply “staring” makes her seem disconnected from the TV and her surroundings. Although the verbs have the same/similar meanings their connotations are completely different. This subtle change, or degradation, in verbs might be Jenkins trying suggest that towards the end of her life small things began to change however these small things started to change his mother in such a way that made her seem like a distant version of her old self.
A note I picked up on structure and form was the length of the final “episode”. It is significantly smaller than the rest and Jenkins may have done this purposefully. This is the ‘episode’ where Jenkins confirms his mothers death by stating that he was handed a “little bag of her effects”. The description of the bag being “little” could relate to the length of this final ‘episode’s’ size and could be the reasoning behind the sudden reduction in size. Jenkins’ could be making the point that this bag is small in comparison to the life his mother lived. An alternative view is that the episode is short and impactful just as the “bag of her effects” might have been for Jenkins. Each of the items in the bag clearly held great sentimental value as they all seem to link to aspects of his mothers life, almost as if they were each meant to represent different parts of her life and perhaps this is what Jenkins had intended. By putting all these items in a “little bag” and labeling them something impersonal like “effects” almost reduces his mothers’ life to a meaningless “bag. This may have occurred to Jenkins when receiving the bag. Jenkins may have kept the knowledge of his mothers death till this short episode in order hopefully have the same effect on the audience as the bag did to him. The sudden reduction in episode size could relate to how Jenkins may have felt like his mother’s life had suddenly reduced to one single “bag.
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Comparison of ‘Effects’ and ‘On Her Blindness’:
Both ‘Effects’ and ‘On Her Blindness’ can be seen to be about reduction in abilities. In ‘On Her Blindness’, this is very clearly shown in the reduction of the setting. It begins in the Paris restaurant showing that the mother in this could travel, and then moves to the home where she is safe, but still is allowed certain freedom. The next move, and a more clear showing of the reduction in abilities, is the move to the hospital where her freedom is so much more limited – she is unable to do much for herself. The final setting where she has lost all her abilities, the ultimate show of reduction possibly, is the coffin, where the mother finally has no further abilities.
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Iona – great. A focused point. Remember to quote. Doing this would have revealed the lack of direct reference to a coffin and could have sparked further thoughts about the technique here in relation to your theme. The new setting has to be inferred, it is so reduced as to reflect some kind of taboo.
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Dylan this is great – lots of sharp and precise observation. Well done. Two small points – don’t invent quotes ie don’t use speech marks for anything other than quotes from the poem. And don’t say the same thing twice! You will need to cultivate a more concise style for the exam where expression of argument is assessed.
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This is a poem about old age:
Old age is shown in this poem primarily through the loss of abilities of the mother, or the reduction in her capabilities. Throughout the poem, ‘Effects’, she becomes less capable, for example she begins off cooking, then watches TV with her husband, then having the TV on but not watching it before she finally ends up in a psychiatric ward. Jenkins uses language to convey this loss of abilities by using repetition but leaving out the key, active verbs the second time. It goes from ‘blinked and poured…and gulped and stared’ so only ‘blinked and stared’. The verbs left are passive verbs which emphasise the isolation and the fact that she is left with very little. We can see how much her capabilities have been reduced from at the start of the poem.
Next, old age is shown with the stubbornness of the mother, her unwillingness to change and her fixed views. Jenkins quotes the voice of the mother, for example with ‘funny foreign stuff’ and ‘who would steal anything, she said’. The use of direct quotes from the mother could show a slight mockery of his mothers opinions, or a discomfort with the slightly rude nature of the comments, and a wish to distance himself from them.
Finally, old age is shown as slightly pathetic, with the collection of old things presented rather negatively. They are described as ‘long forgotten things’ and ‘scent sprays, tortoiseshell combs, a snap or two’. Jenkins describes the things trivially and uses litotes in an attempt to avoid glorifying the collection of materialistic things that appear to have very little use now. He is very unsentimental about the collection, and the size of the collection emphasises the pathetic nature of it.
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Comparison between Genetics and Effects: Marriage (Tom)
The theme of marriage is also present in Genetics; however unlike the marriage portrayed in Effects in Genetics marriage is portrayed as a creative force that has made something everlasting in the child that it produced. This is emphasised in Genetics by the structure of a villanelle as both repeating lines have come together, shown by its circularity, and this represents a husband and wife having created something in a child that lasts, even after the marriage itself dissolves. Furthermore, the representation of the genetic links in the father’s ‘fingers’ and the mother’s ‘hands’ show a different side to marriage than Effects, where it seems to stress the distance between the husband and wife with phrases such as ‘long-forgotten things’ which seems to suggest a distance between the two. In Genetics the husband and wife are portrayed as being closely linked even after their divorce as their child remains the lasting connection and this is shown by the metaphor ‘my body is their marriage register’.
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Zoe – good to see this direct comparison and the focus on technique. You could have perhaps commented on tone and voice and perspective. Both poems have the perspective of the adult child but one is much more enquiring of the relationship ie in Effects and therefore subdues intone etc etc
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Love in ‘Effects’ compared to in ‘Inheritance.’
The poem ‘Inheritance’ by Eavan Boland also expresses the idea of love and this is supported by poetic techniques. The poem is structured so that each paragraph concentrates on a materialistic object, such as ‘the view between here and Three Rock Mountain’, ‘gifts that were passed through generations’ and ‘the lace bobbin with its braided mesh’, which the mother would like to pass on to her children as solid proof of her love after her passing (we can assume). Each paragraph begins with an object, and then proceeds to convey a sense of disappointment and owing from the mother, who feels that she has no material object which she can give to her children. However, in the 6th stanza, the poem turns; ‘But then again there was a night…’ when the mother begins to realise that she may have a gift that she can pass on to her children after all. Boland begins to draw attention to this realisation with a tri-colon and alliteration of ‘awake, alert and afraid’, speeding up the poem and drawing attention to the qualities the mother demonstrated via these actions, and then ends with ‘sick, fretful’ after a semi colon, further quickening the poem and showing how this stanza demonstrates an awakening from the drifting and despairing nature of the previous stanzas. In the penultimate stanza, the line ‘as if I knew the secrets of health and air, as if I understood them’, with its repetition of verbs to emphasise the awakening and realisation of the mother to this new skill, shows how she realises she has a more subtle gift to pass on. We see this confirmed with the line ‘and listened to the silence’ where we see that the silence of the mother, whilst sitting and nursing her sick child, is much more significant than any material gift she could have passed on. She can pass on what she was unknowingly given ‘I must have learned that somewhere’, in the form of empathy and care. The repeating negative and simplistic language ‘no, never, not, nothing’ etc. which has dominated the poem until these last two stanzas has been overcome by this realisation by the mother of the most important and significant skill that she possesses and one which will be invaluable when passed on; the love and care of a mother for her child.
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Tom – so much more focused, brilliant. Loads of technical comment. Alliterative triple is the phrase you want at one point. Just make sure you don’t lose sight of your focus – love went off the radar a bit in the middle didn’t it?
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