Gillian Clarkes Catrin tackles one of the...

Gillian Clarkes Catrin tackles one of the well-considered themes in feminist writing - the mother-daughter relationship. CATRIN ====== Gillian Clarkes Catrin tackles one of the well-considered themes in feminist writing - the mother-daughter relationship. The aspect of the relationship that Clarke explores here is the bond (rope) that ties them together and from which they try to free themselves from the very beginning, even before birth. Freeing yourself as an individual within a relationship must result in conflict on both sides, which is what the mother and daughter in Catrin are experiencing now. The question we ask ourselves here is, when does the struggle begin? Notice how the speaker uses monosyllables to†¦show more content†¦The real or literal meaning of the metaphor is that each participant in the confrontation wanted her own way. Their actions were shouting. A tank reminds us of a fish tank, and of the idea that it contains everything to do with its occupants. In the speakers case, the tank contains and holds in complete focus the confrontation, which the participants neither won nor lost. yet we find that it is only another manifestation of the same confrontation, this battle of wills, the need for autonomy. The first stanza is longer because it deals with the defining experience of the two characters lives. * taking/Turn at the traffic lights (lines 4-5) emphasises the t sound providing the rhythmic effect of cars going one by one. But I think we can also see the rhythmic and regular moment of the speakers labour in the phrase. * first/Fierce (lines 6-7) uses the initial f sound in words whose monosyllabic effects suggest the pushing movements of birth. * Red rope suggests the blood connection between the speaker and the child. Later it becomes an old rope, but the red colour reminds us that the suggestion of the umbilicus remains in the image of the rope. * Lines 13-14 contain the w sound in walls, words, with and wild, all suggestive of the intensity and struggle of the birth experience. * Lines 15-16 use the s sound in