Havisham (poem)

I chose "Havisham" as my piece of writing because I like pretty much everything about it. The interesting wording, the weird sentence structure and how she portrays the characters emotional breakdown and torment make the poem different from any other. 

The language used in the poem is unique and interesting. Every sentence has purpose and tells a huge part of the story, and the abnormal sentence structure used by Carol Ann Duffy just adds effect to her choice of wording. An example of the language used in the poem is the very first sentence "Beloved sweetheart bastard". The final word is a direct contradiction of the first and second, this shows the reader how twisted and confused Miss Havisham's emotions and thoughts are. Every sentence in the poem could be used for an example of Carol Ann Duffy's creativity in her image of Miss Havisham, however quoting and analysing every sentence would be a long and boring task.

"At the end of the second stanza, pronouns multiply wildly from 'her' and 'myself' to 'who'. It's as if her sense of self is fracturing. The pronouns run over the line break into the next stanza transforming the apparent sentence: 'myself who did this' into a question 'who did this to me?'. In other words, we think, at first, she's aware that her 'cawing' is self-inflicted. But then we realise she's actually asking 'who did this to me?'." This is a quote from an English teachers analysis of the poem. I used this passage because it explains how well Carol Ann Duffy's choice of sentence structure works and how much it can change the meanings of different parts of a poem in a way that I couldn't explain myself.