Both poets use metaphors to suggest that being in love can cause pain. In “The Seduction”, McAuley says love can lead to hurtful feelings and problems which will stay for you forever, while in “Wound Cream”, Patten implies the desire for love can cause problems. McAuley uses a metaphor to describe the young girl’s emotions which is like a “septic wound”. This infers the hurt of the young girl is strong and a “wound” will always leave a “scar” and cause pain.
The “scar” for the young girl is the baby that she will have, which she’ll have full responsibility over for the rest of her life – and she is only 15 years old – just like a “wound” leaves a “scar” it is with her forever. The pain for the young girl is the memory of the night where she had sex with the boy who let her down by leaving her. She also feels heartbroken because her dream was to have a “fairytale” relationship. Her “scar” which is her baby is a constant reminder of her perfect relationship that she wanted but now it’s over.
She won’t have that fantasy anymore because now she has a child with no partner, which is not how the media portrays relationships to be. These stories and magazines influence young girls telling them they’ll find a man who will take care and love the woman. But this 15 year old girl is in pain and realises all she’s been fed are lies. The young boy she met and thought was her true love has left her in misery after he betrayed her the night she fell pregnant. On the other hand, Patten shows in “Wound Cream” that many people will go through sacrifices for a happy and perfect relationship.
Patten explains people have a “hunger” for love and some of the things in the relationship or to have a relationship can be of their “undoing”. The poet uses a metaphor as them having a “hunger” for love. This means they’re desperate and craving for a good relationship mostly like the “fairytale” relationship. When people were younger and as they grow up, they are told and shown love stories which end in a “happily ever after” and this is their desire once they’ve grown up but in reality you can’t find something like this so this is their pain.
They’re so in need for that love that Patten also says that lovers go through stages that are of their “undoing”. This tells us that people do many different, sometimes painful and even crazy things to get in to or make their relationship work. These things that they do or say are not what they’d normally do if they weren’t in love. For example, when you’re at the start of a relationship you’re on your best behaviour and you wouldn’t do a thing out of place, just to impress your partner, but as years pass, partners seem to break apart and then they’re more true to themselves and these changes hurt people.
Overall, I think that love changes and sometimes destroys the person you are. In “The Seduction”, I think that McAuley used an effective metaphor and adjective because it linked to the young girl. It links well because “wounds” leave “scars” which last forever and a young girl has a baby which is an effect which will last her forever. Patten also uses metaphors to show good points such as when he says lovers sacrifice things to satisfy each other. However, I prefer McCauley’s metaphor because there are many reasons behind the girl’s pain and agony. You can tell because of how descriptive the metaphor is.
Septic” is a really strong word and you can almost imagine how hard it is for her. McAuley and Patten then go on to imply that love is promoted in a misleading way. In “The Seduction”, McAuley says that the media portrays love much more differently to how it is in reality, and this leads to misery; whereas Patten says the media shows all the advantages of being in love, but not any of the disadvantages. McAuley uses a metaphor to show the girls heartache after the young boy betrayed her and she realises she won’t have the perfect relationship that her magazines show.
She knows she’s been fed lies to so she rips up her magazines “like confetti strewn”. This represents her sadness and possible anger because she’s been misguided. “Confetti” is used for celebrations, particularly at weddings. She might have ripped up the magazines in shreds and threw them life “confetti” because she wants that wedding with her true love – a wedding like the media portrays. The young girl knows she is stuck with a child and now it will be hard to find a man with a child because she is a single mother.
Therefore she feels so angry, realising she has been misled so this is why she throws the paper like “confetti”, knowing that she won’t have the wedding or relationship that the magazines says she will. In “Wound Cream”, Patten tells us that there are ups and downs to being love or being in a relationship. He states that love is like a “media promoted fairytale; gutted of darkness”. This suggests that in the media, they influence us and give us the wrong idea of love by showing all the good points of love and not showing the problems that occur.
People get the wrong idea of love because of the “media promoted fairytale” that we see. The “media” is mainly the films and the “promoted fairytale” is the relationship with the “happily ever after”. There are also gender roles whereby the man is always dominant and the woman is labelled as the dependant one. This misleads people and they feel betrayed from the “media” because they cannot have that “fairytale” relationship as reality is much more different.
This misguide effects people a lot because they’ve had the mentality about these gender roles and “happily ever afters” because since birth to their pre-teen years they’ve been reading nursery stories and watching movies like “Cinderella” or “Snow White” where they have happy relationships with no downsides. This causes problems in later life because these stories influence them and then they feel betrayed and misled and realise it’s all lies when they can’t find a perfect relationship for themselves.
Patten’s quote tells us the media does not show the disadvantages of a relationship because he says the media’s portrayed relationship is “gutted of darkness”. “Gutted” means to take away and “darkness” is a metaphor for the problems of the relationship. This represents that the media clears away and doesn’t show or the mention the problems between the couple which misleads people because they think a relationship or marriage has no problems to be dealt with.
In conclusion, I think that McAuley chose a very good metaphor because the word “confetti” can relate and link to many problems of her situation. I think in “Wound Cream” Patten’s quote wasn’t very exact because not every story in the media portrays that love has a “happily ever after”. Only fairytales do but in many movies they don’t have happy endings. Patten could have made it clearer if he was talking about just fairytales or all types of media.
