Fenton uses ‘In Paris with You’ to give you he false security that you will read a romantic love poem however he then upturns your expectations as the poem displays the unrequited love of a couple stuck in Paris which helps to display the anger in the couples relationship as one partner is expecting a romantic time in Paris yet they have a negative experience instead. ‘Quadric suggests a Wild West themed imagery which further implies a violent, potentially fatal encounter between the couple which suggests anger in the relationship yet doesn’t indicate much emphasis on love.
Duffy uses this imagery wrought the poem to create tension and suspense as to what the outcome of the couples’ relationship will be. Both poems are written in the form of a dramatic monologue to present the hidden anger from a person perspective of the speaker. In ‘In Paris with You’ the speaker feels scared and alone as they are “on the rebound” and are unsure whether the relationship they have conjured in Paris actually means anything to them; the speaker hopes the relationship doesn’t mean anything as they just want a ‘no strings attached’ relationship with another person in the romantic eating of Paris.
This displays anger as the romantic setting of Paris has been wasted as the speaker only wants a small, meaningless relationship. ‘Quadric however, displays anger in the form of violence to show the negative connotations of a relationship with a lack of communication; the poem is also very intimate – muff choose your spot then blast me through the heart. ” – which shows the need for the first person in order to Justify the intimacy. Both poems use different settings to convey the ideas of anger in the relationships. In Paris with You’ uses the romantic action of Paris to convey the idea of romantic love but then Fenton upturns this and uses it to generate anger by suggesting the romantic trip was wasted as the couple didn’t do the traditional things couples do when in Paris. ‘Quadric uses a shootout to suggest mind games and convey the uncertainty between the couple as they predict each other’s moves, this then creates a lot of tension between the couple with continues to show the anger as there is a big lack of communication between them.
Both poems use different forms of figurative language such as ellipse, metaphors and alliteration to build tension between the speaker and their partner. Ellipse is used in ‘In Paris with You’ at the end to signify the speaker sudden change of opinion as throughout that stanza the speaker has been describing their partner with positive connotations: “I’m in Paris with your eyes, your mouth,” and suddenly this changes t describing their partner with negative connotations: “I’m in Paris with… All points south. Am I embarrassing you? Ellipse is used similarly in ‘Quadric as it is repeated five times in the last line of the poem to symbolism bullets being shot teen the couple. This is used to show the relief of tension between them as the speaker finally loses control and speaks continuously; the bullets are also used metaphorically to symbolism the words of the speaker. Other metaphors used throughout ‘Quadric and ‘In Paris with You’ convey anger in the relationships; Duffy entire poem is a metaphor as it is displaying a phone call between lovers presented as a metaphorical gunfight, Duffy has done this to emphasis the aggression of a lovers argument.
The metaphor between the second and third Tanta: muff choose your spot then blast me through the heart” particularly emphasizes the hypothetical situation to which the poem is set as realistically that gunshot would’ve been fatal yet this metaphor suggests the death of the relationship or the death of the love between the couple. The metaphor in ‘In Paris with You’ “I’m hostage” shows the speaker feels trapped in a one-sided love they do not agree wit and shows that the speaker is not willing to be in Paris; this shows that love can be linked with anger as the speaker feels trapped. Alliteration is shown in ‘In Paris with
You’: “Vive downed a drink or two” which implies love causes extreme drinking and in some situations, the drinking is caused by the need to forget and highlights the anger within the relationship; it also gives the stanza a good rhythm and helps the reader to understand the contrasts within the poem. ‘Quadric uses alliteration: “the trigger of my tongue” to suggest the tongue as a weapon and show that in the couples conversations they each have to but in against one another otherwise there is no other opportunity for them to speak which displays the anger by the use of the rod “trigger” to suggest one person suddenly speaker against another.
The stanza in both poems are broken and uneven which suggests imbalanced thought process and emotions within each speaker. Fenton uses five stanzas which have an inconsistent number of lines – three stanzas have five lines, the last stanza has six and the middle stanza has nine – which helps to represent the inconsistency of the argument but also shows the anger as when people are angry they try to get their point across very quickly so they are never very consistent.
The small number of Tanana also shows the relationship is not intended to last very long as they are Just “on the rebound” and those types of relationships are almost always short. Duffy however uses fewer stanzas – four – to reflect with the different stages of the mind game which also represents the different stages of the shootout.
Each stanza has four lines which shows the consistency that each stage lasts for the same amount o time as one person reads their opponent quicker and wins the shootout; however, this case, the four line stanzas are broken apart as the sentences are continued teen stanzas which shows the loss of control as well as the contrast between I and anger yet also displays a broken heart as the couple start to realism, in the shootout, that the relationship has mutated from being based on love, to being bas on anger which has lead the to the end of the relationship.
To conclude, both ‘In Paris with You’ and ‘Quadric have similar and contrasting ways in which they display that love and anger are closely linked. Fenton uses many negative attributes from the number of stanzas to the diction within them; Duffy also uses negative attributes but disguises these with metaphorical situations whereas Fenton uses realistic ones.
Overall, both ‘In Paris with You’ and ‘Quadric use anger to display how love can be destroyed within a relationship as Fenton explores the consequences of love and suggests that the speaker has difficulty trusting the other person as they do not want to get hurt again which shows the knock-on effect one damaged relationship can have on another potential relationship and Duffy simply explores the importance of communication within a relationship.
