Valentine Carol Ann Duffy Analysis

Love can be truthful and dangerous like a knife. In the poem ‘Valentine’ by Carol Ann Duffy, the poet uses language effectively to examine the comparison of onion and love. The author uses metaphor, diction and imagery to emphasize the truthful side of love and the dangerous of married life.

Extended metaphor is used to show the onion is more faithful and reflects the true nature of love. The first stanza ‘Not a red rose or a satin heart’ (line 1) shows its a rejection of traditional symbol of love, where is the second stanza it uses this unusual comparison to make connection to love by comparing it to the ‘moon wrapped in brown paper’(line 3). In an ancient mythology, the moon was ruled by Diana, and she has 2 personality. She a goddess worshipped by roman women's, where one of her personality is a pure maiden huntress yet theres a violent side of her.However, onion connects to unsafe love because it ‘blind you with tears’ (line 7). The onion compares it to a lover that love always leave us in tears, where this is a risk of love of being left heart broken. Especially stanza 6 which it started to have images of jealousy and violence which their kiss at this point in their relationship have a mixture of both passion and punishment …show more content…
For example, ‘possessive’ (line 15)shows that the obsessed love is turning into an unhealthy relationship. Furthermore, in the last stanza ‘Lethal. It’s scent will cling to your fingers, cling to your knife’ (line 21-23) shows that love is dangerous. ‘Lethal’ and ‘knife’ (line 21/23) reflects to the moon and shows Diana’s violence personality where you can refer to stanza 2 ‘moon’ that this is the dark side of romantic love. This highlights the part of a romantic love that hides the dangerous and risk inside