In Mrs Tilscher’s Class – Carol Ann Duffy

Critical Essay Higher/Intermediate 2

We are learning to:

• Develop our knowledge of IMTC by Carol Anne Duffy.

• Discuss her use of poetic techniques and the effectiveness.

• Consider how we, as the reader, are affected by the poem.

• Understand the broader messages in the poem.

Poem Summary

• The poem examines the change that takes place between childhood and childhood and adolescenceadolescence.

• The safety of Mrs Tilscher’s primary school classroom is contrastedcontrasted with life outside against a background including the Moors Murderers Ian Brady and Myra Hindley.

• A growing sexual awarenessgrowing sexual awareness marks the end of innocence.

• The poem presents a primary school classroom full of interest and happiness. The first two stanzas are full of the excitement excitement felt by children as they learn and discover new facts.

• They are full of references to the senses senses of sight, touch, sound and smell as you, the reader are lead on a journey of discovery.

• The overwhelming feeling is one of safetysafety as you see the world through the eyes of the children.

• The syntax reflects the language of childhood, ‘This was better than home.Enthralling books. The classroom glowed like a sweetshop.’

• The excitement is also captured by the language, ‘The laugh of a bell swung by a running child.’ with personification bringing items to life.

First Stanza

• You could – anything seems possible, addresses reader directly, puts us in the place of the naïve child

• Chalky pyramids rubbed into dust – persona seems to think Mrs T is magical and wonderful: naïve/innocent

• The laugh of a bell - personification reflecting the persona’s happiness

• minor sentence – images flashing into the persona’s memory

• However, even in the midst of all this happiness, the threat of adult knowledge pervades.

• Although ‘faded’, the faces of Brady and Hindley thrust themselves. The child is able to remove them from his world, ‘like the faint, uneasy smudge of a mistake.’ but the poem shows that this level of innocence is not able to continue.

Stanza 2• Classroom glowed like a sweetshop

- simile, the child sees the classroom like treasure

• Like the faint, uneasy smudge of a mistake – simile, the child feels scared of Brady and Hindley, and after Mrs T has tried to make them forget it she cannot completely

• Mrs Tilscher loved you. - statement, - the persona sees it as a fact

• The change from childhood to adolescence starts in the third stanza with the growth of the tadpoles, ‘from commas into exclamation marks’. At first, the frogs are presented in as an object of fun and enjoyment as they are followed ‘by a line of kids’.

• However, the ‘rough boy’ marks the end of the child’s innocence by telling her where she came from. The child rejects this news, ‘You kicked him’, but it has still altered how they regard their parents.

• The disjointed syntax of the final sentence reflects the shock felt by the child.

Stanza 3

• Over the Easter – one part of their life has finished, the structure suggests change, E suggests rebirth. Turning point

• Inky tadpoles changed from commas into exclamation marks – change, growing up, metaphor/symbol, comma – continuation, exclamation marks – extreme emotion

• Inky tadpoles changed from commas into exclamation marks – change, growing up, metaphor/symbol, comma – continuation, exclamation marks – extreme emotion

• Appalled - disappointed, disgusted by sex, persona is not ready for adolescence

• The final stanza is full of images of passion and sexual frustration. The end of childhood is tied in with the end of term (and a move to secondary school?).

• The innocence of primary school remains but now seems to be harder, ‘then turned away. Reports were handed out.’

• The child runs out into an unknown future as an adolescent.

• The use of second person ‘You’ throughout the poem should not be ignored.

• This is an experience which we all share and the poem forces us to assume the role of the child and experience the change from innocence to knowledge.

Stanza 4

• That feverish July/feverish …untidy,hot,fractious – the persona is uncomfortable physically and also uncomfortable emotionally with growing up

• Then turned away. - she can’t help, she can’t guide the persona, persona needs to be independent

• Ran through the gates impatient to be grown – now they are ready to grow up and face the world, they have left ‘Mrs Tilscher’s’ class to go into the real world