Aunt Julia

• "loud"


  Word Choice

  She appears to be very extroverted and not shy

  Emphasises the extremes of the way she was talking
• "I could not"

  Repetition - Word Choice

  Emphasises the negative & MacCaig's helplessness
• "Strong"

  Word Choice

  Suggests she is burly and shows a sense of power and strength
• "Marvellously"


  Word Choice

  He is in awe of her and admires her
• "men's boots"

  Aunt Julia is quirky and unconventional
• "darkness"


  Word Choice

  Suggests despite the darkness & primitive accomodation he feels secure & safe
• "crickets being friendly"


  Word Choice - contrast

  The 'darkness' and the friendly crickets contrast
• "flouncing"


  Word Choice

  Similar to her spinning

  Water is personified: it seems happy

  Comparisons about Aunt Julia's series of metaphors - to do with nature and the things of a home
• "brown eggs, black skirts"


  Word Choice

  She has had a hard life, she did not have money but worked very hard
• "Aunt Julia"


  Repetition - returns to start of poem

  Key idea - he cannot understand her
• "absolute black"


  Death = darkness
• "learned"


  Suggests it's too late by the time he learnt his aunties language - he cannot communicate with her
• "of a sandy grave"


  Change of atmosphere - disappointment & sadness
• "seagull's voice"


  Her words are incomprehensible. But she still lives through the nature

  He still hears her voice
• "getting angry"


  Both are getting angry

  Aunt Julia = he couldn't answer her questions

  Speaker = he didn't know her or understand her
• "unanswered" 


  Word Choice

  Final word - on its own

  Reinforces enduring sense of frustration
• Themes


  Death

  Loss

  Relationships

  Nature

  Human experience/condition

  Lack of communication

  Isolation - felt by the speaker, who is frustrated by his inability to communicate effectively with his much loved relative
• Dark

  Contrast between the loud, talkative, vibrant Aunt Julia in life and the quiet of death is emphasised using enjambment
• Tone


  Regret

  Only after Julia's death did the poet learn enough Gaelic to be able to communicate with her

  Hence all the questions that he would have asked to her, must remain unanswered, just as her questions to him as a child had been
• Link with Other Poems

  Loss: Visiting Hour

  "Into an arm wasted/ of colour a glass fang is fixed/not guzzling but giving"

  Human experience: Visiting Hour

  "I will not feel, I will not feel/until I have to"

  Lack of Communication: Assisi

  "It was they who had passed/ the ruined temple outside/ whose eyes wept pus, whose back was higher than his head"
• Form & Structure

  Stanza 1

  • a child's memory of his aunt

  Stanza 2

  • describes his aunt
  • insights into her way of life

  Stanza 3

  • strange experience - sleeping in a box bed

  Stanza 4

  • vivid images capture aspects of her life

  Stanza 5

  • too late to communicate with Aunt