Never Go Back - Carol Ann Duffy

• What theme does this poem fit into ?

  Places and Journey's
• Overview of the poem ( What is this poem about )

  Overall , Duffy's use of the title ' Never Go Back' sums up this poem. This poem is all about how even you go back to or visit a place from the past , you cannot go back in the past to how that place would've been . Duffy looks at how places change , the people within a place , may also change . Visiting a place from the past and seeing these old memories , described as almost painful , as though you are sacrificing part of yourself. The poem creates a sense of bitterness , and emptiness from this place after the person who once lived there returned. The poem is in the form of a dramatic monologue like many of Duffy's poems do.
• Larkin Poems this could be compared to :

  This poem could be compared to Larkin's 'Dockery and Son' both poems looking at the journey from the past to the presence , as well as using train journeys to be symbolic of a metaphorical journey through life. Both poems look at the fact we can go back and look and reflect at memories from the past but we cannot re live them This poem , could also be compared to Larkin's 'Home is so Sad' which presonfies a place as sad , within this poem , it is the interior of a home following the loss of it's inhabitants . Similarly , the home within Never Go Back , is resentful, and accusing towards the persona as though them leaving this place , has created all this emptiness. Maybe this poem could be compared to Larkin's 'Here' as both poems focus on settings of cheap , run down industrial towns , at the end of both poems the personas seek and find comofrt away from others and away from these claustrophobic towns.
• Context behind this poem

  - Duffy includes and uses lots of relatable imagery that a reader would be able to relate to . Such asrelatable locations such as pubs , streets filled with takeaways , as well as the feeling of loss which most people will be able to relate to in some sense. Visiting a place of the pastthe feeling of emptiness , again is a very rleatbale theme , that mesny readers have probably been through themselves in real life. The realatable and accesible nature of this poem , links Duffy to her literary influence the Mersey poets from the 1960s who were massively influeneced by the American 1950s Beats Poets.Both these poet groups , though their poems were often created for live perfromance amd looked at contemporary political issues and cultural issues , like Duffy's poems they discussed and commented on raw human emotions and were accesible to a wide group of people due to their relatablity. Like Larkin in Dockery and Son , Duffy uses a train journey as a metaphor for the personas journey through time. This metaphor was often used at the end of Victorian Literature when writing about death indriectely charcters getting on this train , were symbolically heading on a journey to the afterlife.References here to the afterlife , could potentially be linked to Duffy's relgious views , as though she is an athiest and is well known for claiming to be an athiest , she was brought up a roman catholic , and omce stated poetry is like prayer.Critics and readers often interpret this poem to be set during the 1980s a period of economic crisis at the time of Margaret Thatcher - North South Divide , run down Northern cities and towns.
• Critical and alternate readings:


  ' Exploration of the deepest reccesses of human emotiom , joy and pain' Elizabeth O'Reilly Michael Woods ' Duffy's poems explore how time is inevitabley cruel and takes things away from us Michael Woods.Jody Allen ' 'Duffy shares Larkin's tragic views of life
• Stanza 1 - ' In the bar where the living dead drink all day'

  Straight away Duffy creates a sense of stagnation and emptiness . Duffy uses the 'living dead' as a metaphor for the people or this town , suggesting entrapment , they aren't living simply just existing.The fact these people are also in a bar , could suggest the only way these people pass their time , and are able to struggle and survive in this atmosphere of emptiness is through drinking and intoxication.
• Stanza 1 ' Jukebox reminisces in a cracked voice'


  Here Duffy personifies the jukebox , the fact the voice of this jukebox is cracked , suggests it is a tired , worn out , old voice . There is almost an element of sadness to the sound of the jukebox. The jukebox could also act as a metaphor for the lives of this people in this pub , in this place , their lives are so sad , and so dull, all life is drained out of them , and they are stagnated and stuck to the past.The 'jukebox' connects the reader , and indicates the poem is set during the time of the 1980s.The fact the juke box reminisces suggest that it is old , acts as a reminder of the past , and past memories for the persona of what this place was once like before they left.
• Stanza 1 ' You talk for hours in agreed motifs , anecdotes shuffled and dealt from a well thumbed pack, snapshots.

  Anecdotes- short stories , the people within this place are so miserable , their lives are so dismal , that they are stuck telling th same stories fom the past . Duffy creates an atmosphere of emptiness and stagnation here.The fact these stories are 'shuffled' and 'dealt' from a 'well thumbed pack' suggests to the reader their conversations are stale , their stories have been touched upon and all been told before. ' Snapshots' Duffy foregrounds this with the terminal caesura , the create a sudden break in the line , this mimicks the idea , that the conversations of these people , are short fleeting moments in time from the past. The people within this place and the place itself , is attached , clinging onto the past
• Stanza 1 - ' Your ghost buys a round for the parched , old faces of the past.'

  Duffy here directly places the reader themselves with the pronoun 'your' this forces the reader to feel and try and identify with the loss this persona feels. The fact the reader is described as a 'ghost' , suggests they're not really there , no body diminished . Duffy suggesting here that something about being in this place takes something , a part of yourself away from you , into the all consuming scene of emptiness , nothingness. Ghost links back to the living dead at the start of the poem , for the persona being in this place , liked the inhabitants drains life out of them.'old faces of the past' suggests to the reader that these people are unrecognisable , they are just fragments of the past , which is now nothing . These people are meaningless.
• Stanza 2 ' God, this is an awful place says the friend , the alcoholic '

  Here Duffy uses parenthesis , creating an aside for the reader. The use of a 'friend' by Duffy here is important , as it places the reader into the position of the poem , the parenthesis helping the rarer to recognise and imagine their own friend in this position.The fact that Duffy makes the friend an alcoholic again , is significant , and though it is a small detail to the poem , it shouldn't be ignored.Alcoholism , it's degenerative , it consumes , completely takes over a person , diminishes them physically , but also removes a person of their personilty , who they are. No identity , no emotion. Duffy could be suggesting here that maybe this place has had this effect on th friend , being in this place created this harmful and painful 'drink to forget' attitude. Or is the place itself intoxicating and diminishing.
• Stanza 3 - ' The house where you were one of the brides has cancer'

  Duffy uses the word ' house' here to suggest that the persona , doesn't feel anything returning home to the place they once lived . A house being simply just a physical structure , with no real emotion or sense of belonging attached to it. ' bride' could be a metaphor for the persona here , and how they have moved away from this place , moved onto a new stage of their life , like a bride in marriage, however this has caused the house to have cancer.' Cancer' connotes ideas of death , incurability death and decay. Since the persona left this house a mutation , a void of emptiness and sadness has developed.
• Stanza 3 - 'each grown and crack accusing you as you climb the stairs to the bedroom'


  Here Duffy , personifies the house in the poem to almost be resentful and bitter , evoking hatred towards the persona , as though them leaving the house creating and formed this destructive void of emptiness , likened to cancer
• Stanza 3 - ' all the cries of love suddenly swarm into the room , sting you , disapeer'


  'The use of the dynamic verb 'swarm' by Duffy suggests the memories of being in this house are sudden , sharp and painful , a sting , leaving a mark , or lasting pain . This suggest remembering and experiencing these memories again , is painful and hurtful again showing how for this persona visiting this place is almost like sacrificing a part of themselves to the past , the past which cannot be relived , which is why Duffy could be describing this house as decaying , showing the damage of holding onto memories and places from the past. Again the 'sting' shows the resent the house feels for this persona . The cries of love - the ghosts of the past and memories , desperate , crying out and yearning to be relived again.The fact that all these memories disappear , suggests the house is a reminder to the persona of their painful past , something they don't want to remember.
• Stanza 4 ' You shouldn't be here. You follow your shadow through the house'

  ' You shouldn't be here.' This is a very short , yet powerful statement , ' shouldn't also creates a sense of certainty , linking back to the title ' Never Go Back' The caesura here by Duffy creates pause for the reader to mimic the sudden nature of all these past memories coming back to the persona.'Shadow' Duffy could be using a shadow for a metaphor for all these memories of the personas past self , almost taking form of a physical being , the fact that the persona is following the shadow suggests they are out of control , have no sense of direction , their past memories haunting and guiding them around this place they once lived.
• Stanza 4 ' You lived here only to stand here now and half believe you did '

  Here Duffy references time , in quite an abstract and complex image of time shifting.. It's lmaost as though the persona only lived in this place , to grow into a better person , to be able to compare themselves to their past self and move on.'half you believe you did ' this suggests that the house , this place in the poem has changed so much , it feels as though for this persona they never lived there , almost like a metaphorical death of part of themselves , part of their past.
• Stanza 4 ' speechless , slamming the front door , shaking plaster confetti from your head'


  The crumbling of the plaster illustrates the fragility and the crumbling decaying nature of the home stagnated in time , suggests the damage and the destruction , holding onto the past , and past memories can create.. The violent sharp , dynamic words provide a contrasting to the still and stagnated house entrapped and stuck , holding onto the past , and memories that have occurred
• Stanza 5- ' A taxi implying a hearse takes you slowly the long way round to the station'


  Duffy here compares the taxi to a hearse to demonstrate how leaving this place as an 'emigrant for the last time' feels almost like a death march , like the journey to another life.
• Stanza 5 - ' The places you knew have changed their names by neon , cheap tricks in a theme park with no theme'


  Duffy here in these section of the poem implies how this place has changed , 'neon and cheap' creates an image of a street filled with takeaways a run down northern industrial town, there's no atmosphere left , or life left within this place , it's almost as though everything tries to entice you in but their is nothing left of this town but emptiness , no feel , everything that was once nice , now cheap .' A theme park with no theme' , A theme park with no theme would be nothing . Duffy uses this to symbolise the emptiness of this place , all excitement has gone , diminished , death or joy and life.
• Stanza 6 ' The train sighs and pulls you away , rewinding the city like a film'' You go for a drink.'


  Here Duffy personifies the train as fed up , even the train has no life, nothing has life in this place anymore .' rewinding the city like a film' Duffy here uses a simile to show the rapid movement of the train away from this place , but also for the metaphorical journey for this person , out of the past out of these painful memories that cannot be relived . .The poem almost has a cylindrical structure , Duffy connects this line back to the first line in the poem. This here could almost represent a journey into the after life another life for the persona , away from the place that reminded them of painful times. However the fact they are back having a drink could be Duffy suggesting that though we can always move away and forget our memories , they are always there , we can always go back to them.