stanza 2

• "The train"

  • Symbol: the train journey is symbolic of the speaker’s journey into adulthood. As she is physically leaving her childhood home and travelling to a new place, she is metaphorically leaving her childhood behind. 
• "this slow evening goes down England"

  • Assonance helps slow this part of the poem down, mimicking the sluggishness of the train – further underscored by the word order “this slow evening”.  Referring to the evening itself as slow suggests that time has stretched, giving her a chance to reflect.  
• "browsing"

  • Word choice/ personification of train: the train is looking for a new sky under which to settle, connotations of new adventures/ possibilities. 
• "too blue swapped for a cool grey."

  • Imagery/ assonance: colours of the sky are symbolic of stages of life she is moving between and the nature of these. ‘too blue’ shows warmth, comfort and protection of familial home but ‘too’ suggests she has outgrown this protection, that she finds it suffocating. ‘grey’ is symbolic of the uncertainty of future and potential for failure, ‘cool hints at the world’s indifference to the speaker. 
  • Effective contrast reflects the nature of these stages. 
• "For miles"

  • Inversion/ word order: emphasises how long the speaker has been thinking about this, repeating the phrase.
• "What like is it... What like is it."

  • Repetition/ italics: the speaker is echoing her mother’s well known phrase with one of her own, trying to create her own linguistic traditions.
  • She is asking a question, using ‘like’ as a noun - suggesting she is looking to create her own identity.
• "Nothing is silent. Nothing is not silent."

  • Oxymoron: suggests feelings of loss and confusion as she can’t stop hearing her mother’s voice. However, the double negative shifts this feeling to a duality: the sounds in her head are both silent but can be heard at the same time, hinting that she can remain connected to her roots and begin again at the same time.