the class game

• poet

  Mary Casey
• about the class divide and how she was treated
• the class game- language, structure and form

  • monologue - emotional
  • rhyming couplets
  • AABB
  • simple rhyme scheme reflects "simple" life
  • direct address
  • heroic
  • enjambment
  • colloquial
• the class game completed, two years after Margaret Thatcher became prime minister
• Britain suffered an economic downturn and unemployment increased
• Thatcher weakened the unions
• Thatcher privatised business
• big class divide
• "how can you tell what class I am from?" 


  -challenges reader to stop playing the class game and to stop judging people based on how they speak, dress or their class

  -immediately challenges sterotypes and expectation of labelling and class

  -introduces main theme of class
• "have I a label on me head, and another on me bum?"


  -labelling people dehumanizes them

  -her social class is obvious

  -labelled due to how she talks

  -playground atmosphere - judging people is immature
• "or is it because my hands are stained with toil? instead of soft lily white with perfume and oil?"


  -shows hard work and permanence

  -white - purity, innocence

  -juxtapositions of light and dark shows a visual comparison of different society views of the classes
• "why do you care what class i'm from?"


  -trying to reclaim label

  -shouldn't matter to anyone

  -defiant tone

  -blunt with her frustration and anger
• "and I'm proud of the class that I come from"


  -doesnt care about society opinions, pride regardless

  -realises unimportance

  -not a question a statement