An Easy Passage

• Themes


  • Adolescence v adulthood
  • Womanhood
  • Childhood
• "crouched in her bikini on the porch roof of her families house, trembling"

  • Not immune to the risk of her actions but tries to stay focused - childhood allows her to be more fearless
  • 'crouched in her bikini' makes us feel like she is vulnerable 0 allows the reader to see into the narrators mental state
• "Her tiny breasts rest lightly on her thighs. What can she know of the way the world admits us less and less the more we grow?"


  • The narrator intrudes at this point half-way through the poem with a rhetorical question.
  • The description is reminiscent of the male gaze, focusing on her “breasts”, sexualising her, while “tiny” highlights her immaturity.
  • The “us” could represent not just adults who may find the world less and less flexible and forgiving as we grow older, but this also may apply specifically to women, who are permitted less freedom from judgement and sexualisation as they age.
• "in the drab electroplating factory over the road far too, most far, from the flush-faced secretary"


  • Alliteration and repetition of 'f' - remind us of the future - not an appealing future but one that most people are heading to
  • The adult world of work intrudes and the story is seen from the point of view of the secretary. Real life is more practical.
  • Secretary is casting around for a purpose, dreaming of a ‘trip of a lifetime’ seeking something more hopeful in the ‘astrology column’. The adult world — the future these girls are facing — in the ‘electroplating factory’ is uninviting.
• "shielding her eyes to gaze up at a pale calf, a silver anklet and the five neat shimmering oyster-painted toe nails"

  • Light Imagery - the other girl shields her eyes from the sun, but perhaps also from the dazzle of an uncertain future.
  • silver is often a symbol of femininity in literature, further suggesting the idea that she is making the slow transition from girl to woman. Furthermore, the imagery of the “anklet” connotes that of slavery, alluding back to the rhetorical question in line 16; however young or old the subject is, she will always be encased by her gender
• "catch the sunlight briefly like the flash of armaments before dropping gracefully into the shade of the house"


  • The sunlight is juxtaposed with the ‘shade of the house’ — a metaphor for the bright future as compared to the more gloomy present.
  • That the girl drops ‘gracefully’ isn’t surprising; she seems to have an aura about her. The ‘flash of armaments’ suggests a fighting spirit; that she may be on the cusp of womanhood now, but will live life more fully than the thwarted secretary.