Mean Time By Carol Ann Duffy

Title Analysis

- Actual “time” being “mean”- time is treating her unkindly.

- Ambiguous title, could refer to Greenwich mean time, and possibly the hours of darkness.
- The “meantime” – the time between two significant events.
End of daylight saving- in the
winter we get an extra hour of
darkness as an our of daylight
is taken.
No longer feels welcome, is
alienated because her love is
lost.
Time is criminal.
‘stole’ implies she had no
The clocks slid back an hour choice in the matter.
and stole light from my life
‘light’ could symbolise happiness.
as I walked through the wrong part of town,
Mourning our love.

Feeling of loss is heightened by

relating it to death.
 Dull
resignation. “unmendable”, spells of rain
broken by relief, shows that the
And, of course, unmendable rain
speaker is powerless against it-
no solace, no breaks now.
fell to the bleak streets
Ambiguous
where I felt my heart gnaw “gnaw” connotes violence and is a
pronouns makes
verb associated with wild animal-
poem universal.
At all our mistakes. possibly suggesting that the speaker
is relentless.

Speaker’s heart is still in

Focus on negatives the relationship. There is
possibly suggests that no closure.
only negative
memories now
remain.
 Darkness connotes
Wishful, perhaps desperate.
negativity.

If the darkening sky could lif

more than one hour from this day Regretful, wishing for a
different chain of events.
There are words I would never have said

nor heard you say.

Both parties are equally to blame There were communication issues
as they both lacked which likely caused the destruction
communication skills. of the relationship.
Direct address- readers may
feel intrusive as this is a
confrontation.
 Sees mourning as useless as
death is quickly approaching.

Increasingly cynical and But we will be dead, as we know

negative.
beyond all light. Small light between darkness
of nights.
These are the shortened days

and the endless nights.

Plural- shows that the nights are

guaranteed, yet the singular of
“light” suggests there is only one
chance at happiness.
• Themes: regret, love, passing of time, relationships
• Narrative voice: first person, regretful, cynical
• Tone/mood: bleak, pessimistic, melancholic
• Language techniques:
• Pathetic fallacy: rain is relentless, shows how speaker has no relief
• ‘Mourning’: links to loss of love and loss of a person- linking it to death makes the emotions stranger
and more melancholy
• Word play with the title, is it the time zone, an ’average’ time or an adjective?
• ‘Gnaw’: implies maliciousness- animalistic verb possibly suggesting speaker couldn’t tame their partner.
• Structure form:
• tight structure,4 four-line stanzas possibly symobolises speaker’s monotonous life.
• Slight rhyme with ‘light’ and ‘nights’- juxtaposition.
• Cyclical- begins and ends with death,
• Context:
• Surrealism: Duffy is known for her surreal style of writing. This is seen in this poem through the clocks
which are somewhat personified as moving the tine without the speaker’s consent.
• Modernism: half rhymes and unchronological order.