Carol Ann Duffy-Childhood
“The Captain of the 1964 Top of the Form Team” is written in dramatic monologue. The narrator describes to the audience a time when he was ‘top of the form team’. The title introduces the ideas behind the poem; ‘Top of the form team’ was a game show in the 6o’s, which showed competing teams of school children, who would answer general knowledge questions. There was a strong emphasis on individual strengths. The date 1964 is relevant-it was in the period of widespread social and racial change; the poems main theme is how things changed.The opening stanza gives the reader fact after fact; it puts an emphasis on how this is important. The fact that the narrator only remembers his childhood through a series of game-show type answers is very significant is understanding that, that was all that was important to him at this time. However the tone isn’t droll, it is very jumpy, highlighting the narrator’s energy, optimism and pride in himself. Duffy manages to demonstrate this by using adjectives like ‘fizzing’, ‘whooped’ and ‘blew like Mick’, she also shows his confidence by using self-assured phases like ‘No snags’, ‘Come on’, ‘I smiled’. She gives these to the reader as short phrases, a pause between facts, it gives the impression
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1846
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)
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