She Is Getting Good and Ready to Renounce

Last Supper

She is getting good and ready to renounce his sweet flesh. Not just for lent. (For Ever) But meanwhile she is assembling the ingredients for their last treat, the proper feast (after all didn’t they always eat together rather more than rather well?) So here she is tearing foliage, scrambling the salad, maybe lighting candles even, anyway stepping back to admire the effect of the table she’s made (and oh yes now will have to lie on) the silverware, the nicely al- dente vegetables, the cooked goose. He could be depended on to bring the bottle plus betrayal with a kiss.

Already she was imagining it done with, this feast, and exactly what kind of leftover hash she’d make of it among friends, when it was just The Girls, when those three met again. What very good soup she could render from the bones, then something substantial, something extra tasty if not elegant.

Yes, there they’d be cackling around the cauldron, spitting out the gristlier bits of his giblets; gnawing on the knucklebone of some intricate irony; getting grave and dainty at the petit-gout mouthfuls of reported speech.

‘That’s rich!’ they’d splutter, munching the lies, fat and sizzling as sausages. Then they’d sink back gorged on truth and their own savage integrity, sleek on it all, preening like corbies, their bright eyes blinking satisfied till somebody would get hungry and go hunting again. Last Supper by Liz Lochhead – Critical Reading ANSWERS

1. By referring to two examples from lines 1 - 19, analyse the use of poetic technique in clarifying the subject of the poem’s state of mind. (2)

 “Not just for lent. (For/Ever)” – the allusion to lent suggests the subject has a strong sense of certainty about the end of the relationship, it is permanent, not for a limited period of time. This is further emphasised with the enjambment and capitalisation of the word “Ever”.

 The pun “the cooked goose” plays on a well-known metaphor suggesting that a situation is over with no room for doubt, again indicating her certainty.

 The word choice of “tearing” has connotations of an aggression and destruction. As she prepares the meal her state of mind is conveyed as being almost savage. She is not passively allowing the relationship to end, she is dramatically and assertively finishing it.

 The word choice of “scrambling” suggests mixing things up or together. This implies that she is preparing to take the status quo and disassemble it, again indicating her assertive and destructive state of mind.

2. In lines 20 – 35, the poet gives an insight into the woman’s relationship with her friends.

Choose at least two poetic techniques and analyse what they help to convey about the nature of this relationship. (4)

 “The Girls” – the capitalisation emphasises the bond between the women, suggesting their relationship is extremely close.

 “What very good soup/she could render from the bones” – the metaphor, comparing telling her friends of the broken relationship to feeding them suggests that the women feast on the misery as though discussing the details gives them nourishment. The extension of this metaphor, “something extra/tasty if not elegant” gives this female solidarity a sinister feel.

 The image “there they’d be cackling around the cauldron” portrays the women as witches, a profoundly negative image, suggesting their relationship is not necessarily healthy or “good”. Attention is drawn to this through the use of alliteration: “cackling around the cauldron”.

3. Look at lines 36 – 40. Analyse how the poet suggests the women are not necessarily victims, despite the subject of the poem having been betrayed. (2)

 “munching the lies, fat and sizzling as sausages” continues the image from the previous stanzas of the women feasting on the misery caused by this betrayal. The word choice of “munching” suggests they are particularly enthusiastic about this process and enjoy sharing their dissatisfaction with men, rather than simply being the victims of ill treatment.

 The metaphor “till somebody would get hungry/and go hunting again” conveys the idea that the women actually seek out relationships with unreliable or duplicitous men because they gain some perverse enjoyment from the process of discussing how badly they have been treated with their friends. This image portrays them as active in this process, rather than being submissively wronged.

4. By referring to this poem and at least one other, discuss how Lochhead explores the complicated nature of female relationships. (10)

Commonality

Both “Last Supper” and “My Rival’s House” deal with relationships between women that are problematic in a way that conveys the women involved as sinister and threatening.

 “Last Supper” explores the idea that female solidarity can come at the expense of hating men and an unhealthy tendency to wallow and find satisfaction in misery that they themselves are partly the architect of.

 “My Rival’s House” explores a competitive conflict between two women over the attention of one particular man, specifically the rivalry between his mother and prospective romantic partner.

Last Supper

 The imagery “spitting out the gristlier bits/of his giblets;/gnawing on the knucklebone of some/intricate irony;” is powerful in its savage representation of the women’s behaviour. Discussing the broken relationship is compared to actually cannibalising the man who has cheated. The word choice of “gnawing” is particularly animalistic, very unlike how women might stereotypically be represented in poetry.

 “gorged on truth/and their own savage integrity,” The word choice “gorged” has connotations of being so full, through sheer greed, that nothing more could be consumed, as though they can’t get enough of sharing this misery together. The juxtaposition of “savage” with its brutal and wild connotations and “integrity”, conveying a sense of honesty and honour makes the women seem self-satisfied in the aggression towards men that binds them together.

My Rival’s House

 “and yet my rival thinks she means me well./But what squirms beneath her surface I can tell.” The image, of something almost monstrous writhing beneath the polite exterior of the mother conveys the threat that the author perceives to each other.

 “Deferential, daughterly, I sip/and thank her nicely for each bitter cup.” The alliteration draws attention to the speaker’s polite behaviour, emphasised by the dainty word choice of “sip” and is contrasted with the word choice of “bitter”, which suggests that the mother is feeding her rival something unpleasant under the guise of being a good hostess.

 “Soon, my rival,/capped tooth, polished nail/will fight, fight foul” The repetition of the word “fight” and the sibilance of “fight foul” both emphasise the strength of the ill feeling between the two women, with the mother as aggressor, prepared to do anything to stop losing the attention of her son.

 “This son she bore -/first blood to her –“ The metaphor suggests that the mother, being the first object of her son’s affection has hit the first blow in the duel between the two women.

 “She dishes up her dreams for breakfast./Dinner, and her salt tears pepper our soup.” This image conveys the idea of the mother constantly reinforcing her position as the most important woman in her son’s life while he and his partner visit. Unlike “Last Supper” the women do not band together against a man, rather the man is divisive and provokes conflict between the women, however, the poet, again, makes use of a food metaphor to convey her examination of the theme to the reader.