Duffy explores the theme of loss thoroughly in Stafford Afternoons in order to make a statement about the abrupt push of children into the adult world, and the effects that it has on their memories as adults today. Stafford Afternoons, together with Litany and The Captain of the 1964 Top of the Form Team are all in first person, with the narrator reminiscing about their childhood, and this is powerful in conveying the distinction between the poet now and the narrator at the time of the memory, making the effects of loss seem more powerful.
Stafford Afternoons looks back on the memory of a child, portraying the loss of time through clever use of language and placement. The poem starts “only there, the afternoons could suddenly pause.” “There”, with the use of a comma imitates the…show more content… The reader gets the impression that the setting is a summer holiday, where time can be fruitless and “mean time” can be overlooked as the child narrator here controls their time - is master of their leisure. This is supported as “an ice-cream van chimed and dwindled away”, security is no more a main concern when their imagination can wander, as the child narrator explores the expansive local horizons, alone. The future almost swims before the child’s eyes as they recognise the aloneness of any reflective life. Duffy uses pronouns especially selectively to portray the transfer of time. The first three stanzas is constantly repetitive of “I” and “me”, connoting privacy and highlighting the complete isolation of the child at that moment; Duffy’s use of this pronoun begins to dwindle, however, as we reach the third stanza, and it disappears altogether in the fourth. The child’s imagination feeds images and stories of fear into the poem, until fear becomes literally personified in the “stranger” in the woods. Fairytales merge into shocking encounters. Fear shatters the security of the “I” so that time destroys the personal privacy of the narrator, and the reader