Exploring Love and Symbolism in Carol Ann Duffy’s Poem Valentine

This work has been verified by our teacher: today at 11:26

Homework type: Essay

Added: yesterday at 15:42

An Original Exploration of Carol Ann Duffy’s *Valentine*: Unconventional Symbolism and Complex Portrayals of Love

Carol Ann Duffy, currently one of the United Kingdom’s most celebrated poets, is renowned for her subversive, accessible approach to contemporary issues. Having been positioned as the first female Poet Laureate and an iconic voice in British poetry, Duffy’s works are often found on school curricula, including the GCSE English Literature syllabus. Amongst her most memorable and frequently studied poems is *Valentine*, a starkly original meditation on the nature of love. Duffy, through this poem, audaciously disrupts expectations of romantic lyricism, refusing to settle for cliché. Instead, she offers a gift far removed from roses or chocolates: an onion, laid bare in all its ugly honesty.

Duffy operates here not only as a poet but as a sharp commentator on both personal and social tendencies in expressing love. By adopting the unlikely onion as metaphor, she exposes love’s intensity, contradictions, and inevitable sorrows as well as its joys. This essay will explore how Duffy’s rejection of sentimentality, coupled with her exacting use of language and imagery, exposes the raw truths of romantic relationships and pushes readers—and students—far beyond the simplistic confines of the conventional Valentine’s Day offering. In examining these techniques, I will discuss the significance of the onion, the effect of the poem’s language and structure, its critique of societal norms, and conclude by reflecting on the poem’s place in education and personal understanding.

---

The Unconventional Metaphor: The Onion as a Symbol for Love

Beyond the sheer unexpectedness, the onion’s very structure crafts a striking metaphor for love. An onion is nothing if not layered. By peeling it, one uncovers ring after ring, each distinct yet inseparable. Duffy writes of “layers of an onion”, echoing how relationships are uncovered and built upon, with vulnerabilities and truths revealed only over time. This layering stands in sharp contrast to the surface-level glossiness of romantic gestures, suggesting that love’s true nature is discovered gradually, as two people reveal themselves, flaws and all. In British culture, known for its emotional reserve and “stiff upper lip”, there is something particularly resonant in the idea of love as unwrapping, both cautious and necessary.

Yet, Duffy’s choice is far from an entirely positive image. The onion brings with it tears. She asserts, “It will make your reflection / a wobbling photo of grief”, directly linking the act of peeling an onion—the irresistible sting in one’s eyes—with the pain and heartbreak that, inevitably, accompany intimacy. “Its fierce kiss will stay on your lips” suggests not only romance but also lingering pain, an aftertaste that cannot be washed away easily. The onion is both a practical offering and a warning: with love comes pain, mess, and a degree of suffering impossible to avoid.

There is even a subtle nod to commitment in the onion’s physical form. Duffy notes “its platinum loops shrink to a wedding-ring,/ if you like.” The reference is laced with irony: the “platinum”, usually associated with precious wedding jewellery, is here echoed in the pale, moist layers of an onion. Rather than romanticising marriage, Duffy suggests that commitment too has its sharpness, its risk, and its binding (perhaps even constricting) qualities. Thus, the onion becomes a composite symbol: an emblem of hope, pain, loyalty, and the inescapable truths of loving another human being.

---

Language and Imagery: Creating a Complex Emotional Atmosphere

Duffy walks a delicate line between tenderness and brutality. She speaks of a “promise of light” suggested by the white bulb of the onion, an allusion to hope and new beginnings. Yet, this is countered by direct, uncompromising references to pain: “blind you with tears,” “its fierce kiss will stay / on your lips”, and “cling to your knife”. Such imagery serves as metaphor for jealousy, possessiveness, and emotional scarring which can linger even after love has faded. The language oscillates between offering and threat, kindness and violence, mirroring the unpredictable actuality of relationships.

The tone throughout is complex and ambivalent. Duffy is both serious and playful, affectionate and sardonic. There is sincerity in offering something genuine, as opposed to a mass-produced card, but also critique of the expectation to perform romance in standardised ways. The repeated imperatives (“Take it.” “Here.”), generate a direct, even confrontational mood, forcing the reader to engage personally with the poem’s argument. Duffy’s sentences are short, rarely ornate, contributing to an atmosphere that feels as immediate and honest as conversation.

Metaphor is Duffy’s central tool, but her vivid, grounded comparisons lend her argument emotional truth. The onion stands not as an abstract idea but as a lived experience, its taste and smell evoked in such detail that it becomes almost tangible to the reader. In so doing, Duffy refuses to let love remain a gentle fantasy: it is, instead, a force that clings, wounds, and illuminates in equal measure.

---

Themes and Messages

The poem’s direct rejection of “cute cards or a kissogram” is a thinly veiled critique of consumer culture, particularly as seen in the context of British society. In the age of high street Valentine’s Day marketing—ceremonial yet hollow—Duffy’s poem becomes a clarion call for authenticity. Rather than buy into facile gestures, real love, she suggests, must be both accepted and offered with all its uncomfortable truths. The gift of the onion, then, becomes a kind of protest against the transactional, performative elements of love as commercial industry has constructed them.

At the same time, the poem investigates the nature of commitment. The “wedding-ring” imagery, and the possessive language (“cling to your knife”), draw attention to the dual possibilities inherent in lasting partnership: security on the one hand, a sense of entrapment or loss of self on the other. Duffy makes clear that devotion is never pure; it is tinged with jealousy, with destructive potential as well as generative force. In this, she speaks to the reality that commitment is not always straightforwardly positive, but rather demands sacrifice and honest confrontation with one’s own limitations.

Additionally, the emotional persistency of love is caught in Duffy’s references to scent—how it “will cling to your fingers”. She suggests that, like the pungent aroma of an onion, love leaves traces we cannot wash away. It is transformative, unavoidable, and sometimes, impossible to control. The love described is not a passing fancy but an overwhelming and sometimes unwelcome presence.

---

Audience Reception and Impact

By connecting love to the body—tears, taste, touch—Duffy’s language becomes highly relatable, making it particularly powerful for young readers. Her techniques also offer rich opportunities for literary analysis: students can explore metaphor, tone, narrative voice, and symbolism in a way that feels grounded and meaningful. For many, Duffy’s defiance of cliché opens a gateway to understanding poetry as something vital, contemporary, and relevant well beyond the classroom.

Furthermore, *Valentine* challenges its audience to reconsider what counts as a “realistic” portrayal of affection. It encourages empathy, not through sentimental idealisation, but through the ring of emotional truth. This, perhaps, is why it is a poem so often discussed, debated, and remembered by those who encounter it in their study of literature.

---

Conclusion

In a broader sense, Duffy’s poem serves as an invitation: to see love for all that it truly is—not just joy and delight, but sorrow, loyalty, pain, and hope. It asks readers—students, lovers, and cynics alike—to approach relationships with both courage and honesty, aware of love’s power to wound and heal in equal measure. In this way, *Valentine* proves itself to be not only an important work in the literary canon, but a striking companion for anyone seeking to understand the complexities at the heart of human connection.