This poem is included as a taught poem in the scheme of work, as it could be used for three different questions. It could be recommended to more able students for the theme of marriage.
Travelling on a train at Whitsun, the persona observes several wedding parties leaving for their honeymoons and comments on the nature of these groups.
References: Whitsun was a traditional time for weddings, especially among the working classes, as the long bank holiday weekend enabled a honeymoon, many people in the 1950s and 60s, again especially the working classes, would have used the trains to go away as fewer people had cars (students tend not to realise this and see going on honeymoon by train as very peculiar).
Links to Duffy/Plath: narrative voice (Duffy/Plath), nature (Plath), family (Duffy/Plath), marriage (Plath)
Lang-Lit points: regular rhythm mimicking the train’s, semantic fields related to the landscape and details such as clothing, lexis (especially slight shift in register when describing the wedding parties) similes, metaphors.
