The poem “Catrin” by Gillian Clarke conveys that the conflict in a parent-child relationship is ongoing and complicated. This conflict begins with the mother giving birth, as the narrator recalls:

Our first
Fierce confrontation, the tight
Red rope of love which we both
Fought over.

Childbirth is not a simple cleaving or clean break; it involves struggle for both mother and daughter. The process is a “fierce” and violent battle, both physically and emotionally. It is a “confrontation” and a fight.

Mother and daughter, though, are tied by a “tight red rope of love”—a literal umbilical cord and an emotional “rope” of love. This makes their relationship contradictory; while they may want to separate, they cannot because they are joined by this rope of blood and love. Conflict in a parent-child relationship involves both parties pushing each away while also being pulled together.

Conflict is also ongoing and incomplete. It begins in a “disinfected” hospital where mother and daughter

struggle to become
Separate. We want, we shouted,
To be two, to be ourselves.
Neither won nor lost the struggle
In the glass tank clouded with feelings
Which changed us both.

The mother looks at the infant in a “glass tank” or bassinet (or, to make the situation even more fraught, an incubator). Then the narrator implies that they later fight during the daughter’s toddler days by referring to “paintings and toys.” But what is most apparent is that mother and daughter never fully separate. They both want to “be two” individuals, but never will be.

Even by the time the daughter is older, their conflict still continues.

Still I am fighting
You off,
as you stand there
With your straight, strong, long
Brown hair and your rosy,
Defiant glare

No longer a baby, the daughter stand ups, has long hair, and is openly “defiant.” She could be any age when she wants to leave to “skate/In the dark," a school-age child playing outside, a teenager going out after dark, or anywhere in between.

The daughter’s “defiant glare” recalls:

From the heart’s pool that old rope,
Tightening about my life,
Trailing love and conflict

That “old rope” still continues to bind them. The mother feels an inescapable pull on her heart as she sees her daughter. Yet the complicated dynamic of their relationship involves opposing forces: love and conflict.

How does Gillian Clarke present parent-child relationships in "Catrin"?

The parent-child relationship is presented as emotionally complex in "Catrin." A daughter is seeking increasing independence, represented through her desire to skate "in the dark," which symbolically represents potential danger and unknown consequences. In response, the speaker longs to exert maternal influence over this decision; after all, her daughter is still a "child." This argument marks a turning point in their relationship as the two struggle to be simultaneously "two" separate beings and yet somehow also remain connected through the "red rope of love" which connects them. Red symbolizes the complexity of their emotions, conjuring symbolic connotations of both love and anger.

This passionate argument has somehow "changed [them] both." The fight has neither been "won nor lost" by either mother or child; instead, the metaphorical rope tightens in response to the conflict, further uniting them in this emotionally complex relationship. Their bonds demonstrate the powers of both "love and conflict," and it seems that in the parent-child relationship, one is not possible without the other.

What does Gillian Clarke's poem "Catrin" convey about love in parent-child relationships?

The poem "Catrin" by Gillian Clarke conveys the struggle and intensity of love in parent-child relationships, particularly those between a mother and child. The speaker notes that the child begins life literally connected to the mother:

I can remember you, our first
Fierce confrontation, the tight
Red rope of love which we both
Fought over.

In this poem, love is not sentimental or tender; but a confrontation and battle. Both mother and child struggle to achieve and maintain separate identities, but, while the umbilical cord can be cut, their emotional connection is more difficult to dissolve. The mother is fierce, almost resentful, in her description of this bond, as she observes:

Still I am fighting
You off ...

The metaphorical cord remains:

Tightening about my life,
Trailing love and conflict ...

This is a description of maternal love which comes close to the sense of frustration and confinement often found in romantic lyrics. The description of the child's "defiant glare" suggests that this unease is reciprocated, and that there is something inherently adversarial about the relations between mother and child, with both fighting fiercely for their independence.