An essay on Reading Scheme

Reading Scheme
Wendy Cope
In the poem we have four characters, the mother (Mummy), the father (Peter) Jane, and the milkman. In the first section Mummy, Peter and Jane are introduced, and it seems like they are a happy family with fun in their life. However the milkman appears in section 2 and disturbs the peace. Mummy makes Peter leave the house, so she has time for the milkman. In the ending, Peter comes back, but he has a gun. The mother is cheating on the father. It appears as if there is a daughter called Jane, the mother tries to distract her by saying “look, Jane, look! Look at the dog! See him run”. She distracts her because she is having an affair with the milkman. The father comes home with a gun in the end of the poem, and he knows she is cheating on him. It is clearly shown in line 13, where the mother wants the milkman to escape over the wall. The mother wants everyone to leave the house when the milkman arrives so she can have an affair with him, without anyone noticing. For example, we can see it in line 7 when she says “Go Peter! Go Jane! Come, milkman, come!” and line 8 “The milkman likes Mummy. She likes them all.” There are many examples in the text, where it obviously shows that she is having an affair. The reason as to why she is cheating on him is unknown, even though it says they are happy in the text. The poem uses rhymes to give it a smooth flow. It can be seen in line 1 and 3: “They like fun,” “See him run”. They repeat the same line loads of times and use it to create a rhythmic flow. It appears in line 3, 9, 15 and 19. The other rhymes jump from section to section, which is very abnormal for a poem. In this poem it still helps the flow to keep going, since there are only 3 lines in every section, and 4 in the very last section. This is shown in line 2, 5, 8, 11, 14 and