Nessa by Paul Durcan

Nessa by Paul Durcan is a Leaving Certificate Higher Level poetry text that demands close engagement with its tone, imagery, and dramatic voice. It is a narrative love poem where Durcan dramatises the speaker’s intoxicating yet unsettling encounter with a powerful woman, Nessa. For exam purposes, Nessa by Paul Durcan is especially valuable as it showcases Durcan’s blend of humour, myth, surrealism, and raw emotional honesty. It allows students to demonstrate skills in analysing tone shifts, symbolism, and characterisation through poetic form.

Where Nessa by Paul Durcan Fits in the Course

This poem is part of the prescribed Durcan selection on Paper 2, Section B: Poetry. Examiners expect candidates to link thematic interpretation with poetic technique. Strong answers go beyond summary and show how the poet’s use of narrative, repetition, and mythic references shapes the meaning. Marks are awarded for precise quotation use and clarity of commentary.

Line by Line Analysis

Opening lines

“One night as I sat in her car / She took me to her flat in Rathmines.” The poem begins abruptly, almost like a story told aloud. The immediacy of “one night” suggests chance and impulsiveness. The ordinary detail of “her flat in Rathmines” grounds the poem in Dublin reality, contrasting with the mythic scale Nessa later embodies. This juxtaposition creates irony, and candidates can highlight how it reflects Durcan’s technique of blending everyday and myth.

The swim

“And she stood in the shallows laughing with her wet hair / And I remember thinking, She is a whirlpool, she is a whirlpool.” Here, Nessa is described through water imagery. The whirlpool metaphor conveys both allure and danger. For exam use: this line demonstrates Durcan’s capacity to dramatise emotional overwhelm. The repetition “she is a whirlpool” intensifies the sense of compulsion, making it suitable evidence when discussing themes of attraction and peril.

The marriage proposal

“And then she said, ‘Take me to the city of your heart’ / And I said, ‘O Nessa my dear, will you stay with me for a week?’” The mythical tone continues with “the city of your heart”. This figurative demand contrasts comically with the speaker’s downscaled reply, “for a week”. This clash of registers reflects the poem’s mood: comic, surreal, and unsettling. Students should note the humour here is part of Durcan’s signature style, showing vulnerability rather than control.

The inevitable decline

“But no sooner had I tied her to me with a belt / Than she jumped into the river, laughing as she leapt.” This section dramatises the impossibility of possession. The surreal image of tying with a belt suggests desperation, while the final leap back into water underlines Nessa’s independence. For exams: these lines illustrate the destructive tension between intimacy and freedom, a key Durcan theme.

Themes in Nessa by Paul Durcan

• Love and Danger: Attraction is described through whirlpools, rivers, and leaps, highlighting love’s consuming risks.
• Freedom vs Possession: The speaker’s attempts to bind Nessa clash with her resistance, dramatising gender dynamics.
• Humour and Irony: Comic contrasts (“for a week”) expose male inadequacy and self-mockery.
• Myth vs Reality: Dublin flats meet mythic rivers, grounding surreal experiences in real settings.

Mood

The poem shifts rapidly: playful in the swim, intense in the whirlpool metaphor, comic in the proposal, and finally tragicomic in the futile attempt at binding. This unstable mood mirrors the speaker’s emotional turbulence, making the poem exam-rich for tone analysis.

Poetic Devices

• Metaphor: “She is a whirlpool” captures attraction and destruction simultaneously.
• Symbolism: Rivers symbolise passion, change, and escape.
• Repetition: Reinforces intensity, e.g. “she is a whirlpool”.
• Juxtaposition: Ordinary details beside mythic images create irony.
• Direct Speech: Dialogue makes the poem dramatic, almost theatrical, useful for exam essays on Durcan’s narrative voice.

Evidence That Scores

• “She is a whirlpool”

  This metaphor can be deployed in essays on love, danger, or emotional overwhelm. Examiners reward recognition of its duality: attraction and threat.

• “Take me to the city of your heart”

  Excellent for discussing surreal or mythic tone. It shows how Nessa’s demands transcend the ordinary.

• “No sooner had I tied her to me with a belt”

  Strong evidence for themes of possession, control, and futility. It earns marks if tied to gender dynamics or the impossibility of ownership.

Model H1 Paragraph

In Nessa by Paul Durcan, love is presented as both intoxicating and destructive through recurring water imagery. The speaker recalls, “She is a whirlpool, she is a whirlpool”, a metaphor that suggests irresistible attraction but also danger. The repetition intensifies his helplessness, conveying how desire overwhelms rational control. This is effective evidence in an exam because it shows Durcan’s ability to merge humour and myth with personal experience. Later, his attempt to restrain Nessa, “tied her to me with a belt”, dramatises the futility of possession. Her response, leaping laughingly into the river, underlines her independence and the comic-tragic imbalance between them. Together, these moments reveal Durcan’s distinctive blend of surreal exaggeration and emotional honesty, a feature central to his poetic style and an examinable point.

Pitfalls

• Retelling the “story” without analysing the metaphors or tone.
• Ignoring the humour: many students read it as purely tragic, missing Durcan’s comic play.
• Quoting without commentary: marks are gained only when explaining the device and its effect.

Rapid Revision Drills

• How does Durcan use water imagery to convey both attraction and danger in Nessa by Paul Durcan?
• Explain how the poem blends myth and ordinary Dublin life. Why is this contrast important?
• Discuss the poem’s treatment of possession and freedom. Use two quotations.

Exam Application

When answering on Nessa by Paul Durcan, structure your essay around devices rather than plot. Lead with metaphor, tone, and juxtaposition, then anchor each claim with a short quote and examiner-style explanation. This approach guarantees content and style marks.

Key Takeaways

Nessa by Paul Durcan dramatises the chaos of attraction through surreal imagery and comic self-deprecation. Its mix of humour, myth, and raw vulnerability makes it ideal for Higher Level essays. The most scoring strategy is to show how Durcan transforms an ordinary romantic encounter into a mythic, unsettling narrative using metaphors, repetition, and tonal shifts. Precision of quotation and clear exam-linked commentary are what secure H1 marks.