Gwen Harwood and James McAuley interpret loss comparatively in their poems “In the Park” and “Pietà”. The sonnet “In the Park” explores the psychological loss of self identity whereas , contrastingly, “Pietà” illustrates the physical loss of a child and the grief of a father. Although both poems are similar in demonstrating the actuality of loss, they differ in the narrators expression of the idea physically and mentally.
The unnamed mother depicted in “In the Park” has been deprived of her identity by the role of motherhood. Her detachment from society is symbolically illustrated through the imagery of her clothes which are metaphorically “out of date” and through he paralleling her life with the “aimless patterns” her child draws in the dirt.
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Although twelve months have passed the deep loss associated with his grief remains. The child “Came/Early” into the metaphorical light of life and “lived a day and night.” Sadly the infant dies and with “No one to blame” the loss of his child his grief manifests itself in more pain. The tone of loss intensifies as the loss is further explored by both poets. The woman’s self-loss is illustrated through the attempt of idle chat with an ex love towards whom it was “too late to feign indifference.” The mother does not succeed in convincing him or herself that being a mother is a fulfilling role, when “from his neat head unquestionably rises” a metaphorical “small balloon”. The balloon is an image created by the narrator to represent the ex lovers thoughts of being grateful to not be in relation with her existence. This confusion of emotions is also reflected in the father’s grieving in “Pieta”. McAuley uses the repetition of the word “cannot”, in the verse “I cannot tell you,/I cannot understand”, to stress his lack of understanding of his pain which is alliteratively “… so dark and deep.” The reality of the parents’ anguish does not end at the
The speaker’s rocky encounter with her ex-lover is captured through personification, diction, and tone. Overall, the poem recaps the inner conflicts that the speak endures while speaking to her ex-lover. She ponders through stages of the past and present. Memories of how they were together and the present and how she feels about him. Never once did she broadcast her emotions towards him, demonstrating the strong facade on the outside, but the crumbling structure on the inside.
Hence, the poem's tone contains elements of remorse as well as impassivity. The traveler's detached description of the mother, "...a doe, a recent killing; / she had stiffened already, almost cold" (6-7), and the wistful detail with which he depicts her unborn offspring, "...her fawn lay there waiting...
At the beginning of the poem, the audience is able to witness an event of a young boy asking his father for story. While the father was deemed a “sad” man, it is later shown that his sadness can be contributed to his fear of his son leaving him. The structure then correlated to the point of going into the future. The future was able to depict what would happen to the loving duo. The father's dreams would become a reality and the son's love and admiration would cease to exist as he is seen screaming at his father. Wanting nothing to do with him. The young, pure child can be seen trying to back lash at his father for acting like a “god” that he can “never disappoint.” The point of this structure was not really a means of clarification from the beginning point of view, but more as an intro to the end. The real relationship can be seen in line 20, where it is mentioned that the relationship between the father and son is “an emotional rather than logical equation.” The love between this father and son, and all its complexity has no real solution. But rather a means of love; the feelings a parent has for wanting to protect their child and the child itself wanting to be set free from their parents grasp. The structure alone is quite complex. Seeing the present time frame of the father and son
Perhaps some people’s first impression on Mona Van Duyn’s “Letters from a Father” is that its topic a cliché; since poems about death are not rare at all. However, Van Duyn’s unique interpretations and attitude towards her writing style, which are apart from other poets, shall also be discovered if one dwells on her poem. In the poem “Letters from a father”, it mainly portrays the daily life of a father, a mother and those feeders (birds). Throughout the poem, it may seem that it emphasizes the process of characters’ acceptance of birds and understanding on their daughter. Nevertheless, if we look deeper into the change in tones, repetitions and words use developed in the poem, it is arguable that the parent’s changes in acceptance of birds are in fact implying a mental process of bestirring from illnesses, which is most readers do not see. This is believed as an important interpretation since it reveals the poet’s attitude towards death, which underlie beneath the literal meaning of the poem.
...en-year-old girl”. She has now changed mentally into “someone much older”. The loss of her beloved brother means “nothing [will] ever be the same again, for her, for her family, for her brother”. She is losing her “happy” character, and now has a “viole[nt]” personality, that “[is] new to her”. A child losing its family causes a loss of innocence.
The confronting theme of life is shown through poetic techniques in the poems, Pieta and November. The cycle of life is shown through Pietà and November in two different ways. The child’s life is unfortunately cut short as it, ‘only [lives] one day.’ Whilst in November, the subject of the poem is about a Grandmother who is at the end of the cycle of life. This is unlike the baby in Pietà who is not able to live, or have a chance of living a long life. This may cause the audience to ponder about the purpose of life. Armitage uses consonantal alliteration and visual imagery, in ‘sun spangles,’ to symbolise that, ‘the only thing you can get, out of this life,’ is the beautiful happy moments. This logic is true for many non-believers as the purpose of life is unknown to them and the only positive reason for life is by creating happy memories.In November,the last moments of life are shown through the enjambment and flow. The audience is involved with the journey of bringing the woman to the hospital as if you are, ‘with your grandma taking four short steps to [your] two.’ This is effective as the audience can put themselves in the place of the narrator in the story.This is unlike Pieta which is written in past tense and is not able to put themselves in the place of mother but the audience is more sympathetic towards the mother and her loss of her child.
679). When reading this line, I picture times when I too cried out in vein, a cleansing relief from everyday strain and hardship. Suarez’s use of this particular event in the boy’s memory, I feel, connects the reader more deeply to the young boy. The third crucial example of imagery, I believe is when the mother storms in the boys room after he lashes out, throwing his pillows in anger. This verse causes us, the readers, to reconnect to the young boy’s age and
I will discuss the similarities by which these poems explore themes of death and violence through the language, structure and imagery used. In some of the poems I will explore the characters’ motivation for targeting their anger and need to kill towards individuals they know personally whereas others take out their frustration on innocent strangers. On the other hand, the remaining poems I will consider view death in a completely different way by exploring the raw emotions that come with losing a loved one.
This essay is anchored on the goal of looking closer and scrutinizing the said poem. It is divided into subheadings for the discussion of the analysis of each of the poem’s stanzas.
The use of Bishops words at the beginning of the poem refers to her earlier years when she lost her father when she was eight months old, which was not so hard to cope with the loss of her since she was just a baby to know about pain. On the contrary, the conclusion of her poem refers to the last recent loss of her lover Lota de Macedo Soares, which was painful and she has not yet mastered the loss.
As the first poem in the book it sums up the primary focus of the works in its exploration of loss, grieving, and recovery. The questions posed about the nature of God become recurring themes in the following sections, especially One and Four. The symbolism includes the image of earthly possessions sprawled out like gangly dolls, a reference possibly meant to bring about a sense of nostalgia which this poem does quite well. The final lines cement the message that this is about loss and life, the idea that once something is lost, it can no longer belong to anyone anymore brings a sense...
...ttachment or emotion. Again, Heaney repeats the use of a discourse marker, to highlight how vividly he remembers the terrible time “Next morning, I went up into the room”. In contrast to the rest of the poem, Heaney finally writes more personally, beginning with the personal pronoun “I”. He describes his memory with an atmosphere that is soft and peaceful “Snowdrops and Candles soothed the bedside” as opposed to the harsh and angry adjectives previously used such as “stanched” and “crying”. With this, Heaney is becoming more and more intimate with his time alone with his brother’s body, and can finally get peace of mind about the death, but still finding the inevitable sadness one feels with the loss of a loved one “A four foot box, a foot for every year”, indirectly telling the reader how young his brother was, and describing that how unfortunate the death was.
Poetry in the early 19th century was a form of therapy that allowed the writer and reader to get in touch with their emotions. In the poem “To a Little Invisible Being Who is Expected Soon to Become Visible”, Anna Barbauld discusses the feelings of what it is like for a mother awaiting her unborn child. The poem is written in a third-person narrative style and the author uses many exclamation points, which suggests the urgency and emotion through the punctuation. The rhyme scheme of the poem is ABAB. The language is positive and hopeful, which helps form an inclusive tone of romance. Likewise, the poem is broken into nine quatrains which aids in the depiction of the mother carrying a child for nine months in her womb.
Three poetical techniques used in this poem were metaphor, simile and image groups, two of which I will explore. Firstly I’m going to look at image groups. There are several noticeable image groups in this poem one of which is “ Death & Mortality”. As the idea of the whole poem is based around this topic it was used regularly. The first obvious use of this image group was in the very first line of stanza one: “If I should die, think only this of me”. This sets the scene for the topic of discussion in the poem, the word die has many connotations as it is such a dark and vile word often associated with sadness. This leaves the reader with a feeling of seriousness, this is very important as the reader is captivated within the very first se...
...” The mentioning of both parents encloses the whole poem, the poem is concerned with the child, as if they are embracing him which gives him a sense of unity, which echoes with the unity and harmony of the landscape, at the same the same time the conformity, the mother, father and child and the “massed islands”. It shows that the child has a secure childhood with two parents and a secure home. It powerfully and effectively evokes childhood and peace.