Analysis Of After Making Love We Hear Footsteps

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Today, there are many different interpretations of the word love. Love could be as simple as a four-letter word, or as infinitude of caring and emotions. There is a difference between being in love with someone and loving someone; and a difference in the people you share that with. Love shared between two best friends or a husband and wife is the type of love you want to last for a lifetime, however, there is never a guarantee that it always will. But the love between a parent and child, or between any family members is the type of love that is infinite. In the poem, “After Making Love We Hear Footsteps”, written by Galway Kinnell, Kinnell creates a story about the love between two parents and their child. The author writes about this recognizable …show more content…

But as the poem goes on, you come to realize that there is a hidden secondary situation taking place. The more obvious parts of the poem is the two parents having sexual intercourse, and the child feeling all alone in their big house. Once the child comes into the parent’s room, we actually get to see them transform into the loving parents that they are. The author illustrates the exact moment in when the child barges in on his parents love making session. “But let there be that heavy breathing / … and make for it on the run- as now, we lie together, / after making love, quiet, touching along the length of our bodies” (Kinnell (917). For some readers, it may be easy to see and comprehend this surface situation. The child is the product of their being, and this poem is about the love the whole family shares. The author uses euphemisms to display an image of affection and compassion versus a nasty and indecent love. Kinnell’s main focus is on the love and devotion between the parents. He conveys his focus through such words like “after making love, quiet, touching along the length of our bodies / familiar touch of the long-married” (Kinnell 917). The act of their gentle and quiet love is what wakes their …show more content…

Through love we can see that an everlasting relationship can be built. While reading this poem, the reader starts to feel a growing connection to the mother, father, and child line by line. By the end of it, one may feel as though they are so closely connected, that they can see themselves as the characters in the story. This poem speaks the truth about a relationship that is universal for any human

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