How is Sympathy Provoked in ‘Piano’ and ‘Crabbit Old Woman’?

In the two poems Crabbit Old Woman and Piano, both the writers use language to provoke sympathy towards a person and their situation by using the present and the past tense to build up emotions.

In the poem Piano, Lawrence introduces us to his childhood using a piano. He describes to us what his childhood memories used to be like with his mother, and what comfort he used to have in her presence. The first two lines of each of the three stanzas are all in present tense and the rhyme scheme is rhyming cuplets.

The pianos musical sounds bring him back into his childhood years. As a young child, he used to sit under the piano just beneath the vibrating strings, while his mother sang and smiled. His mother probably smiled because of the way he pressed her “small, poised feet”. In addition, his mother seems much more elegant and sophisticated because of her “poised feet”. In addition, the fact that it feels like he is mourning about his mother, and knows the truth that he is never going to see her again, and probably is the biggest reason why he weeps.

His childhood memory comes unexpectedly into his new life by astonishment. The memorable tune made him have no choice but to remember the past, “In spite of myself, the insidious mastery of song” and “betrays me back”. These quotations are best examples, as they give an impression that he does not want to go into the memory and offers a slight feeling of self-disgust.

In my opinion, the poem provokes sympathy because it has been written autobiographically. This sets a more outlined image in our heads, since the poet is writing from his point of view, and his childhood and his encounter of this problem. Also the fact that the strong emotional words that have been used to desc...

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... she is just like an animal left with its bones. Also the word ‘carcass’ is often used when describing the dead body of an animal.

The phrase “And I’m loving living life over again” implies that when she remembers her good old days and pleasant memories she feels as if she is re-living them. In addition, the fact that “there is now a stone where I once had heart” brings great sympathy in us towards the old woman because it seems like she has no emotion left and like her hearts become hard and she feel no empathy inside her.

Overall, both poems are very strong and emotive. The fact that both of these poems are autobiographical gives us the opportunity to see what life is like in other peoples situations and how they seem to be out of passion for anything. The types of situations they go through are very different to each other but at the same time very similar.