Comparing Poems 'Bat' And Gwen Harwood's In The Park

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D.H Lawrence's “Bat” and Gwen Harwood’s “In the Park” are both satisfying poems and both explore the issues of light and dark. Lawrence’s “Bat” is about about a person who is terrified of bats and shows his clear disdain about them. Through his poem he makes us understand the connection between fear and prejudice and how a good moment can be brought down easily by them. Harwood's “In the Park” is about a despondent mother who no longer lives for herself and only for her children. It conveys the negative aspects of motherhood and family. Her poem makes us understand that motherhood can be life changing and dark. Lawrence poem “Bat” is about uses various techniques and language forms to explore intense situations/ emotions in his poem Bat. One main techniques he uses is tone. In the first 6 stanzas, he mistakes the bats for swallows and his tone is very relaxed. This is communicated to us through techniques such as ellipses. The first ellipses “Departs, and the world is taken by surprise…” conveys his relaxed and contemplative mood. However, in the second part of the poem, the relaxed tone changes to doubt, fear and …show more content…

The key word 'rehearsing' is a metaphor in the way that the idea here is that the people pretend that they are interested in others lives, but really they are just being sociable: like actors speaking lines in a play, its all superficial. In the concluding lone there is an anti-madonna, almost blasphemous private utterance that shocks many readers. “They have eaten me alive.' is another metaphor/hyperbole. The despondent woman in the poem thinks that her children have ruined her life. She realises that her life has become something she never wanted it to be, her children have devoured her, she has lost free to love and laugh, and free to live. This makes us feel sorry for the mother but also wonder how a mother could say something like that about her

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