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

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

paranoia through his realisation that he's looking at bats, not swallows. The rhetorical question from the poet, “Swallow?” is a deliberate attempt by the poet to compare swallows with bats, a nocturnal bird that reigns only at night. Through this we clearly see his disdain towards bats. As the poem goes on we now know that his emotions have completely taken over him and his thoughts to judge properly. This tells us that a mans inability to judge properly because of his emotions creates prejudice, fear creates prejudice. Lawrence's poem revels in the theme that juxtaposes happiness with a sense of fear.

Another technique Lawrence uses to explore intense emotions and situations is imagery through his word choices, allusion, smilies and metaphors. Lawrence begins the poem by introducing us to the setting of the poem, Italy. He used names of ancient cities and places in Italy like Pisa, Florence, Mountains of Carrara, Ponte Vecchio and River Arno which gives a sense of allusion in the poem. He uses smilies to describe movements “Like a glove, a black glove thrown up at the light and falling back”, which changes to metaphors and the poem progresses. This shows us his change in mood and tone. We know that Lawrence, undoubtedly, finds bats disgusting and repulsive. The last lines of his poem states “But in China, it’s a symbol of happiness and good luck” “Not for me!. It is known that Chinese eat bat. That gives credence to the proverb that one man’s meat is another man’s poison.

Harwood’s poem “In The Park” is about a simple everyday woman deprivation of motherhood. The poem conveys the negative aspects of motherhood and family life as well as challenging common ideas, paradigms and values & beliefs which is commonly held amongst mothers in today’s society. Harwood uses techniques such as sonnet structure, irony and metaphors to explore intense emotions and/or situations in her poem “In The Park”.

One of the technique she use is the structure of the sonnet. It is a Petrarchan sonnet. It has fourteen lines , with a change in perspective between the first eight lines and the six closing. The change in point of view is the way the poem shifts from looking at the woman and her children to eavesdropping on the conversation she has with the old flame she meets in which she pretends to be a joyous madonna. The poem starts with four short sentences, and then has a rather long one which then uses enjambment. This makes us understand that meeting her old flame is an intrusion on her day and makes their conversation seem superficial. Another technique Harwood uses is irony and lots of it. For example sonnets were often love poems but this one is about a mothers desperation. “Time holds great surprises” is an ironic statement about her dreams not being realised. This makes us question out views and beliefs in motherhood and the worth of it.

Harwood also uses metaphor in her poem In The Park to explore intense emotions/situations.

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

children.

In conclusion, both the poems In the Park and Bat, explore intense emotions or intense situations using precise language. Harwood’s In the Park portrays a woman's feeling of being smothered by her children. Harwood wrote the poem to make us understand that while motherhood is often idealised, in reality it is intensely demanding and sometimes a mother can feel isolated and despairing. This poem really makes us question all that we know about motherhood and our ideas about it. Lawrence’s Bat is about a persons clear disdain towards the nocturnal creature. Lawrence wrote the poem in order to teach us and make us understand that fear can be terrifying and lead to prejudice. This makes us think, feel and understand and how a good moment can be brought down by a mans inability to judge properly.