Hardship is found in the poems of poets James McAuley and Gwen Hardwood. In “Pieta” and “In the Park” respectively both express that death is painful and filled with grief. McAuley’s free verse poem “Pieta” describes the anguish of a grieving father whereas Harwood’s focuses upon a dejected and confused mother who sits isolated in a suburban park.
The hardship of a grieving father is described at the beginning of McAuley’s poem where the narrator accepts death as a part of life and for this reason “no one (is) to blame” for the death of his child one year prior. McAuley expresses, through his short verses, that the narrator’s child “lived a day and night, then died and no one to blame.” In contrast of the detached mother in “In the park”
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does not have a name because Park sees that her identity has been taken away by the role of motherhood.
This loss of self is reinforced when “Someone she loved passed by” but she cannot “feign indifference” to him and ignore him. The idea of personal challenges continues when McAuley’s narrator explains that “Once only, with one hand, Your Mother in farewell Touched you” but he did not experience this connection and is suffering because of it. The repetition of the word “cannot” in “I cannot tell/ I cannot understand” underlines the lack of comprehension of his own pain because the infant’s loss is alliteratively “A thing so dark and deep”. Harwood’s narrator continues to expose the mother’s hardship when she chats to her ex-love about how “Time holds great surprises” and “it’s wonderful to watch (the children) thrive and grow” She knows the ex lover is grateful to have escaped her current existence but she unfortunately cannot. Each time the mother converses with her ex lover, it becomes a false attempt to find happiness in her role as a mother. When McAuley’s narrator speaks of the death of Jesus, which was bloody and violent, he contrasts it with his child’s death was metaphorically “clean.” With …show more content…
no invisible signs to explain the death, the father’s hardship to accept its reality if more difficult, yet he agrees that the “Clean wounds, but terrible, are those made with the cross.” In contrast Hardwood’s poem concludes with the mother admitting that her children have metaphorically “eaten her alive” and this loss of self is her greatest hardship. Both James McAuley and Gwen Harwood parallel hardship in their poems “Pieta” and “In the park”.
Through the personas of a grieving father and a mother’s lost identity, the idea of hardship is effectively conveyed. Readers come to the conclusion that life consists of many hardships and all are stressful.
Acceptance is conveyed in the poems “Mirror” and “Remember” by Sylvia Plath and Christina Rossetti but what is accepted a how is what makes the poems dissimilar. The free verse poem of “Mirror” explores the existence of a woman who has aged and cannot admit that she is old whereas the sonnet “Remember” explores the need of dying woman to have her love accept that she will not be part of his
future. The acceptance of aging is the focus of Plath’s poem and she explores it through the personified narrative voice of a mirror. The mirror is the voice of reality because whatever it sees it metaphorically “swallow(s) immediately” and it is “unmisted by love or dislike”. Not being biased it reflects truth and reality and this is a challenge for Plath’s woman who looks into it day after day. Rossetti, in contrast, states through her first person narrator that she accepts that she is going to die and go “far away” into the metaphorical “silent sand” of death, but what is causing her grief is her partner’s reaction to her death. As both poems progress the struggle or need for acceptance develops through the voices of the respective narrators. Since the mirror has been in the same place for years the only change it ever experiences is when “Faces and darkness separate (it) over and over” and the only time it engages in reality and truth is when the aged woman stands before it “searching (is) reaches who she really is.” When she cannot accept reality she metaphorically “turns to those lairs, the candles or the moon” because in darkness the harsh reality that she has aged is not so obvious. Contrastingly Rossetti’s narrator is accepting of truth but she attempts to remind her partner that their future is not to be and she wants him to know that “if (he) should forget (her) for a while/And afterwards remember, do not grieve.” As Plath’s poem comes to a conclusion the woman’s depression becomes heightened because each time she searches her reflection for something that is o longer there, she becomes more “agitated.” Instead of appreciating her transformation the woman knows within the mirror she has metaphorically “Drowned a young girl.” The narrator in “Remember” continues to plead with her partner to accept her death. She tells him to not let the metaphorical “darkness and corruption” overwhelm him when he is happy because it is “Better by far (he) should forget and smile” than remember her with guilt or pain. This peace is what she wishes for her love. In the poems “Mirror” by Sylvia Plath and “Remember” by Christina Rossetti, acceptance is conveyed as a central idea. “Mirror” focuses on the struggle of an aged woman to accept her appearance, whereas “Remember” details the lengths of a dying woman that ensures inner peace for husband once she has passed. Readers come to the understanding that acceptance is found in many unspoken techniques on self and life changes.
“Pass On” written by Michael Lee is a free verse poem informing readers on grief, which is one of the most difficult obstacles to overcome not only when losing a loved one, but also in life itself. “Pass On” successfully developed this topic through the setting of an unknown character who explains his or her experience of grief. Despite Lee never introducing this character, readers are given enough information to know how they are overcoming this difficult obstacle. In fact, this unknown character is most likely the writer himself, indirectly explaining his moments of grief. One important piece of information Lee provides is the fact that he has experienced loss twice, one with his grandfather and the other a friend who was murdered by the
Marie Howe’s book, “What the living Do” is a book about death, loss, grief, and life. Howe expresses these deep emotional issues using plain language, simple line breaks, and imagery that reminds the reader of an ordinary home. The poem, “Faulkner”, is an exemplary example of how effective Howe’s methods are for conveying a moody and mournful tone.
The interpretations of what comes after death may vary greatly across literature, but one component remains constant: there will always be movement. In her collection Native Guard, Natasha Trethewey discusses the significance, permanence and meaning of death often. The topic is intimate and personal in her life, and inescapable in the general human experience. Part I of Native Guard hosts many of the most personal poems in the collection, and those very closely related to the death of Trethewey’s mother, and the exit of her mother’s presence from her life. In “Graveyard Blues”, Trethewey examines the definition of “home” as a place of lament, in contrast to the comforting meaning in the epitaph beginning Part I, and the significance
Through diction, the tone of the poem is developed as one that is downtrodden and regretful, while at the same time informative for those who hear her story. Phrases such as, “you are going to do bad things to children…,” “you are going to suffer… ,” and “her pitiful beautiful untouched body…” depict the tone of the speaker as desperate for wanting to stop her parents. Olds wrote many poems that contained a speaker who is contemplating the past of both her life and her parent’s life. In the poem “The Victims,” the speaker is again trying to find acceptance in the divorce and avoidance of her father, “When Mother divorced you, we were glad/ … She kicked you out, suddenly, and her/ kids loved it… ” (Olds 990). Through the remorseful and gloomy tone, we see that the speaker in both poems struggles with a relationship between her parents, and is also struggling to understand the pain of her
All through the times of the intense expectation, overwhelming sadness, and inspiring hope in this novel comes a feeling of relief in knowing that this family will make it through the wearisome times with triumph in their faces. The relationships that the mother shares with her children and parents are what save her from despair and ruin, and these relationships are the key to any and all families emerging from the depths of darkness into the fresh air of hope and happiness.
Her family life is depicted with contradictions of order and chaos, love and animosity, conventionality and avant-garde. Although the underlying story of her father’s dark secret was troubling, it lends itself to a better understanding of the family dynamics and what was normal for her family. The author doesn’t seem to suggest that her father’s behavior was acceptable or even tolerable. However, the ending of this excerpt leaves the reader with an undeniable sense that the author felt a connection to her father even if it wasn’t one that was desirable. This is best understood with her reaction to his suicide when she states, “But his absence resonated retroactively, echoing back through all the time I knew him. Maybe it was the converse of the way amputees feel pain in a missing limb.” (pg. 399)
pity in the reader by reflecting on the traumatic childhood of her father, and establishes a cause
Through an intimate maternal bond, Michaels mother experiences the consequences of Michaels decisions, weakening her to a debilitating state of grief. “Once he belonged to me”; “He was ours,” the repetition of these inclusive statements indicates her fulfilment from protecting her son and inability to find value in life without him. Through the cyclical narrative structure, it is evident that the loss and grief felt by the mother is continual and indeterminable. Dawson reveals death can bring out weakness and anger in self and with others. The use of words with negative connotations towards the end of the story, “Lonely,” “cold,” “dead,” enforce the mother’s grief and regressing nature. Thus, people who find contentment through others, cannot find fulfilment without the presence of that individual.
During the process of growing up, we are taught to believe that life is relatively colorful and rich; however, if this view is right, how can we explain why literature illustrates the negative and painful feeling of life? Thus, sorrow is inescapable; as it increase one cannot hide it. From the moment we are born into the world, people suffer from different kinds of sorrow. Even though we believe there are so many happy things around us, these things are heartbreaking. The poems “Tips from My Father” by Carol Ann Davis, “Not Waving but Drowning” by Stevie Smith, and “The Fish” by Elizabeth Bishop convey the sorrow about growing up, about sorrowful pretending, and even about life itself.
Looking back on the death of Larissa’s son, Zebedee Breeze, Lorraine examines Larissa’s response to the passing of her child. Lorraine says, “I never saw her cry that day or any other. She never mentioned her sons.” (Senior 311). This statement from Lorraine shows how even though Larissa was devastated by the news of her son’s passing, she had to keep going. Women in Larissa’s position did not have the luxury of stopping everything to grieve. While someone in Lorraine’s position could take time to grieve and recover from the loss of a loved one, Larissa was expected to keep working despite the grief she felt. One of the saddest things about Zebedee’s passing, was that Larissa had to leave him and was not able to stay with her family because she had to take care of other families. Not only did Larissa have the strength to move on and keep working after her son’s passing, Larissa and other women like her also had no choice but to leave their families in order to find a way to support them. As a child, Lorraine did not understand the strength Larissa must have had to leave her family to take care of someone else’s
The theme of this book is that the human capacity to adapt to and find happiness in the most difficult circumstances. Each character in the novel shows this in their way. For instance, their family is randomly taken from their home and forced to work but they still remain a close nit family. In addition, they even manage to stick together after being separated for one of their own. These show how even in the darkest time they still manage to find a glimmer of hope and they pursued on.
First of all, the speaker starts her poem personifying death as a kind gentleman who comes to pick her up for her death journey. It is obvious if the reader looks at “He kindly stopped for me” (2). T...
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.
During the early seventeenth century, poets were able to mourn the loss of a child publicly by writing elegies, or poems to lament the deceased. Katherine Philips and Ben Jonson were two poets who wrote the popular poems “On the Death of My Dearest Child, Hector Philips”, “On My First Son”, and “On My First Daughter” respectively. Although Philips and Jonson’s elegies contain obvious similarities, the differences between “On the Death of My Dearest Child” and “On My First Son” specifically are pronounced. The emotions displayed in the elegies are very distinct when considering the sex of the poet. The grief shown by a mother and father is a major theme when comparing the approach of mourning in the two elegies.
“Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” is a poem composed by Thomas Gray over a period of ten years. Beginning shortly after the death of his close friend Richard West in 1742, “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” was first published in 1751. This poem’s use of dubbal entendre may lead the intended audience away from the overall theme of death, mourning, loss, despair and sadness; however, this poem clearly uses several literary devices to convey the author’s feelings toward the death of his friend Richard West, his beloved mother, aunt and those fallen soldiers of the Civil War. This essay will discuss how Gray uses that symbolism and dubbal entendre throughout the poem to convey the inevitability of death, mourning, conflict within self, finding virtue in one’s life, dealing with one’s misfortunes and giving recognition to those who would otherwise seem insignificant.