old age sticks

In E.E. Cummings’ poem old age sticks, he uses his distinctive writing style to illustrate the conflict between the two characters, “old age” and “youth”. The unusual way this poem is written allows various ways to comprehend each time the poem is read because of the spacing, parentheses, and word separation. This poem is very interesting in that it can be interpreted several different ways. Overall though, the main point of the poem is that eventually youth becomes the people they used to resent. The theme of the poem, the cycle of life, is relatable to all readers. This makes the poem easy to understand and relate to.
“Old age” advises youth to slow down trying to grow up and enjoy their youth. They have been through the process of aging, and have much more experience. “Youth” is eager to mature though. Old age knows that growing old is not as amazing as it may seem to youth. The first time the poem is read, Cummings wants the reader to interpret the poem as that old age is just grumpy and annoyed with the antics of youth (Dilworth np). At a second glance it becomes clear that old age is trying to help youth. This could be because they do not want youth to make the same mistakes as they made, they want them to enjoy their youth, they miss their youth, ect. Because Cummings writes in such a way, he succeeds in getting both those points across and in that order.
Everything old age says and does makes it clear that stand for restriction and limitations. Cummings writes, “(old/ age/ cries No/ Tres)&(pas)/…(sing” to show how they stand for restriction (ll. 5-10). A few lines later he writes, “old age/ scolds Forbid/ den Stop/ Must/ n’t Don’t” to further show the beliefs of old age (ll. 11-16). Together these two quotations be...

... middle of paper ...

...outh and vice versa. After analyzing the poem though, it is clear that old age wants to protect youth. They just want youth to appreciate their time left as youth, because being old age is not as great as they think. Youth doesn’t want to listen though because they are so eager to grow up.
Throughout this poem Cummings gets across several points. He is able to illustrate the conflict between old age and youth, yet also show how they come together. His specific writing style gets the credit for this. In only a few short stanzas he is able to write about the irony of the cycle of life that really makes the reader thing. At a second read of the poem the reader is able to pick up indirect points. Then after analyzing, the reader understands that all the small points can be joined together to perfectly describe the gap between the elderly and the younger generation.