community N family studies
In Gwen Harwood's poetry, the changes in an individual's perspective and attitudes towards situations, surroundings and, therefore transformations in themselves, are brought on by external influences, usually in the form of a person or an event. These changes are either results of a dramatic realisation, as seen with shattering of a child's hopes in The Glass Jar, or a melancholy and gradual process, where a series of not so obvious discoveries produces similar reformation. An example of the later case would be Nightfall, the second section of Father and Child, where the persona refers to her forty years of life causing "maturation". For the most part these changes are not narrated directly but are represented by using dynamic language techniques to illustrate constant change in the universe of the poem. One of the significant aspects of "changing self" covered in Harwood's poems is the process in which, a child's innocent mind, like a blank page, is inked and tainted by some experience. Their hopes, dreams, beliefs, founded on their naive perspective of life, and the way the young restyle themselves consciously or subconsciously as they make new discoveries are all explored. In the poem The Glass Jar we witness the hear
With the many allusions to nature (for example the personification of the sun and references to animals and woods and so on) Gwen Harwood constructs a dynamic backdrop which allow the responder to dwell on the subtle shifts in the child's personality. " Using such highly narrative fast paced (an illusion created by delivering it in pulses) and confident language to show the single mindedness of the young, Harwood describes the actions of the girl as she creeps out at daybreak to the barnyard. " But this time the approach is less seeking, more slow and uncommitted, reflecting the calmness and control acquired by experience. The father appears, conducting the dance of death and actually directing the monsters that haunt him. The early learning processes of the young are potrayed more adequately in the poem Father and Child where an older child, this time a girl at a rebellious age, experiments with the constraints of authority in an attempt to seek control for herself. The lines, "His sidelong violence summoned/ fiends whose mosaic vision saw/ his heart entire" are literal indications of his incapability to comprehend what is happening to him. By making subtle changes in the ways dreams are portrayed, she shows us that the boy has been changed by his experiences. In contrast to innocence of the young, Gwen Harwood also attempts to understand death and how it changes the personality of the people experiencing its influence. Possibly not realising the effects of death at such a young age she fires a bullet into the owl's body. This shows that his subliminal self has learned, to some extent, the cause of his pain, even if he is still hasn't managed to consciously comprehend the events. I saw those eyes that did not see mirror my cruelty Her father comes to her side and makes her carry the responsibility she had assumed to the end by asking her to kill the animal.
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Nightfall Link,
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Acceptance Essays
