Gwen Harwood
Gwen Harwood’s “Father and Child” is a two part poem describing the self changes experienced through time within a father and his child. In the first part of the poem, we witness a change in self a child as she experiences her first step towards adulthood. In “Barn Owl”, a child at a rebellious age, experiments with the constraints of authority in an attempt to seek control for herself, as she sneaks out to kill a barn owl with her father’s shotgun. However, this experimentation quickly awakens her to an importnat discovery in her life; the reality of suffering and d . . .
The father who was once his child’s protector and mentor is now the one who requires looking after as he is “blind”, “eighty years of age” and “stick-thin”. Thus, to “end what (she had) begun”, her father shows sound judgement in his response to her terrible crime. eath as not “clean” but real, bloody and ugly. As an adult about to lose her father, the persona realises she has learned much from him. His vulnerability and dependence is furthermore displayed in the description of his voice; “you speak as if air touched a string near breaking point”. This is a life changing experience for her and an indication that she cannot return to childhood. She must be taught to accept resonsibilty for her actions. Both characters have changed as indivuals and their reationship and power roles have changed accordingly. As the child has “grown to learn what sorrows” exist in the knowlege of aprroaching death, this complex poem has helped the reader to understand how change occurs with time, for time and change are inseparably intertwined. Effective vocabulary such as “memories”, “temporal”, and “transcience” throughout this second part of the poem, helps keep the reader aware of the passing of time and the constant presence of change. However in “Nightfall”, the child “once quick to mischief”, forty years on, has grown into a comtemplative adult who has greater understanding of life by picking the “last fruits of the termporal:” the last lessons of time/experience. She “wept” as self-knowledge and self-disgust join together and the child is sickened by what she has callously done. Harwood’s clever technique of juxtaposing these two sections of the poem allow the reader to easily recognise the change in the lives of the father and the child and within themselves. The persona no longer sees her father as the powerful “No-Sayer” who ruled her actions but as an “Old King” and “comforter”.
Common topics in this essay:
Barn Owl, Father Child, father child, father child poem, child poem, barn owl, |
Acceptance Essays
