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Analysis Of The Wholly Innocent By Bruce Dawe

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Bruce Dawe is an influential Australian poet who is well known for the use of an extended metaphor within his texts. The statement, ‘…the poet's role is to challenge the world they see around them’ is true for Dawe and this is because his poems are created to portray the society that we see today. This is evident in his poems ‘The Wholly Innocent’, ‘Enter Without So Much As Knocking’, ‘Mary and the Angel’, and ‘Condolences of the Season’ in which all of these poems have a common theme; the concept of life and how as a growing community and society we are consumed by materialism. Dawe also comments on how actions of people within our society make the perception of life questionable. Through Dawe’s own life experiences, his opinions are prevalent in his poetry and through this he is able to challenge the world he sees around him based on his own views and concepts.

Bruce Dawe’s ‘The Wholly Innocent’ is a poem talking about a terminated fetus that expresses the non-existent chances of life within the possible eight-week period since conception, in which it claims a life it wished to have. Looking at the deeper meaning of this text, this poem talks about the controversial issue between one another in society on whether abortion is ethical. It is evident through Dawe’s own perspective that he personally chooses to go against it in which he outlines the idea of abortion to be an unacceptable conduction of termination in this poem. Bruce Dawe challenges the world through this poem that in a way when life is viewed in the natural human nature there is a great controversy on the choice and ability to terminate or preserve life. In this issue of whether abortion is possible within today’s society there are those who view it as an acceptable option to chose this process, however, there are also those against this process of eliminating a fetus (or an embryo in earlier stages). Even though this is the case, there is still yet another ongoing issue on whether the process of abortion is exceptional in the terms of pregnancy due to rape or sexual abuse in which when it is given to thought by society, there is a wide range of problematic and complicated decisions to be made. By having made this poem, Bruce Dawe is taking an

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