Gwen Harwood: Changing Of The Self Essay

Harwood’s poem ‘The Glass Jar’, powerfully illustrates the fears and consternations of childhood. The poem deeply explores both the loss of childhood innocence and transition between childhood and adulthood. Typical of Harwood’s poetry, the central character is never named and as a result, the boy's feelings and thoughts become representative of all children. Her poetry offers new and enlightening perspectives on the most significant stages of our lives, reinforced with the phrase ‘He woke’, a blunt, monosyllabic statement that highlights the passing of time. Emotive and powerful language communicates the transition between a child who’s sleep was disturbed by ‘whispering’ monsters. He became a child who has secured hope and faith in a metaphorical glass jar filled with light. This symbolises a ‘host’ providing salvation, security and

The first passage reveals the parallel suffering occurring in the lives of different members of the family, which emphasizes the echoes between the sufferings of the father and the narrator. The narrator’s father’s despair over having watched

The most complex relationship one could ever try to understand is the relationship of a child and his or her parents. In the poem, “Our Son Swears He Has 102 Gallons of Water in His Body,” by Naomi Shihab Nye, the speaker effectively portrays the damaged relationship between a child and his parents. The son in the poem believes he knows everything, and his “know-it-all” mentality is the source of the family’s troubles. Through details, imagery, and a shift in the last stanza, the speaker conveys the son’s stubbornness.

Few relationships are as deep as those between child and parent. While circumstance and biology can shape the exact nature of the bond, a child’s caretaker is the first to introduce them to the world. And as they grow and begin to branch out, children look to their parents as a model for how to interact with the various new situations. Through allusion, potent imagery, and nostalgic diction, Natasha Trethewey constructs an idolized image of a father guiding their child through life’s challenges only to convey the speaker’s despair when they are faced with their father’s mortality in “Mythmaker.”

Anne Bradstreet’s poem “In Reference to her Children” (1659) encapsulates timeless themes regarding life and death, motherhood, and immortality alike. Bradstreet makes use of extended metaphor and personification to illustrate the speaker’s (Bradstreet, presumably) relationship with her children as well as the chronology of life and motherhood.

A sense of belonging can be linked to many aspects of life, whether it be to people, places or cultures, and is often necessary for feeling a sense of happiness through a sense of identity or importance. The poem "In the Park" by Gwen Harwood and the short film "More" by Mark Osborne both show the positives and the negatives of belonging to people and society as a whole.

The realization of difference often marks a significant moment of turning in childhood, moving from a blissful but naïve ignorance to a newfound sense of reality’s burden. Countee Cullen and Cecilia Woloch chronicle the moment when a child grasps a sense of difference from other children and the surrounding world. Hinged by their elegiac tones, the contemporary poets explore how wounding words cause loss. Cullen’s “Incident” and Woloch’s “Blink” both implement imagery of size to examine the volta that is the realization of difference. This manifests in Cullen's specific diction, and Woloch’s integration of visceral and religious imagery. Each poem has a volta, a turning point of realization that reveals, in retrospect, the impact of the poem's events on the narrator's life. The contrasting placement of the volta causes the poems themselves to differ in their sense of closure, leaving the reader grasping the remnants of childhood innocence. Cullen's word choice leading to a sudden volta show how a tiny event can leave an imprint on a lifetime, while Woloch's rising volta gives hope in the last line of the poem.

His mother’s actions are unsettling to his idealistic perspective on life as he describes it

Thereby, creating immense doubts in who he is as an individual. His previous truth shattered and replaced with this horrid one has plunged him into an imbalance between himself internally and superficially. After that traumatic experience, he no longer believes in the greatness within him. The lack of confidence and motivation has led him to not having anything concrete to strive for. The reason being is, that throughout his whole life, it was his father who was his foundation.

shows Christopher’s father’s attempt to justify his actions. Hence, this shows the father is personally challenged when coping with

Lastly, children were to be quite and did not spend much time with their mothers and fathers. Due to society’s own harsh expectations of themselves, it impacted other aspects of their lives. This impacted literature and is a major time when authors had to use more profound

In contrast, his mother has been looking for him instead of losing him. His mother illustrates the worry and sadness of the protective parent. The urge for superior guidance into the world of innocence and evil is very

He does not respect the choice of her mother and wants her mother to view things from his perspective. He declares it as shameful and a gross trespassing. He forces his mother to withhold herself from her husband.” By the mother obeying to her son, and allowing him to be an authorative figure over her just shows the superiority the son has over his

The boy quickly realized he had to go home. Even the workers in his father’s household were far better off. But again he needed to think things through. Maybe he could explain, argue, and excuse himself back into his father’s graces… but no… for once in his life he finally

Our parents imprint on us their own morals. For instance, the father tries to teach the boy how to keep bright line morals like selflessness alive in a time of gray. The boy’s and the father’s bond is extremely strong due to them being alone. Like a teacher, the father shows the boy to give rather than take. In detail, when the pair comes upon supposedly helpless other humans, the boy urges the father to give up some of their food. Moreover, the absent of a parental figure is just as molding. The boy’s mother is distant and obsessed with death and its looming presence. This idea is held in the boy as well. The boy has not really grasped the concept of living like most people never will. He talks about death as inevitable. Her death also showed the boy the grim reality of giving up. From the boy’s parentage, I learned that family and friends are what is needed to make us the best people we can