At Mornington and Father and Child Essay

Gwen Harwood’s poetry explores ideas of the rejuvenating powers of memory, the inexorable nature of time and the adversity of advancing through various stages of human psychological development and the extent of life and death. â€Å"At Mornington† and â€Å"Father and Child† are poems which both demonstrate Harwood’s distinctive voice that transcends the barriers of time and examine universal issues that are pertinent to all. Moreover, the ability for these two poems to provide different interpretations makes them relevant to differing contexts with differing values. This is seen with two variant readings, a psychoanalytical reading and a post-modern reading. ‘At Mornington’ is a reminiscence of the persona’s life, evaluating the extent of life and death through memories, as shown by the first person point of view and past tense. It contains â€Å"memories of early childhood† that are described as â€Å"light in a sea-wet shell†, fragile and fleeting. The persona also continues to explore a collection of other memories and meandering thoughts, which the persona draws strength from in order to cope, understand and make sense of the present and the inevitability of her future death. The idea of memories in turn leads the poems into a psychoanalytical reading, in conjunction with a post-modern interpretation. The poem starts with the persona stating: ‘They told me that when I was taken to the sea’s edge’, implying that her memories are dependant on what ‘they’, her authoritative figures have told her, implying how they are dictated by that of authority. However memories can sometimes be unreliable as there are points of doubt where the persona ‘seem to remember my father fully clothed’. A post-modern view also shows authority losing power and individuals challenging them, as when the persona â€Å"leapt from my father’s arms† after being â€Å"taken to the sea’s edge. † The scene is a metaphor for an individual escaping from the passive grasps of authority, represented in the father, and acting upon their own interests. The fact that the persona was taken to their current position illustrates their lack of control over the situation, however, the persona later asserts control, breaking free of the authoritative figure and is controlling her own life. The inexorable nature of time is contemplated by the persona to make sense of her life. Through language and the lifecycle of the pumpkin as a metaphor of her own life, the persona defines herself in order to gain solace. The ‘pumpkin’ presented an image of the persona’s youth and innocence. She refers to â€Å"fine pumpkins grown on a trellis† at her friend’s house as a â€Å"parable of myself† as she ages, rising â€Å"in airy defiance of nature† towards the sun before returning to earth. The metaphor of the pumpkins striving to reach â€Å"the light† comments on both the physical and metaphysical aspirations of humans, and the confrontation and acceptance of death. It shows that she too has grown above her ‘humble station’ – not necessarily external success but bridging the gap between the conscious and unconscious. However, this metaphor alone is insufficient to make sense of her existence, and it is this gap between reality and the naming of it which is a key element of psychoanalytical theory. The need and desire of human beings to locate a sense of unity of self is also integral to the psychoanalytic theory, and Harwood achieves this through the circular structure of the poem. Emotive words such as ‘peace’, ‘shine’ and ‘forever’ create a serene image of death, while the symbolic ‘light’ and ‘water’ interlink with the first stanza. The use of water as a motif throughout the poem connects the important people and moments in her life such as in her childhood with her father ‘water soaked’ and with her friend in the Brisbane Gardens ‘pitcher of water’ and finally she uses the line ‘waters that bear me away for ever’ to show her acceptance of death. By drawing threads of the poem together, just as the persona draws together her dreams, thoughts and memories are used to establish her sense of unity and wholeness. Harwood creates a serene image of death, allowing the persona to reach a conclusion about its inevitability and the relevance of her experiences and dreams to it. Harwood’s poem ‘Father and Child’ is a parallel to ‘At Mornington’ as it investigates the advancement of human psyche, from the innocence of childhood to the frailty of old age. The poem also observes the human psyche’s attempt to rationalise and resist the inescapable nature of time. Harwood explores the change in human psyche in this poem and suggests that experiences undergone in childhood shape lives and morality in the future. The juxtaposition of settings and syntax is used to convey the evolution of the human psyche and morality. â€Å"Father and Child† is separated into two sections, â€Å"Part I Barn Owl†, which takes place in the persona’s childhood, and â€Å"Part II Nightfall† which is set when the persona has presumably reached middle age, as the father is now 80, blind and dying. The adversity of advancing through various stages of human psychological development is prevalent in ‘Barn Owl’. Harwood has used vivid descriptions to portray the callousness and cruelty of the situation where a little girl attempts to shoot a barn owl but fails and harms it dreadfully, causing the owl having had ‘dribbled through loose straw tangling in bowels’. For the responders this is strong imagery and portrays the unusual situation. The young girl is empowered because the owl is blinded by the light but later there is a role reversal as her father enters and becomes ‘owl-blind in early sun’, like the owl was initially. The killing of the owl demonstrates aspects of a post-modern interpretation where the girl revolts against authority by defying her father, the authoritative figure, and sneaks out with his gun – a representation of the father’s power and authority. The owl is a representation of wisdom or authority, thus, the child is destroying, in her mind, authority. The metaphoric imagery surrounding the death of the owl supports the psychoanalytical view that, dramatic moments such as these impact upon the psyche and have an everlasting effect on the individual. The girl comes to a realization of â€Å"those eyes that†¦ mirror my cruelty† and is now aware of the consequences of her actions, yet it is too late to change the result. The transition has been made and forever she will remain in the world of pain while ironically the bird has escaped it. The role of light is important in this poem as it differentiates between the ideas of life and death. In Part II, Harwood has challenged the responders by portraying light as a metaphor for life by making it set in the latter part of the day, at dusk, when the sun is setting. This shows the transition from life to death. Neither has the power to control the inevitability of death as the ‘sunset exalts its known symbols of transience’, personifying sunset – as the day becomes night the sun has the power because it brings about the process of change and deterioration. By doing this Harwood is exploring the concept of death being associated with darkness. In stanza 6, the atmosphere is saddened as direct speech is used and the poem nears the end. ‘Your night and day are one’ describes how death is a blur of both light and dark because it is a transition between the two. ‘Father and Child’ can also be read from a postmodernist perspective where it draws attention to the number of intertextual connections that are made between the poem and other texts, which focuses on both the extent of life/death and memories. The most apparent allusions are concerned with Shakespeare’s ‘King Lear’ and the line in Nightfall â€Å"Be your tears wet† creating a link between the child persona and the character of Lear’s daughter Cordelia, which examines the fact that she is confronting the death of her father. It’s as if a string of tenderness was touched by him inside of her which led to the tears. She had learnt a lot of concepts in regards to life from her father and is thanking him for teaching her. However, tears cannot mend the facts of life and death, since everybody has to come to the end of a journey at some stage. She relies on her father’s ‘white stick’ to take her back to her memories of her father and the lessons learnt – showing how memories can overcome tears at this last sorrow. The allusion of her father as ‘King’ is a reference to King Lear, showing her admiration and love for her father and how she still sees him as someone that she can rely on. The use of contrasting tones of the two parts reinforces the ideas of memory and life/death, that after many life experiences, her perspective of her father changes from â€Å"an old No Sayer† when the girl is young, to a â€Å"stick thin comforter†. By valuing texts in different perspectives, responders are able to react to a text on a variety of ways, making them relevant to differing contexts with differing values. â€Å"At Mornington† and â€Å"Father and Child† are texts which transcend the barriers of time and examine universal issues that are applicable to all.