The poets, Gwen Harwood, Geoff Goodfellow and Judith Wright, all explore the idea of “individuals and those they love” using imagery and form. Through female perspectives, each poet presents how loving another person can cause a conflict of interests, between wanting a fulfilling relationship and the inevitable pain and suffering that accompanies it.
Imagery is used to illustrate how daily hardships can overpower an individual’s ability to love people close to them, resulting in conflicted emotions. In both In the Park and Suburban Sonnet, Harwood explores how women can lead mundane and unfulfilling lifestyles following motherhood. In In the Park, the woman loses passion and self-identity, as evidenced by her “out of date” clothing and an almost feigned enjoyment of motherhood. …show more content…
The final line, “To the wind she says, “[The children] have eaten me alive”, is metaphoric of the woman’s unheard opinions and feeling of misery. Similarly, in Suburban Sonnet, the woman’s “zest and love/ drain out… as she scours” is a metaphor representing maternal responsibilities have inhibited her passion for music. Wright’s poetry differs from Harwood’s, depicting mothers bearing a purer love for their unborn babies, a love untainted by exhaustive child-rearing responsibilities. In Poem for Annie, Goodfellow takes a unique approach. Instead of focusing on bland daily minutiae like Harwood, Goodfellow creates distressing imagery to emphasise the brutality of abusive relationships. Use of onomatopoeia with the words, “jammed”, “smashed” and “slashed”, contrasts with Wright’s typified amorous relationships. In Woman to Man, Wright highlights a couple’s passionate and reciprocated love through the assonance of words, such as “chase” and “embrace”, to generate a gentle and romantic sound. Contrary to Wright, Goodfellow shocks the audience through black humour. The line, “while friends got diamond rings/ … she got black ones”, shatters its initially romantic premise to expose the cruel nature of marital abuse. The poets use imagery to show how an individual’s loved ones can behave in unexpectedly brutal ways, preventing an individual’s ideal lifestyle. Hence, the poets show that relationships may provide emotional pain and suffering, even in predominantly “happy” relationships. The poets further use imagery to explore how characters can accept or overcome their hardships by summoning a greater love or resilience for their loved ones. Unlike In the Park, whose mother character appears devoid of maternal love, Suburban Sonnet presents an optimistic mother within the line, “Tasty dishes from stale bread”. The negatively connotated “stale bread”, metaphoric of the woman’s monotonous lifestyle, is juxtaposed against the positively connotated “tasty dishes”. The latter signifies the woman’s capacity to make the best of her situation by channelling an innate love for her children. Similarly, Wright uses abstract imagery to depict the women’s fragile loves for their unborn babies, described as “the intricate and folded rose” in Woman to Child. Although Wright reveals the women fear childbirth in the lines, “Oh hold me, for I am afraid” and “I wither and you break from me” in Woman to Man and Woman to Child respectively, their concerns pale when compared to their amazement at foetal development. Particularly in Woman to Child, the mother delights in creating a world “with multitudinous stars”, suggesting she can thrive as a mother through the strength of her love. Compared to Harwood and Wright’s use of love to overcome conflict, Goodfellow in Poem for Annie gives the character, Annie, resilience to overcome abuse: “it isn 't just her hair that 's / fair”. Instead of portraying supporting characters as loving, Annie’s abusive ex-husbands are characterised as vicious, through their anthropomorphism as “mongrels”. When Goodfellow says Annie can longer be called “Fang”, a canine-based name, he is suggesting the end of Annie’s dealings with “dogs”. Hence, each poet expresses that despite inevitable hardships in relationships, by identifying strong emotions, individuals can prevail over their tribulations by reevaluating their situation in a more constructive light. Each poet manipulates various elements of form to communicate that good relationships can simultaneously provide emotional pain. Harwood utilises the sonnet structure, a traditionally romantic form, to contrast with the tedium detailed within the poems. Suburban Sonnet uses short sentence lengths and monosyllabic rhymes to generate a sense of abruptness, mirroring the woman’s frantic family life. Enjambment within
Imagery is used to illustrate how daily hardships can overpower an individual’s ability to love people close to them, resulting in conflicted emotions. In both In the Park and Suburban Sonnet, Harwood explores how women can lead mundane and unfulfilling lifestyles following motherhood. In In the Park, the woman loses passion and self-identity, as evidenced by her “out of date” clothing and an almost feigned enjoyment of motherhood. …show more content…
The final line, “To the wind she says, “[The children] have eaten me alive”, is metaphoric of the woman’s unheard opinions and feeling of misery. Similarly, in Suburban Sonnet, the woman’s “zest and love/ drain out… as she scours” is a metaphor representing maternal responsibilities have inhibited her passion for music. Wright’s poetry differs from Harwood’s, depicting mothers bearing a purer love for their unborn babies, a love untainted by exhaustive child-rearing responsibilities. In Poem for Annie, Goodfellow takes a unique approach. Instead of focusing on bland daily minutiae like Harwood, Goodfellow creates distressing imagery to emphasise the brutality of abusive relationships. Use of onomatopoeia with the words, “jammed”, “smashed” and “slashed”, contrasts with Wright’s typified amorous relationships. In Woman to Man, Wright highlights a couple’s passionate and reciprocated love through the assonance of words, such as “chase” and “embrace”, to generate a gentle and romantic sound. Contrary to Wright, Goodfellow shocks the audience through black humour. The line, “while friends got diamond rings/ … she got black ones”, shatters its initially romantic premise to expose the cruel nature of marital abuse. The poets use imagery to show how an individual’s loved ones can behave in unexpectedly brutal ways, preventing an individual’s ideal lifestyle. Hence, the poets show that relationships may provide emotional pain and suffering, even in predominantly “happy” relationships. The poets further use imagery to explore how characters can accept or overcome their hardships by summoning a greater love or resilience for their loved ones. Unlike In the Park, whose mother character appears devoid of maternal love, Suburban Sonnet presents an optimistic mother within the line, “Tasty dishes from stale bread”. The negatively connotated “stale bread”, metaphoric of the woman’s monotonous lifestyle, is juxtaposed against the positively connotated “tasty dishes”. The latter signifies the woman’s capacity to make the best of her situation by channelling an innate love for her children. Similarly, Wright uses abstract imagery to depict the women’s fragile loves for their unborn babies, described as “the intricate and folded rose” in Woman to Child. Although Wright reveals the women fear childbirth in the lines, “Oh hold me, for I am afraid” and “I wither and you break from me” in Woman to Man and Woman to Child respectively, their concerns pale when compared to their amazement at foetal development. Particularly in Woman to Child, the mother delights in creating a world “with multitudinous stars”, suggesting she can thrive as a mother through the strength of her love. Compared to Harwood and Wright’s use of love to overcome conflict, Goodfellow in Poem for Annie gives the character, Annie, resilience to overcome abuse: “it isn 't just her hair that 's / fair”. Instead of portraying supporting characters as loving, Annie’s abusive ex-husbands are characterised as vicious, through their anthropomorphism as “mongrels”. When Goodfellow says Annie can longer be called “Fang”, a canine-based name, he is suggesting the end of Annie’s dealings with “dogs”. Hence, each poet expresses that despite inevitable hardships in relationships, by identifying strong emotions, individuals can prevail over their tribulations by reevaluating their situation in a more constructive light. Each poet manipulates various elements of form to communicate that good relationships can simultaneously provide emotional pain. Harwood utilises the sonnet structure, a traditionally romantic form, to contrast with the tedium detailed within the poems. Suburban Sonnet uses short sentence lengths and monosyllabic rhymes to generate a sense of abruptness, mirroring the woman’s frantic family life. Enjambment within