Year 12s: what will be the first way you research your future options? >>

English poems-relationship

what grade would i get from this?

HOW DOES THE POETS USE PAIN TO SHOW A RELATIONSHIP IN HARMONIUM AND OF OTHER POEM

Both Harmonium and Manhunt share a sense of pain in the relationship, Harmonium is familial whilst Manhunt in a loving couple that share heart break from war and the step back into realisation for Harmonium.

Harmonium shows a piano like a person ‘aged’ ‘yellow ’worn’ and personified through ‘fingernails and tongue’ and showing the age of the piano and how its getting to its age. This also shows how the father and son find it special and regard it as a person because they have been playing it for a long time and see it as an ending if they get rid of it. This links with the theme of regret in the poem. This piano is gathering dust and they decide its time to go however the father knows that he is just gathering illness and he will be swept away. The reader will feel sympathetic towards the father because he knows himself that it will be him soon ‘ The freight of his own dead weight’ the words ‘freight’ suggests to the reader that the son is scared of loosing his father as he’s had so many memories with him just like the piano that’s now going to be forgotten about. However other may say that the father wants to know that he wont be here forever and he needs to grow into a father and become strong this is reflected in the cyclical life of a person growing into a father and how we all used the piano ‘where father and son each in their time’ and that its had some good times but they have to give it away just like the father. The writer’s intension may have been to show how precious life is and looking back on life is needed before it’s too late.

Similarly Manhunt has a semantic field of pain. The use of the word ‘and’ repeated in poem shows the continuation of the unfortunate things happening in their relationship and things are never ending. It also shows the relationship through the stanzas. They start off rhyming suggesting their relationship is complete ‘trace’ ‘face’ and down the poem shows a fragmented rhyming structure metaphorically showing how the relationship is disjointed due to the man’s health decreasing. Simon Armatige also shows pain through the use of ‘grazed heart’. Heart is usually shown as a loving part of the body. This suggests to the reader metaphorically the relationship is broken and lost due the cost of war which is shown throughout the poem whereas conversely is could be literally shown as he’s been shot in the heart just like ‘blown hinge of his lower raw’. This could literally show his loss of speaking and connection. The writer’s intension is to show the devastating cost of war on people and how the wife is very caution of the man she once loved.

Both poems use structure to explore their meanings deeper. Harmonium is set in 4 stanzas. One and three being shown metaphorically showing that as the son/youth and stanza’s two and four long implying age/experience. This is shown to suggest that the father has done his life and its time to accept that it’s not going to be long before it’s over. Whereas in Manhunt there are 13 stanzas this reflects how unlucky their relationship is and how much he is hurt however it’s still shown in couplets. A weak interpretation of this could be that the women still strives for a bonding on them too and doesn’t want to let him go. They both use techniques; Manhunt uses metaphors to show to the reader how battered and broken both inside and as a person mentally, by describing it as something else. This shows the reader a clear picture of what is really happening. Harmonium also used personification of the piano ‘one of its notes had lost its tongue. This is to show its age and use and for the reader to physically have an image of how much they desired over the piano. It also metaphorically shows how the key was broken and it couldn’t let out sound.