Compare and Contrast the Presentation of Childhood Memories in ‘Half Past Two’, ‘Piano’ and ‘My Parents Kept Me from Children Who Were Rough’ Focusing on the Poet’s Use of Language, Form and Structure.’
Compare and contrast the presentation of childhood memories in ‘half past two’, ‘piano’ and ‘my parents kept me from children who were rough’ focusing on the poet’s use of language, form and structure.’
The poems are different based on theme as piano has a theme of music taking on a memory. Half past two has a theme of life before not being able to tell time. Lastly my parents kept me from children who were rough have a theme of not being able to relive a bad memory.
The three poems are contrasting on the meaning as ‘My parents kept me from children who were rough’ and ‘piano’ are about the poet’s memories when they are older and ‘Half past two’ is an exploration of a child’s imagination during his early years before he could tell the time.
In Piano, Lawrence shows he is dealing with adult memories of childhood by in the first stanza,
‘Taking me back down the vista of years.’ The use of the word ‘vista’ shows that he is dealing with a long period of time. Similarly ‘My parents kept me from children who were rough’ Spender shows he is also dealing with adult memories of childhood as in the last stanza, ‘I longed to forgive them, yet they never smiled.’ The use of the words ‘longed’ and ‘never’ show that he is looking back to that time and is hurt that they never said sorry.
In contrast to that ‘Half past two’ is about an exploration of a child’s mind. Fanthorpe shows this in the sixth stanza, ‘He knew the clock face, the little eyes and two long legs walking but he couldn’t click its language.’ This description of the clock face shows that the writer is explaining a young child’s mind of how they were taught how to tell the time.
The three poems contrast in structure as ‘My parents kept me from children who were rough’ and ‘piano’ only have three stanzas, where as ‘half past two’ has eleven stanzas.
In ‘Piano’ the stanzas change the time of as in stanza 1, the poet is writing about the immediate past. This then changes in stanza 2 as Lawrence starts to write
The poems are different based on theme as piano has a theme of music taking on a memory. Half past two has a theme of life before not being able to tell time. Lastly my parents kept me from children who were rough have a theme of not being able to relive a bad memory.
The three poems are contrasting on the meaning as ‘My parents kept me from children who were rough’ and ‘piano’ are about the poet’s memories when they are older and ‘Half past two’ is an exploration of a child’s imagination during his early years before he could tell the time.
In Piano, Lawrence shows he is dealing with adult memories of childhood by in the first stanza,
‘Taking me back down the vista of years.’ The use of the word ‘vista’ shows that he is dealing with a long period of time. Similarly ‘My parents kept me from children who were rough’ Spender shows he is also dealing with adult memories of childhood as in the last stanza, ‘I longed to forgive them, yet they never smiled.’ The use of the words ‘longed’ and ‘never’ show that he is looking back to that time and is hurt that they never said sorry.
In contrast to that ‘Half past two’ is about an exploration of a child’s mind. Fanthorpe shows this in the sixth stanza, ‘He knew the clock face, the little eyes and two long legs walking but he couldn’t click its language.’ This description of the clock face shows that the writer is explaining a young child’s mind of how they were taught how to tell the time.
The three poems contrast in structure as ‘My parents kept me from children who were rough’ and ‘piano’ only have three stanzas, where as ‘half past two’ has eleven stanzas.
In ‘Piano’ the stanzas change the time of as in stanza 1, the poet is writing about the immediate past. This then changes in stanza 2 as Lawrence starts to write