The Presentation Of Relationships In Poems Essay Example for Free

The Presentation Of Relationships In Poems Essay Compare a selection of poems you have enjoyed studying, explaining what interests you about the presentation of relationships. Poets often write about things they have strong emotions for, such as points of view and key moments in their ,or others, lives. One of the main things written about is relationships. Be it the relationship between the poet and a family member or relationships between objects and memories. Relationships and emotions are a complex thing to right about, because there is such a wide range. However everyone has had the experience of a relationship but some express there feelings in more complex way. Looking at Youre and Daddy by Sylvia Plath and Twelve Songs-number nine by W.H.Auden. You can clearly see there views on different relationships. There are many different types of relationships, as shown in the three poems I have choose to look at. In Youre Plath is writing about her unborn baby. At first it is very hard to understand because Plath does not write simply that she is pregnant instead she uses different phrases and metaphors, for instance my little loaf. When a women is pregnant the baby is sometimes referred to as a bun in the oven, so by saying loaf it shows that Plath is stating that she is pregnant. In addition, it is a symbolisation of a baby in the mothers womb, as a bun in the oven. By saying my little Plath is showing that the baby belongs to her and when you think of something little it is thought of as unable to look after itself as a baby is. To also show that she is pregnant Plath says feet to the stars this is because e when a baby is inside its mother it is upside down, therefore its feet would be to the stars, by picking the stars as were the babies feet are facing it shows that the baby can achieve anything, Plath could have chosen something like the sky which is close but she choose the stars because there so fare away and are hard to reach. She also shows that the baby has its whole life ahead of it, using the words clean slate, with your own face on it show that it is the baby and its life not hers. However in Audens poem Twelve Songs the relationship is stated more clearly. It is easier to understand because it uses all things associated with death Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come. this shows very simply that an important person in Audens life is now dead and by saying mourners it shows there is a lot of sadness. If the reader did not yet understand what the poem was bout, when Auden states He Is Dead it is made very clear. The relationship written about in this poem is the one between himself and his dead partner. It is showing that now his partner has died nothing matters, which is why the poem is written so simply. It seems that he just cannot be bothered anymore, he is mourning an upset and does not see the point of using long and complicated words and sentences to get his sadness across. The last poem is another one by Plath, Daddy. This poem is very different to Youre in this poem Plath is angry, resentful and also in a state of mourning. However it is not the same kind of mourning as Auden talks about. Plath is angry and blames her father for not only dying but also for how her life has turned out. Black shoe, In which I have lived like a foot, For thirty years Plath is saying that she has lived a confined and desolate life because of her fathers death, and she blames him for dying. However Plath does not show the slightest trace that she is unhappy and missing her father because at any given opportunity Plath abuses her father, for example she refers to herself as a Jew and her father a Nazi, showing how different they were and it makes the reader believe that Plaths father was a cruel man, as this is how Nazis are stereotyped. Also at the end of the poem she writes Daddy, daddy you bastard Im through by using such a strong word such as bastard it shows juts how much she resents him and how strongly she hates him. In Daddy Plath uses many colours. These colours show Plaths feelings, for instance Black shoe, In which I have lived, For thirty years poor and white she is saying her father is a black shoe, black is associated with evil, depression and plainly sad things. Also by referring to herself as white she is showing the difference between herself and her father using contrasting colours and perhaps is showing the difference between him being evil and her being good. There is a trend set In Daddy in which everyone Plath did not like is made black, her husband is referred to as The Black Man which is showing him to be just as nasty as her father. However in Twelve Songs black is representing depression not anger, black cotton gloves Auden is using black as a symbol for mourning, as well he is saying that now the person has died there is no colour or light and all thats left is darkness and despair. The poems both have different uses for the same colour, not just black but white as well. Poor and White is used in Plaths Daddy so that she can show that she is different from her father by using strong, bold, contrasting colours. But in Twelve Songs white necks of the public doves white is used to show the light and normality of the situation, not to make sure that Auden is not compared with his dead partner. There are more colour used in Daddy showing a wide range of emotions that her father has nothing to do with. Also anything associated with her father or husband use violent, drastic colours. When she first mentions her husband she says The Black man who, Bit my pretty red heart in two she is using the colour black again but is using another colour, red, to show blood and un-happiness. The techniques used in writing poems are all different, Auden writes in a mature style and makes it very easy to understand he is upset and doesnt want to make it hard to understand. He wants everyone to know what hes feeling and how upset he is, he refers to his partner as He was my North, my South, my East and West Auden is saying that his partner was everything, he is referring to every direction to show his partner was always there. Auden also says My Noon, my Midnight, my Talk, my Song this is also showing that his partner meant everything to him. Plath however writes differently in Youre, she uses short sentences and lots of complicated similes and metaphors. She writes like this because she is so happy and excited about having a child that she cant think straight and just wants to get her feelings out, that is why it doesnt make perfect sense. Also I think the complexity of the poem reflects the complexity of her emotions at the time. Plath uses metaphor after metaphor where as Auden and in Daddy each paragraph is written about a specific point. Daddy is written most complex of all of the three poems, Plath appears to be writing as if she is still a ten year old child (the age she was when her father died), she uses childish words such as daddy and she writes like a child would speak Ich, Ich, ich, ich this means I,I,I,I. It shows that she is stuttering and having trouble saying her words like a child does. She is also stereotyping her father I thought every German was you which is childish because adults know her father was not every German but to her he was because of a childlike thought. This also explains why she writes ich. However it appears that Plath is not trying to make the reader feel sorry for her, by describing her father as a Nazi; you automatically think he is a bad person by describing herself as a Jew it seems she wants sympathy, which could mean she is manipulating the situation. The poems all have intentions behind the presentation of the poem. In Twelve Songs Auden just wants to express his grief, but in both of Plaths the poem does not easily show what is wanted to express. For instance in Youre it appears to be a page of metaphors but the actual meaning is how Plath is feeling about having a baby, this is not obvious in the poem and you have to read it a few times to truly understand the meaning. In Daddy the intention is hard to find and there are quite a few different interpretations, at first it appears that Plath is angry at her father and just puts on a brave front to stop her from hurting so much. Plaths poems seem to be really confusing and hard to understand but why? In Youre I think that Plath wrote down what she was feeling and to her what she wrote made perfect sense and didnt have a complicated feel to it. But Daddy seems to be made quite hard so that the reader has to read it a few times to understand it. Also it seems biased and plays Plath as a victim. Plath wrote Daddy as if she was a ten year old child, because the poem is written like a child it makes the readers feel sympathy towards Plath. Because its written like a child it means that it is hard for adults to understand it, to a child the colours and the description make sense, but to an adult its confusing because they change it so it has the meaning they want it to. To a child this poem could be nothing else but a poem about how Plath remembers her father but to us its about how his death affected her and the choices she made in life.