LIVED DOMESTICITIES
Thursday, October 18, 2012
"For My Daughter", "The Chimney Sweeper", 'Mother to Son"
From what I understood, all three poems shared the same theme, a message from a parent to a child saying life is dreadful and death is immanent. Moreover, all three poems seem to convey some sort of oppression which is why life is meaningless for them and they almost rather die. The job of a chimney sweeper, especially from the young age of 5, is a short lived, peasantry life style in 18th Century England, where most of the workers die at a young age, most likely from a cardiovascular related issue. Its almost as if death would set him free. "For My Daughter" talks about how if the author had a daughter her life was gonna be troubled by misfortune from her husband anyway. Out of all three poems, "Mother to Son" had the most positive, although still gloomy, message of the three poems. The mother is telling her son that life was hard, empty and oppression filled but stay positive, dont get down and keep striving hard to be successful
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Nice readings. But in "The Chimney Sweeper" a parent is not the speaker. Who is the speaker in that poem? Do keep in mind that the poet is not necessarily the speaker. How do we know the speaker in "For My Daughter" is a man? As for Hughes' poem, I'm interested to hear more about why do you say it has "the most positive, although still gloomy message"?
ReplyDeletein "For My Daughter", I feel like its a man because men tend to be really protective of their daughters when it comes their relationships with guy. Although Hughes' poem wasn't necessarily a feel good story, compared to the other two poems the poet talked about how life sucks but keep never give up. "The Chimney Sweeper" seems to be a complete give up on life where the only way of freedom is death
ReplyDelete