Family Relationships 2 Flashcards
UMBRELLA
Umbrella sentence: In both ‘Walking Away’ and ‘Mother Any Distance’, the poets convey the family relationships between parents and children as strong and unbreakable.
TS1
In both “Walking Away” and “Mother Any Distance” the parents have to weaken their strong family relationships in order to allow their children to become independent.
‘eddying…like a winged seed loosed from its parent stem’ WALKING AWAY
L = simile. A seed (child) must become independent from its parent if it is to grow. Verb ‘eddying’ suggests child is vulnerable; no clear direction. Must find its own path.
“fall or fly” MOTHER ANY DISTANCE
L = Alliteration - draws the reader’s attention to “fall’ and “fly”.
- connotations of a bird leaving its nest for independence.
- he will either succeed and thrive or fall and fail.
- relationship must be weakened for him to be able to leave.
TS2
Whilst in “Mother Any Distance” the mother still supports the speaker through their strong relationship, in “Walking Away” the father feels as though he has stopped supporting his son.
“space-walk” MOTHER ANY DISTANCE
L = Metaphor - mother still holds onto the end of the tape. I = 1) he is literally measuring the room
2) like space, it feels strange to have so much space
- the tape shows her support
C = Armitage finished university and moved into his first property without his mother so he would know the feeling of so much private and new space.
“Anchor. Kite’ MOTHER ANY DISTANCE
L = Caesura - emphasizes it is necessary for them to separate.
BUT
I = 1) he is trying to fly to freedom (kite)
2) someone needs to be there to support him ( his mum controlling the kite)
‘pathos of a half-fledged thing’ WALKING AWAY
L= emotive metaphor. Son = vulnerable. Not ready to become independent. R = pity for him.
‘like a satellite wrenched from its orbit’ WALKING AWAY
L = simile. Verb = painful. Not ready for parting. Son’s life’s revolved around him.
TS3
TS3: Both poets describe the speakers feelings of loss and how tough it is to have to weaken their family relationships.
‘Gnaws at my mind still’. WALKING AWAY
L = powerful verb suggests ongoing pain and guilt at leaving his parting from his son. Caesura emphasizes impact of parting. R = sympathy for father’s pain. C = Day Lewis dedicated the poem to his son Sean; he divorced Sean’s mother and left the family home. D = on a deeper level, about his guilt at leaving the family, not just leaving his son at boarding school.
‘your fingertips still pinch the last hundredth of an inch’
Having climbed as high as he can, achieving his metaphorical freedom, she hangs on.
L = verb = ‘pinch’ represents not only her desire to keep the link, however small, but also suggests the annoying pain of someone squeezing skin.
D = Yet, she will always be there, connected by the ‘last one-hundredth of an inch’ — implying he may one day still need her.
There is a tightness, maybe a sense of security, reflected in the rhyming ‘pinch’ and ‘inch’.
