Family relationships - Walking Away / Mother Any Distance Flashcards
Umbrella Statement
Both poems present Family relationships as strong and unbreakable
TS1
In both poems, the subjects are prevented of their own independence as a result of their strong family relationships.
TS2
Whilst in “Mother any distance” the poem is narated from the son’s perspective, in “Walking Away” the father is narrating the poem showing different views in family relatioships
TS3
Whilst in “walking away” the speaker doesn’t accept him and his son’s separation, in “Mother any distance” the speaker accepts their separation symbolising different family relationships between the parent and child.
Structure
Mother any distance- In some parts their are longer lines portraying how they are further away from each other which builds tension in their relationship
Other parts the lines are shorter showing they want to be closer together.
Walking away - line break separates pronouns - emphasizes son parting from father.
“Where the path should be” - Walking away
L- Metaphor, Path represents the choice he’ll have to take in life
D- The father won’t be there to provide the path for him later in life which means the child will have to gain independence to make his own path
“Fall or fly” - Mother, any distance
L - Alliteration
R - draws the reader’s attention to “fall” and “fly”
D - connotations of a bird, it has to leave the nest for dependence, he will either fall and fail or fly and thrive
- relationship must be weakened in order for him to leave
‘eighteen years ago…I can see/you walking away’ - Walking away
L- present tense even though in past – memory still vivid and painful.
Direct address to son – suggests feelings unresolved in speaker.
C- Links to guilt how the writer has to leave his son when he got a divorce with his wife.
“the acres of walls” - Mother, any distance
“Spool of tape”
L - hyperbole, shows how he thinks the world is still too big in adulthood which scares him
L- metaphor, she’s at the start and the end
D- (metaphorically) she’s there when he was born and when he’s leaving, (Literally) but she’s also at the end of the tape measure
C - The writer actually went back to Yorkshire where his parents lived quite close after his studying in college. Suggests the Mother and Son’s close relationship.
“hesitant figure, eddying away” - Walking away
“Like a satellite Wrenched”
L - verb ‘eddying’, child is lost without a sense of where to go. Child doesn’t want to leave his father and the father doesn’t want the child to leave.
L - simile - ‘Satellite’ orbiting his parents with a set course.
D - Leaving them makes him driven of course and looses his sense of where to go.
“Love is proved in the letting go” - Mother, any distance
“God alone could perfectly show”
L - verb, The son needs to leave and gain self support to show he can be an individual and the mother needs to let the son go to show she really loves him and that he can look after himself in adult-hood.
L - Biblical analogy,
D - like God letting his only son going down to earth and to die for everyone’s sins, the mother has to let his son go for him to show his independence and to accept their separation.
