Walking Away Flashcards
“It is eighteen years ago, almost to the day”
Technique: caesura
-Pause highlights the key and specific information.
-Being specific shows the importance its to the speaker.
Reader sees that the father is finding it hard to let go of his early memories with son.
“with leaves just turning”
Technique: nature imagery
-“turning” suggests change (in context boy turning from child to adolescent).
-Change in seasons reflects change in relationship.
Reader feels anticipation as they realise the father could sense a change that day.
“since i watched you play
Your first game of football”
Technique: singular pronoun
-“I” is a singular pronoun which hints at separation.
The reader again sees the separation hinted at.
“like a satellite
Wrenched from its orbit, go drifting away”
Technique: simile, nature imagery, verb
-Compares son to a satellite which orbits something (could be referencing son always being with father and looking up to him).
-“Wrenched” is a violent verb and suggests it was forced.
-Wrenched and drifting juxtaposed to highlight first separation.
Reader sees that they found it hard to distance (verb).
“I can see
You walking away from me”
Technique: enjambment
-Enjambment brings to the reader’s attention to the detachment of the father “I” and son “You”.
-Memory is vivid, important to father.
Reader witnesses the first separation.
“With the pathos of a half-fledged thing set free”
Technique: metaphor
-“pathos” - feeling of pity - father feels sad.
-“half-fledged” describes a bird that has only developed half the feathers it needs to fly - thinks son isn’t ready.
The reader sees that the father is being protective of the son and is worried he isn’t ready.
“that hesitant figure”
Technique: adjective
- Suggests son is tentative and unsure.
Reader finds that speaker can’t come to terms with the separation and tries to find excuses to delay it.
“Like a winged seed loosened from its parent stem”
Technique: nature imagery, simile
-Compare to a seed in nature. This is a natural process for the seed to grow.
-Contrasts to wrenched and is more passive.
Reader recognises the speaker starting to accept that it is a natural process necessary for his son to grow.
“the scorching
Ordeals which fire one’s irresolute clay”
Technique: metaphor
-“scorching ordeals” are the small moments when a parent has to loosen his grip on the child to let them experience for themselves.
-“fire” is pain and struggle father feels when letting go.
-“clay” is metaphor for body.
The reader understands from this that the father is finding it hard, but is managing the pain for son’s growth.
“Gnaws at my mind still”
Technique: zoomorphism
-“still” - still hasn’t fully recovered from parting.
-“gnaw” is slowly eating away; feels like it still affects him.
Readers see father is concealing the pain but it still affects him.
“selfhood begins with walking away,
And love is proved in the letting go.”
Technique: verb
- To “begin” - to undergo the first part of selfhood.
- Could be for the father gaining independence or son.
- Letting go has allowed to demonstrate his love to his son, not become distanced from him.
Context, Rhyme Scheme
- Day-Lewis wrote it as he looks back at his son’s first day of boarding school.
- Poet had been very close o father after mother’s death when he was two; partings hard in general.
- ABACA rhyme scheme - feelings seem complicated but raw through melancholic tone.
