Walking Away Flashcards
“sunny day with leaves just turning”
L - symbolism - the seasons are changing from summer to autumn, which is around the time the school year starts
Context about the poet
Cecil Day-Lewis (1904-1972) dedicated the poem to his son, Sean, from his first marriage. He describes how he felt when he had to leave him on his first day of boarding school.
“wrenched from its orbit, go drifting away”
L - verbs - the son is not ready to leave the speaker to go into school, they are unwilling and slowly moving away
What does the possessive pronoun at the beginning suggest about the speakers relationship with his father?
L- shows that they are very emotionally close and the dad is very possessive of his son.
“wilderness”
L - metaphor - the speaker is worried for his son and the son is underprepared.
C - biblical - reference- Jesus was tested in the wilderness, the son is being tested at the school
”finds no path where the path should be”
L - metaphor - his future is unknown and the son must find his own life without his parents.
“pathos of a half-fledged thing”
L - metaphor - the son is not ready to be independent of his parents
R - pathos - reader feels pity and sadness at the fact that the son is unready and unwilling to leave, but must because school is a rite of passage to independence
structure - enjambment between end of first and start of second stanzas.
It shows how the father and son are separating
Structure - caesura in the last stanza (line 17)
Emphasises the pain that separating from his son has caused the father
Rhyme - why do some line s rhyme and others in free verse?
It shows how they are getting further apart. The rhyme represents the emotional bond and the free verse shows how children need to develop independence and be free of their parents
What is the mood of the poem?
Sad, anxious, poet creates pathos.
Quotes: “love is proved in the letting go”
“gnaws at my mind still”
Message of the poem for parents
You have to let your children go for them to be independent and you can’t always protect them from suffering
Message for children
Growing up and being independent is hard and painful but must happen.
A seed cannot grow in the shadow of a tree.
