Compare and contrast Tony Harrisons poems Bookends and Long Distance 2

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Zoe Nunn

Compare and contrast Tony Harrison’s poem’s “Bookends” and “Long Distance 2”

  In both Tony Harrison’s poem’s “Bookends” and “Long Distance 2” the main idea of the poems follow the relationship between the three people in his family: him, his father and his dead mother. The poems concern the loss of his mother, and how both he and his father grieve over her, and how they try to accept and deal with her death in very different ways. Harrison also conveys the strained relationship he has with his father, which was held together by his mother before she died.

   This comes across very strongly in “Bookends” where he uses the title as imagery in the form a simile to depict the differences between his father and himself. They are “like book ends”, they “sit, sleep, stare”, facing away from each other, and never seeing eye to eye. When Harrison refers to the “books” which separate them, the books represent Harrison’s education, which his father always resented. This was due to his belief that his son the “scholar” would be led into the illusion that he was in a higher class or rank than his father who was “worn out on poor pay”. His father believed you were born into a certain class, and that you should seek a profession and education within that class.

   Another image portrayed in “Bookends” is that of his mother and the “apple pie” which they are “chewing”. It is as though they are “chewing” over the death of Harrison’s mother, ruminating rather than enjoying it, because it was the “last apple pie” she ever cooked. It is not pleasurable because the pie represents the mother, so it is as though they are eating the memory of her. Also the word “chewing” has a very dull and labouring feel to it, which reflects the scene of Harrison and his father, left reminiscing over the last gift given to them by his mother. The only reason they can share it is because she was the one who baked it - they could not share or create anything together.

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The idea of an apple pie is that of a warming, homely, thing that brings people together. It is something that can be shared, which gives the sense of a family or a community. The mother was what kept them together. She was vital, and without her there’s nobody there to tell them they’re “alike”. So now they “don’t try” to “talk much”, because all they have in common is the sense of loss, and now she’s not there anymore there is no reason to try and get along.

   This sense of grievance continues in “Long Distance 2”. But ...

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