Amy doesn’t want her husband to speak of the loss of his child because she believes that her husband doesn’t have any respect for their child as he dug the grave for it.
“Can’t a man speak of his own child he’s lost?”
“Not you!”
I feel that the women has misunderstood the mans actions and that by burying his child is his way of steeping himself in his grief, of forcing it into his muscles of his arms and his back, of feeling the dirt on his clothes.
She wants to get out of the house and to get out of having this conversation with him. This sort of situation has happened before as the man says,
“Amy! Don’t go to someone else this time.”
This is another example of the absence of communication as Amy is used to going to someone else to discuss her problems rather than sharing them with her husband, the man she is supposed to love and trust.
The man begs for help but she continues to refuse as she moved the latch of the door.
“ My words are nearly always of an offence. I don’t know how to speak of anything so as to please you.”
He feels he can’t do anything right anymore and doesn’t know how to communicate with her. This also links with the fact that their relationship is breaking down, as they can’t discuss each other’s feelings.
Amy doesn’t want her husband to speak of the loss of his child because she believes that her husband doesn’t have any respect for their child as he dug the grave for it.
“God what a women! And its come to this, a man can’t speak of his own child that’s dead.”
“If you had any feelings, you that dug with your own hand-how could you-his little grave!”
I feel that the women has misunderstood the mans actions and that by burying his child is his way of steeping himself in his grief, of forcing it into his muscles of his arms and his back, of feeling the dirt on his clothes.
By the end of the poem the women is crying and the man is urging her to come inside because he now felt that she had let all her feelings out but still she refuses and opens the door. The man calls back after her,
“I’ll follow you and bring you back by force. I will!-“
This powerful language shows he is angry and is determined to get her back and sort their problems through.
The atmosphere throughout this poem is very tense.
In “Home Burial” I can find a range of different tones like anger, “You make me angry. I’ll come down to you.” Bitterness, “Blind creature.”Distress, “Don’t, Don’t, Don’t.” Grief, sorrow and sadness “If you had any feelings you that dug with your own hand-how could you?-His little grave.” Frustration, “Cant a man speak of his son hes lost? Agression, “Ill follow you and bring you back by force. I will!”
All of these emotions show how tense the couple are towards each other and the lack of comfort there is present.
Unlike “Home Burial”; a conversational poem with no rhyme scheme, “Long Distance” is a rhyming poem, written in four line verses using a rhyme scheme of ABAB.
“Long Distance” is a poem in a sequence, which Tony Harrison explores how he comes to terms with death in his family. Although these two poems deal with grief they both differ in their approach.
The first four lines of ”Long Distance” show us how he is dealing with his grief for his wife
“Dad kept her slippers warming by the fire, put hot water bottles her side of the bed…”
He clearly doesn’t want to accept that his wife is dead and is doing all the things he would have done if she were alive.
Most people would think that this man was crazy but his son doesn’t confront him but instead lets him get on with his life as he’s doing it. This lack of communication is shown in both of these poems, however in “Home Burial” that is shown in a bitter and aggressive way whereas in “Long Distance” it’s in more of a considerate way. So not to embarrass his dad he rings an hour before hand so he has time to clear away the evidence of how upset he still is.
“…to clear away her things and look alone as though his still raw love were such a crime,”
I think Harrisons’ choice of words here-“ Still raw love” portrays how much he loves his wife even after all the year she’s been dead, his love for her is the same as when she was alive.
I also noticed other uses of words in this poem which are very effective. He does this by using metaphors such as, “You haven’t both gone shopping” indicating they are both dead.
The old man kept on trying to convince himself she was going to come back but their were signs in the poem that displayed she wouldn’t.
“Though sure that very soon he’d hear her key scrape in the rusted lock and end his grief”.
Here he uses a good choice of words, as it is evident that the lock hasn’t been used for a long time since she had died, which is why it is rusty.
At the end of “Home Burial” the couple still haven’t resolved their problem of poor communication, on the other hand in “Long Distance” Harrison expresses sympathy for his father because he now understands his dads grief and what he went through. What Tony Harrison also does is change the rhyme scheme, to achieve this modification in the poem.
This lack of communication in the other two poems is also found in “My Grandmother” written by the granddaughter, Elizabeth Jennings and the relationship between her and her Grandmother.
“In My Grandmother” the old lady gave all her time and attention to her shop. We know this from the first line in the first stanza.
“She kept an antique shop-or it kept her.”
She is so engrossed in her shop that she doesn’t have time for relationships, which is the reason why her and the narrator Elizabeth Jennings were never close. This is also why her granddaughter didn’t want to go down with her because she didn’t feel close enough.
“Later too frail to keep a shop, she put all her best things in one long narrow room”
This indicates that her life is ending soon an that she is going to die with the things that have been her life over so many years as these antiques have stood in the way of any strong relationship with a person.
“The smell of absences where the shadows come that can’t be polished,”
The poet uses this metaphor to portray the absences like relationships, which would have filled her life. When the grandmother found a mark on her antiques she wipes them away as she does so with people by pushing them aside.
In contrast to the other two poems, she feels guilt rather than grief.
“And when she died I felt no grief at all, only the guilt of what I once refused”
The reason why she felt no grief because she was never a big part in her life so it was no great loss for her although she was left with guilt for not going down town with her and making the effort to bond.
Just as “Long Distance” has a rhyme scheme so does “My Grandmother” which follows an ABABCC rhyme scheme throughout four verses.
Cheryl Conway-11b
