Compare the way the relationships between members of different generations are presented in the 'Follower', 'Baby-Sitting' and 'On My First Sonne' and 'The Affliction of Margaret'.

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COMPARISON ESSAY NUMBER 5                6TH NOV 04

Compare the way the relationships between members of different generations are presented in the ‘Follower’, ‘Baby-Sitting’ and ‘On My First Sonne’ and ‘The Affliction of Margaret’.  Write about:

  • What the relationships between generations are like in the poems
  • The ways in which the relationships are similar and different
  • The methods the poets use to show what the relationships are like
  • Which of the poems you like best and why

Follower, Baby-Sitting, On My First Sonne and The Affliction of Margaret all show a parent/child relationship.  The relationship between these two generations is stressed by the poets in various ways including the ways that the younger member ‘stumbles’ and ‘falls’.

In ‘Follower’, By Seamus Heaney, Heaney writes about the way that a son follows his father who works on a horse plough.  The relationship between the young and the old in this poem is reasonably simple – the younger person (the son) is portrayed as weak and young (typical view of a child) and he often falls down.  The boy is compared to the father – the boy is said to be clumsy, whilst the father is masterful – these are contrasting images.  The boy also follows in his fathers ‘hob-nailed wake’ which means literally he is following in his fathers larger foot prints, and metaphorically means the boy wants to follow in his fathers footsteps.  The term ‘wake’ is comparing the plough to a ship and so does ‘sail’ as the wake is the water ploughed up by the ships motion – and this is similar to the furrowed earth ploughed by the plough.

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In ‘Baby Sitting’, Gillian Clarke writes about how she is baby sitting another child and how she recognises that this baby is not her own, and it feels strange because she does not love this child.  The anxiety because of this that she feels, is channelled into a sympathy for this child because it is too young to know what is going on.  Most of the statements in this poem are simple and straightforward, showing Clarke’s detachment from the baby she is looking after.  They are simple sentences that reflect her opinion: ‘I don’t love this baby’.  Clarke says ...

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