Les Murrays Widower in the country

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Les Murray’s “Widower in the country”

Les Murray’s poem “Widower in the country” is a portrait of a man whose wife has died. The poem is the daily routine of a countryman who is depicted as still grieving for the loss of his wife, his sense of liveliness disappeared and the absence of feeling. The man’s schedule is very ordered and quite tedious, no excitement in the menial tasks, he is almost robot-like as he trudges around the property labouring.

The poem, written in iambic pentameter starts with a moving image of the man’s bed that presumably was occupied by a wife before she passed away, this impression of the unmade bed makes the reader think about what was in the marriage. Through the first stanza, not only is the man fixated on him by using first person narrator, in addition he is putting things off until later, “I’ll get up soon…I’ll go outside”.  This notion of putting off tasks reveals that the countryman is depressed, he never feels like doing the job at that time. As the narrator reveals, there once could have been a family, the “Christmas paddocks” indicates that there would have once been a joyful time during Christmas with a family.

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As the widower is gazing over the paddocks, delaying his duties, we notice that he has no direction in his life, there is an absence of force or being involved, this has been portrayed through “the windless trees”. Then there is evidence of the slackness of the man, through “the nettles in the yard…” it shows us that he has jobs to do and the property is unkempt, the ellipsis exposes that there are probably more jobs that the widower has neglected to finish.

In the second stanza, the narrator once again uses first person singular that emphasizes ...

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Although there are some apt points made in this essay it is a very superficial response that needs to be further developed into a more substantial analytical essay. 3 Stars