The parent child relationship can have highs and lows. Compare how this is shown in 'Digging', 'The Afflictions of M.' 'One my first Sonne' & your choice of Clarke poem.

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The parent child relationship can have highs and lows.  Compare how this is shown in “Digging”, “The Afflictions of Margaret” “On my first Sonne” & your choice of Clarke poem.

“Digging” by Seamus Heaney, shows how the author looked up to his father and grandfather.

He sees his father, who is now old, “straining” to dig “flowerbeds”, the poet recalls him in his prime, digging “potato drills”.  Even earlier, he remembers his grandfather, digging peat.  He cannot match “men like them” with a spade, but he sees that the pen is, “snug as a gun”, more comfortable for him and with it he will dig into his past and celebrate them.

This poem is about two memories, Heaney’s father digging the potato drills and his grandfather digging turf, “more than any other man on Toner’s bog”.  The poet has admiration and respect for his father and grandfather.  However, he also feels disappointed with himself and unworthy as he can not continue their occupation as a digger.

He use onomatopoeia in words such as “gravelly”, “sloppily”, “squelch” and “slap” and auditory description so the readers can create an image more easily.

Also, Heaney uses an extended metaphor of digging and roots, which shows how in his writing, he is getting back to his own roots, his identity, and where his family comes from.  The poem begins almost as it ends, like a circle, but only at the end is the writer's pen seen as a weapon for digging as he ends the poem, “I’ll dig with it”.

Overall, the general impression from this poem is that Heaney and his relationship between his father and grandfather was very strong as a skill was passes on from grandfather to father which links the past.  He still feels happy yet a small feel of unwortheness that he can not continue their digging but he can “dig” into their past and roots.  Heaney has his own, unique way of digginf.

        In comparison, “On my first Sonne” by Ben Jonson records and laments the death of the poet's first son.  Jonson contrasts his feelings of sorrow with what he thinks he ought to feel, happiness that his son is in a better place.

 The poem is about how the death of a child has great power to move people.  It would have been a far more common event in 17th century England, where childhood illnesses were often fatal.  

Similarly to Heaney in “Digging” Jonson speaks for and as himself.

Alsom Jonson writes as if he is talking to his son, and as if he assumes that the boy can hear or read his words.  He calls him the child of his “right hand”, which suggests that the boy is of great worth and also the fact that he would have been the writer's heir.  This final image comes from the Bible as it reflects ancient cultures and the way Jesus is shown as sitting at God's right hand.  There is slight reference to biblical vocabulary as he write “right hand” and “sinne”.

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The poet sees the boy's death as caused by his sin, as in the father's, not the boy's.  This is because he believes that he loved the child too much,  This is an idea that returns at the end of the poem.  This type of cycle idea is very similar to that in “Digging”.  He sees the boy's life also in terms of a loan, which he has had to repay, after seven years, on the day set for this, “the just day”.  This extended metaphor expresses the idea that all people really belong to God and that they are ...

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