The themes in Before You Were Mine are about growing up and looking back with memories and thinking of all the positive things which happened. For example, “Cha cha cha! You’d teach me the steps…” This gives the impression that there was a strong bonding between the mother and child because there was a lot of parent love. This is similar to On My First Sonne because the parent child relationship is full of love. For instance it says, “Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy.” This shows that there is a lot of love and care from the parent towards his son. His son was his pride. I think that these two poems have a strong parent child relationship, because both of the parents show a lot of love and affection towards there children. This makes me as a reader feel emotional as it tugs at the heart strings especially in the poem On My Fist Sonne because the parent has lost his son who he loved dearly. On My First Sonne feels a lot of grief because of the death of his son for example it says, “O, could I loose all father, now.” This creates the impression that the father wants to know whether his duty of a father has ended.
The themes in Kid are that the characters are from a comic book. I know this because the child refers his father as “Batman.” This suggests that because the poem contains comics the boy must be young. The relationship between the parent and child involves love and hate because Kid does love his father in ways in example it states, “he was like a father to me.” However, he hates him too for all the things he has done which have caused him to suffer, for instance, “when you gave me the order to grow up then let me loose to wander.” This gives the impression that the child’s father was very pushy and bossy. That’s why when he grows older he realizes that his father isn’t the real boy wonder now, it’s him, “you baby, now I’m the real boy wonder now.” This shows that Kid has put an ending to him being treated like a baby and now wants his father to know how it feels. I think this poem is about revenge, because at the beginning of the poem it starts with the child full of anger and letting out all the bad and some good things about his father. But, it ends with Kid saying that his father is the baby now and his real boy wonder.
The Song Of The Old Mother is similar in ways to Kid as both relationships involves anger and annoyance. However, it differs from Kid as the child feels anger towards his father. Whereas in The Song Of The Old Mother the parent is annoyed and angry at her children.
The themes in The Song Of The Old Mother is a parent s lifestyle full of work all day. This shows the role of the parent and her duty to do all the housework “…I must scrub and bake and sweep.” This suggests that the mother works really hard. The mother feels annoyed with her children because whilst she does the housework her children’s worst worry is about which ribbon to have matching with their hats in their dreams. This gives the impression that the mother has got a totally different lifestyle compared to her children.
The themes in Before You Were Mine also involve parent child relationships however it differs to Kid, as there is love in the relationship in Before You Were Mine. This poem is about looking back with memories and growing up.
In On My First Sonne the themes are similar as both relationships are full of love. The themes in Kid are that the death of his son because he wants to know about life as he asks questions. The parent child relationship is full of love because the parent expresses his feeling through words which make you feel. For example, “Farwell, thou child of my right hand and joy,” this shows he loved his son dearly.
The rhythm of The Song Of The Old Mother, On My first Sonne and Kid have rhyming couplets, however in Before You Were Mine it doesn’t. The use of rhyming couplets in On My First Sonne is effective because it speeds the poem up. For instance, two of the words which are used are joy and boy. This is rather unusual because the parent is talking about the death of his son. Most of the rhyming couplets end in er in Kid half rhyming, order and wander. Compared to the rhythm of Kid to The Song Of The Old Mother is like a song and chant. I think this is because of the rhyming couplets and because each sentence has thirteen or fourteen syllables. The rhythm of Before You Were Mine isn’t similar to the other poems because it is more like thoughts and looking back thing about memories.
The ideas in Before You Were Mine are that the poem is about a girl looking at a picture of her mother. She is reflecting back with very positive thoughts and looking back on the past. On how her mother’s life was and how it was like growing up around her. This is similar to Kid as it is also about growing up. However, because Kid is more like comic, it contains the characters Batman and Robin. Batman is the father and Robin is the son who realizes that he doesn’t need Batman anymore, whereas On My Fist Sonne, the father is mourning the death of his son. He sees life as a gift. For example, “Seven yeeres tho’wert lent to me,” also the word “envie” has been used. This gives the impression that his son has escaped the pain and suffering of life. The father decides that his not going to become attached to anything he loves because it only gets taken away from him for instance, “As what he loves may never like too much.” The Song Of The Old Mother is different as the mother contrasts her hard working life to her care free days of her children. All the hard work she does for example, “ ...scrub and bake and sweep,” this suggests that she does all the work because her children are lazy.
The language used in Kid differs from the rest of the poems as it is comic book language because the characters Batman and Robin are involve. As in lines twelve and thirteen, it is obvious “Holy robin-redbreast-nest-egg-shocker.” Also in line one it uses alliteration “Batman, bigshot” at the start of the poem. Enjambment is also used which means when one line runs through onto the next. For example, line one runs to line two “when you gave the order to grow up.”
The language in the poem Before You Were Mine is written in the present tense. This is effective because it is immediate and recent, which makes it seem more real. Some immediate present tense which is used is words like her mothers “polka dot dress…” Line five tells me that the time period which it was set in was in the 1950’s. Line eight and nine tells me that she knew her mother really well. The relationship between the parent and child was strong as it states “Cha cha cha! You’d teach me the steps…” This shows that because there was love in the relationship. Also, this shows that they also got along well just like best friends, which makes the relationship even stronger. Before You were Mine is repeated in the poem which is effective as it is possessive.
The language of On My First Sonne is mostly questions asked by the father but never gets the answers to who is he asking the questions to, God? He envies the dead and is sad for instance “Will man lament the state he should envie?” This suggests that why should you envie the dead and be sad too when you’ve escaped the pain.
The Song Of The Old Mother has different language compared to the other poems. It has busy verbs for example, “I must scrub and bake and sweep.” The poet emphasis the fact that the mother does hard work by using the word and over again. It’s as if it’s never ending and continuous. Alliteration is used for example, “beginning to blink.”
In conclusion, all of the poems involve a serious relationship between the parent and child, whether it being love or hatred. Kid is about anger and hatred towards his father. I also think that it is about revenge because Kid grows up, learns about his past, and corrects it. This is similar to The Song Of The Old Mother because in both of the relationship anger is shown through the words used. The Song Of The Old Mother is about a hard working mother who does all the housework whilst her children just dream in their beds about which ribbon to have on their hats. This poem is sad because the mother works from morning till night doing all the work whilst her children dream. The parent child relationship isn’t strong this is because they don’t interact with one another, and the children don’t bother to help their mother.
On my first Sonne is about love and affection towards his son. In the end, the parent learns and says that he will never get too attached to anything he loves ever again. I think this is a sad poem because the parent loved his son so much he was his pride, his joy. His son meant everything to him and because of his son’s death; he’s never going to love anything like this again. This makes me think that you should make the most of what you’ve got in life and hold onto it because you don’t know what’s round the corner. This is similar to Before You Were Mine because in both parent child relationships feelings are shown. The feelings which are shown are love and care for one another. Before You Were Mine is about a girl who is looking at a photo, she is reflecting back all the positive memories of her mother. She idolises and loves her mother a lot. This poem is full of such joyful memories which make you think, you should always love your family no matter what.