"Compare at least four of the poems you have studied where parent child feelings are shown. Write about On My First Sonne, one poem by Carol Ann Duffy, one by Simon Armitage and one poem from the Pre-1914 bank."

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“Compare at least four of the poems you have studied where parent child feelings are shown. Write about On My First Sonne, one poem by Carol Ann Duffy, one by Simon Armitage and one poem from the Pre-1914 bank.”

        All of the poems are about emotions and parent child relationships. In Before You Were Mine, the girl idolises and loves her mother. Whereas the man in Kid feels angry towards his father, and resents him too. In the poem On My First Sonne, the father loves his son a lot and feels grief for his dead son. Which is different from The Song Of The Old Mother as in this the mother is angry and annoyed at her children. I shall look for similarities and differences in the parent child relationships that are in all four of the poems.

        The use of structure in Kid shows the past and present in a chronological way, it’s like a monologue. I know this because the lines one to five are about past events from when he was a child, “when you gave me the order to grow up.” The middle lines show the present “you baby, now I’m the real boy wonder.” This is effective because this shows the father son relationship between them from the past, when Kid had suffered to the present where he has learnt from the mistakes in his life.

        This structure is similar to Before You Were Mine as it is also structured in a chronological way. The mother’s life has been explored this way in each verse. Firstly, the mother’s childhood has been mentioned, “Your polka-dot dress blows round your legs.”  Then in the second verse, the mother is an older dating teenager who falls in love “in the ballroom…I knew you would dance like that.” Finally, the last verse describes her as a mother “…You’d teach me the steps on the way home from Mass.” Each verse is like snap shots which are clearly shown wherever the mother was in her life she is in each verse.

        The structure of The Song Of The Old Mother is also done in a chronological way however, it is one long verse which describes her day start to finish. For instance, “…the fire flicker and glow” this shows the start of her day. Then the middle shows she works hard “…I must scrub and bake and sweep.” Finally, the end of her day “…fire gets feeble and cold.” This is effective because it shows that she is a hard working mother.

        This is also similar to On My First Sonne as it is also one long verse. Lines one to four show the meaning to loss of his son “Farwell, thou child of my right hand, and joy.” Then the middle lines show the father asking questions full of grief “For why will man lament the state he should envie?” Finally, he accepts his loss “…all his vows be such.”

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        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 ...

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