Compare the ways in which the three poets present parent child relationships

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Compare the ways in which the three poets present parent child relationships.

I will be comparing the three poems, Catrin, A Parental Ode to My Son, Aged Three Years and Five Months and Nettles. The parent-child relationships in these three poems are presented very differently, and despite being written on the same topics the poems are very different and show three alternative perspectives on the subject.

        All three of the poems are written by parents who are talking about their children and the bonds they feel with those children.

For example in Catrin it is a Mother writing the poem, in the majority of the poem she is talking about the birth of her daughter. The poet has shown the relationship with her daughter as being about responsibility:

        “In the glass tank clouded with feelings

          Which changed us both”

In these two lines the Mother is talking about after the birth, the change in her is the feelings of total responsibility she has towards her child, if anything happens to her daughter it is solely up to her to aid.

        At the end of the poem, the poet is snatched back from her memories to real time where her daughter is asking:

        “As you ask may you skate

          In the dark, for one more hour”

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Her daughter is asking for more independence, she is tugging away from her Mother’s care, wanting freedom, if only to be allowed outside for another hour. The Poet feels as if her daughter is pulling on the “Red rope of love” which in the poem is referring to the umbilical chord, which although cut now, she still feels that it connects her to her daughter, no matter what happens. When the young girl is asking for freedom she is pulling on the rope and causes her Mother to worry for her safety.

        The parent-child relationship in this poem is ...

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