Comparing and Contrasting ‘Miniver Cheevy’ to ‘The Average’
We can compare and contrast the two poems ‘Miniver Cheevy’ and ‘The Average’ several ways. Although the poems have their differences we can also find many similarities in them.
In both poems each boy is affected greatly by his parents, however, they are affected in extremely different ways. They are treated entirely differently causing them to be affected, or brought up incredibly differently. ‘The Average’ states, “His peasant parents killed themselves with toil to let their darling leave a stingy soil…” From this we see how dearly his parents loved him. They worked so hard while he was a child just so that their he would be able to get a profession that didn’t require physical labor and at the same time brought him a lot of money, “shallow breathing and grow rich.” In ‘Miniver Cheevy’ however, its says “...child of scorn….wept that he was ever born, and he had reasons.” This clearly tells us that he was not raised like the child from ‘The Average’. It is telling us that he was a child of rebuke, and he must not have had a good childhood because he had many reasons that he wished he were never even born.
