The cruel treatment towards the narrator by other children was another main problem conveyed in the poem. The structure of the poem, as a free verse, is reflective of the lack of restraints in the way the children acted. The narrator frequently associated the wildness of nature with the behaviour of the children, which is conveyed using the words ‘stone’, ‘cliffs’, ‘salt’ and ‘mud’. Twice the children were related to animals, with emphasises on their wild and uncivilised deeds. In the line ‘I fear more than tigers their muscles like iron’ the physical strength of the children is conveyed in a subtle way through the simile ‘ muscles like iron’, and that the narrator ‘feared (the children) more than tigers’, which implies the damage done to the narrator by the children could be more severe than a tiger’s attack. The physical and verbal contacts between the children and the narrator were often portrayed as rough and impolite, as informed in the phrase ‘their jerking hands and their knees tight on my arms’. The physical violence towards the narrator was fully explained in the children’s conduct: Their hands and knees pinching ‘tight’ against the narrator’s arms, which jerked as they squeezed the narrator’s arms with all their might. The line ‘I feared the salt coarse pointing of those boys’ also signifies that the words thrown by the children to the narrator was harsh, unforgiving and sharp, in a ‘salt coarse, pointy’ way. Repetitions were frequently used in the second verse of the poem, for instance the words ‘And’ as well as ‘feared’. The word ‘And’ intensifies the sequence of bullying by the children towards the narrator and serves to communicate the endless brutal deeds of the children. The repetition of the word ‘feared’ reinforced the strong emotion of the narrator, further conveying his level of fear.
When compared to ‘My Parents kept me away from Children who were Rough’, the poem ‘Piano’ bears a significant variance. The emotive language throughout the poem marks its soft tone, manipulates the readers, and makes them unaware of the underlying childhood problems.The soft tone can first be noticed from the title. The word ‘Piano’ is ambiguous, signifying that it could have a double meaning, either indicating the physical object, or alluding to the tone of the poem as gentle and soft. Further use of emotive vocabularies like ‘softly’, ‘vista’ ‘mother’ and ‘smiles’ echoes the tenderness of the tone. After portraying a warm scenario in the first stanza of the poem, D.H. Lawrence dwells on a problem, although not one faced in childhood. Here the soft tone is contradicted by the use of emotively negative language, specifically ‘insidious’ and ‘weeps’, the contradiction further advanced by the use of alliteration of harsh ‘B’ sounds in the phrase ‘Betrays me back’. The poem as a whole, with a first-person narrator, provides access to the subject’s secret thoughts, and succeeded in communicating to the reader about him feeling less masculine for giving in to his wistful impulses. In other words, the poem ‘Piano’ leaves childhood problems unexplored, by only dealing with manhood problems in detail.
Although the poem ‘Piano’ does not provide readers with specifics on childhood problems, I appreciate the poet’s use of figures of speech. The title ‘Piano’ sets the tone of the poem, which is echoed by the use of emotive words like ‘softly’, ‘hymns’ and ‘cosy’. The poem frequently features soft ‘s’ sounds: ‘smiles as she sings’. This could consolidate the soft impression created earlier as ‘s' sounds when pronounced are relatively quiet, which fit with the gentle tone the poet tried to create. The use of onomatopoeia ‘boom’ and ‘tinkling’ relives the image before the readers’ eyes and this is a very realistic approach to communicate. Moreover, personification is applied in the phrase ‘till the heart of me weeps to belong’ which could also help actualise a narrated image. Definite phrases are also used in order to communicate to the readers clearly. An example of this can be seen from the phrase ‘Betrays me back’ which illustrates the poet’s reluctance to go back to his childhood memory. Another example is the phrase ‘cast Down in the flood of remembrance’ which depicts coherently the endless flow of memory the poet was experiencing. The use of enjambment could also be seen from this phrase: the word ‘Down’ was deliberately put at the beginning of a sentence, so that it could stand out with a capital ‘D’. The feeling of ‘Down’, failure to control emotion, can therefore be easily recognized. All in all, the ease for me to comprehend the poem is the main reason why it is so appealing, which is the fruitful result of D.H. Lawrence’s craft.
The poem ‘Half-past Two’ is written from a child’s point of view, and serves to identify the problems that could occur when a child is faced with an authoritative adult. The impact of the teacher’s behaviour on the child is frequently emphasized, either by the use of italics or capitals. In the second line of the first stanza, the capital letters in the phrase ‘Very Wrong’ differentiate the teacher’s voice and the emphasis she bestows on these words, which effectively shows the solid impression the words had in the child’s memory. This is further supported by the ironic remark by the child ‘I forgot what it was’, meaning that the teacher’s accusation left him a more distinct recollection and that his wrong deed was trivialised. Although the poem is conveyed in a lovely, fantasy way, the poet U.A. Fanthorpe criticized the dismissive teacher by portraying her in an unfavorable light. The teacher is never addressed directly rather than by ‘She’ or ‘Her’. Further more, she is described like an animal when she ‘scuttles’ into the classroom. From this, it could be seen that the poem ‘Half-past Two’ does not directly state the specific childhood problem, but depicts the teacher in a negative way so that mild sympathy for the little child is provoked. By thinking in a different way, one could deduce that the child suffered from the neglect by his dismissive teacher, but the poem itself does not convey childhood problem in a very intelligible way. On the other hand
In conclusion, the poem ‘My Parents kept me away from Children who were Rough’ conveys childhood problems in a coherent manner, followed by the poem ‘Half-past Two’ which attempts to communicate to the readers about childhood obstacles though in an indirect way, while the poem ‘Piano’ conveys nothing about childhood problems. The three poems are well written in their own ways, but the magnitude of which they explore the theme ‘childhood problems’ is quite different. This could be due to the differences in culture at the time when the poems were written. ‘Piano’ was composed in 1918, when the world was dominated by men and little attention was paid to the benefits and rights of children. This perhaps explains why D.H. Lawrence focused more on the man and the problems he encountered while spent little time dwelling on childhood problems. The other two poems ‘Half-past Two’ and ‘My Parents kept me away from Children who were Rough’ are relatively modern, which endeavoured to pay tributes to children in a situation where they are getting more important.
