Both “on a portrait of a deaf man” and “Brendon Gallacher”, are about a narrator who grieves the loss of the person they love. In “on a portrait of a deaf man”, the narrator mourns the loss of his father conveying his bitterness towards god for the mistreatment of his father. In Brendon Gallacher, the narrator loses her best friend who she feels possessive towards.
Both poets use language to help the reader visualise their characters feelings and personality. In on a portrait of a deaf man, images of decay as well as words associated with death is used to help the audience visualise the physical reality of his father’s death. “His mouth is wide to let the London clay come in” conveys his anger towards the mistreatment his father had received by God as well as shocking the audience to highlight this reality. Phrases such as “maggots in his eyes” can be seen as shocking and vivid and this further emphasis the image the narrator sees in connection with how his father who “smiled and looked so wise” has now turned out. In Brendon Gallacher, childish language and description is used to help the audience visualise the narrator’s childhood. “He had six brothers and I had one” can be conveyed as quite childish and this might have been used to emphasise that the narrator is talking about her past when she was younger.
In on a portrait if a deaf man, the first seven stanzas are written in first person and are about his father in whom he contrasts between both pleasant and horrible images and memories. ”he smiled and looked so wise that now I do not like to think of maggots in his eyes” links together the two themes of this poem which contrasts against each other- life and death and this structure of the poem may convey that he is so affected by death that every pleasant though has be tainted with the outcome of his father. In the last stanza, this pattern changes” you, god who treat him thus and thus”. The stanza became a direct speech towards god in which he accuses as well as questions his faith and this effectively helps us to understand the narrator’s viewpoint and well as his thoughts on father- the structure may symbolise that he so far is not over his father’s death. The poem is also written as an elegy- a mournful funeral poem about the dead and has a repetitive rhyming scheme which runs throughout the poem making the narrators thoughts seem more ordered. The rhyming being so regular may convey to the audience that he is trying to keep his emotions under control. Similarly in Brendon Gallacher, the events are described in order but this technique is used to create and share the fantasy the narrator has in believing he is real also. The poem also has a regular rhyme scheme which coupled with the usage of his name in a song like refrain makes the poem seem more child-like. At the start, “he would hold (her) hand and take (her) by the river” and these description of orderly event makes us feel the way the narrator saw and feel the way she felt until the end in which “he died then”.
