Comparing ‘How Do I Wish To Go?’ and
‘Let Me Die A Youngman’s Death’ by Roger McGough
-Aj Orena S4L (23)
‘How do I wish to go’ and ‘Let me die a Youngman’s death’ is showing an example of two poems of similar content being entirely different. This essay is going to compare and distinguish those similarities and differences between these two poems. First, I will talk about the similarities, then, I will move on to discuss the differences.
An easy first similarity is the contents of both poems. Both poems are discussing the ways of how people want to die. The similarity is already observable from the title itself. In ‘How do I wish to go?’ it is separated into 4 stanzas, in which each stanza is talking about different situations of people dying. However, ‘Let me die a Youngman’s Death’ produces 5 stanzas, in which he describes three situations of when, where and how he wants to die. In addition, it also mentions some ways of how he doesn’t want to die. Another similarity is that the poem is set in the 1st person voice. This is shown throughout the whole of both poems. (‘Flames gripping my skirt’, ‘I achieved my final goal’ from ‘How do I wish to go?’ and ‘when I’m 73’, ‘give me a short back’ from ‘Let me die a Youngman’s death’) Because the topic of death is very personal and up close, this signifies that these poems are very personal. It creates an effect so that the reader would believe the poem even more. If the poem had been written in 2nd or 3rd voice, the poem may have an atmosphere of misunderstanding and confusion. A lot of people will be left not knowing whether the author is talking of good or bad to the person. The 1st person makes it clearer and more believable. The third and final similarity of this essay is that there is no rhyme scheme in both poems. This creates the effect that the poems are not too organized. This builds up so that the reader will know that a lot of input and thought was put into the poem and the words weren’t forced to be there, but instead was chosen wisely by the author. However, it is also important to note that despite both poems being a bit disorganized, it is also found that ‘Let me die a Youngman’s death’ is more disorganized than ‘How do I wish to go’. This will be discussed in the next paragraph. The above three points were similarities between the two poems. There are many more similarities that can be noted of, however, we are now moving on to check out the differences between these two poems.
