The princess is saying she is not sure if she wants to be rescued. She had grown to like the dragon and even found him sexy. She says “He was so nicely physical, with his claws and lovely green skin, and that sexy tail” she is going against her role in the painting she is meant to be afraid of the dragon, even hate as he is going to eat her. Then the knight comes along her first impression was “what was underneath the hardware?” she is saying about how you could see everything about the dragon but not the knight he was covered in armour. The knight could have acne, blackheads or even bad breath. She says but the dragon got beat by the knight and she got to think of her future. This means she fancied the dragon but now he is dead so she may as well have the knight as she might as well get something out of it. She has to choose the second best.
The knight starts by saying how good he is “I have a diplomas in dragon” then he starts about how good his items are special like his custom-built spear and prototype armour still on the secret list. Even this horse is special it’s the latest model with automatic transmission and built- in obsolescence he treats his horse like a car.
At the end he asks four rhetorical questions to emphasise his control they are “So why be so difficult?” “Don’t you want to be killed and/or rescued in the most contemporary way?” “That sociology and myth have designed for you?” “You are endangering job-prospects in the spear and horse building industries?” Unlike the dragon and the princess he is staying with his role and telling the other two to do as well. His tone is im the best and the princess should just love him at once and the dragon will die a painful death with him still looking cool and calm.
“Warning” is about a woman thinking what it’s going to be like to be old. Her poem is like not my best side because they were going against their role and she is going to go against society. When she is an old woman “she will wear purple with red which doesn’t go” she is eccentric and purple is an outrageous colour. She shall buy “brandy and summer gloves and satin sandals” instead of essential items like butter. She has turned into a child in her old age e.g. “I shall press alarm bells and learn how to spit” these are all things young children do. When you are young and old you can get away with things like that. She says you can wear terrible shirts and grow fat, eat three pounds of sausages at a go. It’s all because she has lost the responsibility of being an adult. The poem it is saying “you” because it is directed towards the reader it’s saying it will happen to you. Old age can be liberating unlike being an adult.
She talks about what she has to do now, wear clothes that keep her dry, pay the rent and set a good example for children. She has a responsibility. The poem is about age and how it affects your responsibility in life. In the last verse she is sarcastic about how she is going to practise now so people will not be too shocked when she is old and wear purple. The poem has that title “Warning” because the poem is all about growing old and how bad it is, and everyone is going to be old and the poet is warning people that this is going to happen, so you better get used to it. It’s also about what society expects her.
The form of the two poems is they have no rhyme scene and no metre. This is because the two poems are going against society so they are emphasising this. The question you should ask is do I want what society expects? Most of the time the answer will be yes but these poems have gone against that. Not my best side and warning are in 1st person talking about him or her. Also warning has varying line length, irregular, unstructured and varying line length. It has all these thing because again it is going against society. Not my best side and Warning both are about stereotypes and facing reality of life that everyone will grow old, or the reality of facing life alone. They all try and help prevent this from happening.
