Gren_Harwood_Essay

Trial HSC English Module B: critical study Gwen Harwood- (Poetry) Practice Essay Gwen Harwood’s poetry can be read in various views; psychoanalytical, romanticised, or feminist. Her poetry asks the universal questions that ponder in the unconscious mind. Three of Harwood’s poems in particular that are connected by self discovery, whether that it be the poet’s journey to self as shown in Alter Ego or a detached persona of self shown in both Prize Giving and Glass Jar. Alter Ego is read as a psychoanalytical poem that discusses the challenges to find ones ‘self’ through a seemingly real presence, yet ‘nameless’ to the poet. Techniques used throughout the poem are: rhetorical questions, slow rhythm that grows momentum and repetition of a questioning tone ‘who’. The visual stimulus provided a romantic interpretation of growing up and the cycle of life. This image reiterates Harwood’s expression of transformation from childhood to adulthood. The image positioned at the bottom of the stimulus provides connection with the poem Alter Ego. It is a picture of reflection, a girl close up and a full body shot in the distance pointing to what can be seen as her future. The presence of her other self (her alter ego) knows all that she is and what is to come. Before she can too know these things, she must experience the pleasant and the unpleasant, love and pain, truly live life to come to an understanding of ones self, a resolution of self discovery. The image allows for deep thought, allows the responder to become consumed by a possibility of discovery. Alter Ego is one of Gwen Harwood’s most personal poems of her search for meaning and existence, a poem that conveys those universal themes in depth. It alone, can then be connected to two other poems; Prize Giving and Glass Jar on a less personal reflection, a detached protagonist emphasises different stages of growth and discovery. Glass Jar can be read from a Freud perspective, it is a piece about a little boy’s struggle to hold the day’s light in his jar through the shadows of the night. The light symbolises ‘hope’, his difficulty to keep that hope acts a depressive tone to the poem. The boy fights between good and evil on his journey of self-realisation. His love for his mother is in turn the catalyst for the jealousy and hatred he holds for his father. Harwood uses a descriptive metaphor to describe the boy’s emotional devastation when he finds his mother and father in union in their bedroom. He describes the act his father comits on his beloved nurturer as ‘violent’. The image of a child being pulled away into a bag by beastly creatures symbolises ‘loss of innocence’ that the boy has endured. The stimulus also provides an obvious image of a glass jar, yet a picture of a cross inside the jar allows for a religious interpretation and reading of the poem. The boy’s mission to hold the light could be read as, him trying to bring God into his life and hold God’s presence with him always, metaphorically holding his hope and spiritual presence in a closed jar. Prize Giving is another one of Gwen Harwood’s Poems that recounts the growth through the cycle of life, using a detached persona to illustrate the journey and lessons learned along the way. A feminist reading of Prize Giving places emphasis on the girl with ‘titian coloured hair’. Her intense red locks symbolise the power of lust she holds over the maturing, conservative professor. Her youthful virtue and vibrancy lure the professor‘s attention and almost transforms his priorities in life. The titian haired girl shows passion in her musical talents and powerful presence in the room, he wishes to carry such charisma and meaning. Harwood uses binary opposites to paint her opinion on what is the ‘right’ way to go though life. She admires the young red-headed girl and looks down upon the professor’s life-long obsession with his work which journeyed him down the road of meaningless presence that left the man with little or no spark of life and the joys it can bring to those willing to live. The stimulus image that captures this feminist reading is that of the couple situated closely to the ‘ideal’ section of the page. The picture shows he woman dominating the area of the bed and her husband. She holds power over him, him helpless to her embrace. Harwood has given women power over men in her poem, reiterating the constant changing attitudes of women within society, a growing empowerment is evident here in the image and poem Prize Giving. Gwen Harwood uses her poems to say something substantial about the growth through youth to maturity. Life an one’s struggle to self discovery, using the universal questions and questioning tone in her pieces, Alter Ego, Glass Jar and Prize Giving links youthful innocence & adolescence with maturity and growth.