Father and Child
Gwen Harwood’s “Father and Child” is a two part poem describing the self changes experienced through time within a father and his child.
In the first part of the poem, we witness a change in self a child as she experiences her first step towards adulthood. In “Barn Owl”, a child at a rebellious age, experiments with the constraints of authority in an attempt to seek control for herself, as she sneaks out to kill a barn owl with her father’…showed first 85 words of 428 total…
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…showed last 85 words of 428 total…helps keep the reader aware of the passing of time and the constant presence of change. Harwood’s clever technique of juxtaposing these two sections of the poem allow the reader to easily recognise the change in the lives of the father and the child and within themselves.
As the child has “grown to learn what sorrows” exist in the knowlege of aprroaching death, this complex poem has helped the reader to understand how change occurs with time, for time and change are inseparably intertwined.
