Analysis Of An Absolutely Ordinary Rainbow By Gwen Harwood

Poetry can provide the reader with an insight into human behavior and relationships, utilizing various poetic techniques to achieve this. Two poems, An Absolutely Ordinary Rainbow by Les Murray and In the Park by Gwen Harwood, are examples of poems that make use of techniques to give an observation on human behavior and relationships. The two poems differ from each other in subject matter and the way they comment on human behavior. An Absolutely Ordinary Rainbow deals with expression of emotion whereas In The Park provides insight into society’s view of stereotypes, in this case, mother’s. However, both poems do comment on changes of circumstance and the way humans in society hide their true feelings. Both of the poems use strong subject matters
The poem is set in Sydney on busy day that has been disturbed by the weeping of a single man. Repetition is used to enhance the fact that, “No one can stop him,”, as the Narrator describes. It becomes apparent that the reason his crying is not stopped is simply because of the way he cries, not with shame or pity, but with a mature dignity that stops any one from stopping him. The next few stanzas of the poem describe the awe, and even reverence that the observers feel towards this man’s weeping. The narrator describes how the crowd feels, “their minds/longing for tears as children for a rainbow,” describing how their fears of expressing emotion are now realized. This poem provides the insight into emotional expression by describing the feelings that the people feel when they are struck with realization of the loss of emotion in modern
An Absolutely Ordinary Rainbow concentrated on the hidden feelings of people wanting to express them, whereas In The Park is about the hidden feelings of people that are not to be expressed. The poem begins with a stereotypical image of a mother whose life has been taken over by her children. When a former lover passes by, the two begin to converse, however it is evident that the man is uninterested in his former lover as she now has children, made apparent when the narrator comments that the man was thinking, “but for the grace of God,” in reference to the children. In the third stanza, the narrator makes it clear that the man is uninterested and wants nothing to do with his past lover, using words such as, “flickering light,” and “rehearsing” to depict just how flat and lost the conversation is. The man hides his lack of interest with casual conversation. The mother makes statements such as, “It’s so sweet to hear their chatter,” however, when the man leaves, the mother makes the statement that, “They have eaten me alive,” referring to her children and the way they have taken her life, another example of humans hiding their true