Bukowski poem - a smile to remember
Analysis
A smile to remember
Charles Bukowski
The poem is really a short story about an ordinary family with tragic problems. The child of the mother and the father, who are mentioned in the poem, is the narrator. The likely scenario is that the child in the poem represents Charles Bukowski’s childhood.
In the first lines of the story, it is mentioned that the family has goldfish. We hear about a boy, whose mother keeps telling him to be happy, even though she has a miserable life because of his insane and abusive father, who beats her frequently. One day the goldfish dies and his father, being the insensible man he is, throws the goldfish to the cat, but remarkably, Henry’s mother just smiles.
The first impression you get when you see the title of the poem is that this must be a ‘feel-good’- or ‘love’-poem. In the first line, the word ‘goldfish’ is mentioned. An innocent image most readers can relate to. The same goes for the line “my mother, always smiling, wanting us all to be happy”. Again, to the reader this is a good thing. Unfortunately, that is not the case. Most people agree that going through life happy, is something we all try to achieve. The fifth line reads “and she was right: it’s better to be happy if you”. Then the poet does something remarkable. The line stops after “you”, while the next line, only includes one word; “can”.
Bukowski made this word a line by itself to make the reader understand the undertone of desolation in the family, because they surely cannot live the happy, picture-perfect life. By writing it this way, Bukowski leave it to the reader to decide if the mother and the child are happy. But clearly the Mother acknowledges that the child is in fact never happy, since he “never smiles” as she remarks later.
Line 10-11, “raging inside his 6-foot-two frame because he couldn’t understand what was attacking him from within”. We know from earlier, that Bukowski’s childhood was terribly violent and his father was abusive
A smile to remember
Charles Bukowski
The poem is really a short story about an ordinary family with tragic problems. The child of the mother and the father, who are mentioned in the poem, is the narrator. The likely scenario is that the child in the poem represents Charles Bukowski’s childhood.
In the first lines of the story, it is mentioned that the family has goldfish. We hear about a boy, whose mother keeps telling him to be happy, even though she has a miserable life because of his insane and abusive father, who beats her frequently. One day the goldfish dies and his father, being the insensible man he is, throws the goldfish to the cat, but remarkably, Henry’s mother just smiles.
The first impression you get when you see the title of the poem is that this must be a ‘feel-good’- or ‘love’-poem. In the first line, the word ‘goldfish’ is mentioned. An innocent image most readers can relate to. The same goes for the line “my mother, always smiling, wanting us all to be happy”. Again, to the reader this is a good thing. Unfortunately, that is not the case. Most people agree that going through life happy, is something we all try to achieve. The fifth line reads “and she was right: it’s better to be happy if you”. Then the poet does something remarkable. The line stops after “you”, while the next line, only includes one word; “can”.
Bukowski made this word a line by itself to make the reader understand the undertone of desolation in the family, because they surely cannot live the happy, picture-perfect life. By writing it this way, Bukowski leave it to the reader to decide if the mother and the child are happy. But clearly the Mother acknowledges that the child is in fact never happy, since he “never smiles” as she remarks later.
Line 10-11, “raging inside his 6-foot-two frame because he couldn’t understand what was attacking him from within”. We know from earlier, that Bukowski’s childhood was terribly violent and his father was abusive