Gwen Harwood Father And Child Analysis

Gwen Harwood’s poetry focuses on the concepts of loss and consolation, which, through her exploration of universal themes and deft use of poetic and literary techniques, has continued to engage readers over the ages. My understanding of her poems resonates with these ideas about them, as does it the notion that Harwood’s poetry examines ideas of the growth towards maturity, understanding and wisdom, and the connection this shares with the conventional images of youth and age. The poems “Father and Child” and “Mother Who Gave Me Life” are prime examples of these core ideas being conveyed explicitly through Harwood’s language, context and construction of poems.
The diptych poem “Father and Child” describes the event that changes the lives of a father and child forever, and in the latter half, reflects upon how this event shaped their views and attitudes towards the gruesome subject of death. The first part of the poem, “Barn Owl” tells the tale of the persona, a small child that we are led to believe is female through the use of language, who is transformed from ‘innocent’, to ‘a horny fiend’ and finally to ‘afraid’. This transformation is also illustrated by the use of progressive actions in each stanza; “I
This begins with her ‘folding a little towel’ at her time of death, which is symbolic of the way she has continuously served others. She then calls her mother “a fabric of marvels folded down to a little space”, which refers to the marvels she accomplished during her short life, but can also be interpreted as her metaphorically large heart being ‘folded down’ into her small body. Her face ‘crumples’ like ‘fine linen’ because of it’s fine lines but also its delicacy and in the ‘remembered hours’ she is represented by a beautifully embroidered linen, which both physically and emotionally representative of her mother’s