Five Bell Poetry Analysis

“Australian poetry gives us insight into the human condition.” Discuss this statement with reference to at least 3 poems.

Human condition encompasses the unique and inevitable features of being human. It includes all aspects of human behaviour, irreducible part of humanity that is inherent and not dependent on factors such as gender, race or class. Human condition also includes concerns such as the meaning of life and anxiety regarding the inescapability of death. The techniques used in the poems ‘Five Bells’ and ‘William Street’ by Kenneth Slessor and ‘From Little Things Big Things Grow’ by Paul Kelly give us insight into the human condition.
The poem ‘Five Bells’ is about the death of Joe Lynch, the poet’s colleague who drowned in the
He mentioned alcohol in both poems, ‘And slops of beer, your coat with buttons off’ in ‘Five Bells’ and ‘the liquor green’ in ‘William Street’. This emphasis on alcohol is part of Australian culture and Australian living condition. ‘William Street’ is written during the Great Depression. There were economic difficulties, unemployment, poverty and homelessness, which are reflected on ‘William Street’. Death is also mentioned in both poems, Joe Lynch in ‘Five Bells’ who fell off the boat and died, and bad economic situation, which brought to alcoholism and causes death in ‘William Street’. The imagery quotation of the neon lights, ‘The red globes of light, the liquor green’ has double meanings in it. ‘The red globes’ symbolizes prostitution and ‘the liquor green’ symbolizes alcoholism. Personification is used in ‘The pulsing arrows and the running fire’ to emphasize that this place is actually living and active. Alcoholism and prostitution does not mean that William Street is ‘ugly’. Each stanza in the poem ends with the repetition of ‘You find this ugly, I find it lovely’, which has two contrast rhyming adjectives. He leaves up to the reader to make the judgment about the living condition in Kings Cross. Slessor uses human’s five senses in his imagery of this poem, such as the sense of smell in the third stanza, ‘Smells rich & gasping, smoke & fat & fish…’ The use of colloquial language in the fourth stanza, ‘The dips & molls’, which means alcoholics and prostitutes in Australian jargon, which is also telling the audience about Australian lifestyle. ‘William Street’ is about people’s different perspective of the urban Australian lifestyle and leads us to a better understanding of the human condition, through an apparent interpretation of the nature and attitudes towards everyday