Barn Owl
Barn owlBarn Owl ESSAY
Gwen Harwood’s, ‘Father and child’, is a two-part poem that tempers a child’s naivety to her matured, grown up attitude. Barn Owl presents a threshold in which the responder is able to witness the initiation of Gwen’s transition. The transformation is achieved through her didactical quest for wisdom, lead by her childhood naivety and is complimented through ‘nightfall’, where we see her fully maturate state. The importance of familial relationship and parental guidance is explored in father and child, as well as the contrasting views on mortality and death. Barn Owl depicts death as a shocking and violent occurrence while the second poem, nightfall, displays that death can be accepted, describing the cyclical and ephemeral nature of life.
Relationships, especially with Gwen’s parents, act as a catalyst for her maturation and leave behind sustaining memories as shown in many of her poems. In Barn Owl, Gwen initially represents her father as being “robbed of power” and an “Old No-Sayer”. The neologism, “No-Sayer”, incites a thought within the readers mind, rendering an image of a child through the simplistic syntax, representing a childlike view of the world. The combination of the two quotes separates the child and father, showing that the child disregards her father’s authority, ultimately expressing her view of their connection. However, in progression with the poem, we realise that the father plays a major role in the guidance of Gwen’s childhood. This idea is represented when considering Gwen’s fathers presence after she had injured the owl. “my father reached my side, gave me the fallen gun”. The positional verb “side” emphasizes the truthful relationship between father and daughter, as he is providing solace and support for Gwen, in this time of realisation, death and accountability, in contrast to the image set by “old No-Sayer”. The significance of Gwen’s parents to her maturation is again reinforced when considering the dialogue,
Gwen Harwood’s, ‘Father and child’, is a two-part poem that tempers a child’s naivety to her matured, grown up attitude. Barn Owl presents a threshold in which the responder is able to witness the initiation of Gwen’s transition. The transformation is achieved through her didactical quest for wisdom, lead by her childhood naivety and is complimented through ‘nightfall’, where we see her fully maturate state. The importance of familial relationship and parental guidance is explored in father and child, as well as the contrasting views on mortality and death. Barn Owl depicts death as a shocking and violent occurrence while the second poem, nightfall, displays that death can be accepted, describing the cyclical and ephemeral nature of life.
Relationships, especially with Gwen’s parents, act as a catalyst for her maturation and leave behind sustaining memories as shown in many of her poems. In Barn Owl, Gwen initially represents her father as being “robbed of power” and an “Old No-Sayer”. The neologism, “No-Sayer”, incites a thought within the readers mind, rendering an image of a child through the simplistic syntax, representing a childlike view of the world. The combination of the two quotes separates the child and father, showing that the child disregards her father’s authority, ultimately expressing her view of their connection. However, in progression with the poem, we realise that the father plays a major role in the guidance of Gwen’s childhood. This idea is represented when considering Gwen’s fathers presence after she had injured the owl. “my father reached my side, gave me the fallen gun”. The positional verb “side” emphasizes the truthful relationship between father and daughter, as he is providing solace and support for Gwen, in this time of realisation, death and accountability, in contrast to the image set by “old No-Sayer”. The significance of Gwen’s parents to her maturation is again reinforced when considering the dialogue,