Defining The Human Value Of Freedom English Literature Essay

Freedom can be defined as the human value, or situation, to act according to ones will without being held up by the power of others. However, in these three poems, we find that the freedom of the three characters, as defined, is certainly constrained unexpectedly, yet in each situation, the characters finds a compromise to mitigate the problem. And that is why these three poems appealed to me. Each sent a message about how we are treated at each stage in life, which I personally, had never thought of. Though contrasting in format, they each signify the level of freedom we are allowed as we develop, and in doing so, highlights the path that is ahead of us and what our expectations should be. At first glance, they tell me that life is full of difficulties, however, I am relieved by the hope that each contains a sense of compromise, which makes life acceptable. In Half-Past Two, the child, although being punished with his freedom curtailed, still manages to escape into a world of daydreams. The young adult in For Me From You, having her freedom of choice restricted, has to make an undesirable choice, but can always make another one which would suit her. Finally, the elderly woman in Crabbit Old Woman wants everybody to appreciate how she can still think coherently, even though her weakening body leads those around her to treat her as a very sick woman, rather than just an old one. With her physical freedom subsequently constrained, she uses her memory of the very full life she led before this as her escape.

In Half-past Two, Fanthorpe uses the sense of time to examine the reaction of a young child to a punishment he doesn’t understand. Fanthorpe, a popular English poet, who won awards, was admired by critics and public alike. In telling the story of the boy who was deprived of his freedom by being left in detention by mistake, she uses her trademark whimsical style to look at an everyday situation. The boy has no concept of time or clocks as such, and his reaction to the situation is initially one of confusion. Fanthorpe emphasizes this inability of the child to make a decision for himself, which symbolizes the restrictions of childhood where our life is structured by others. The author uses various images to set the scene.

The boy in the poem Half Past Two thinks that he understands time, because his parents have taught him a way of coping with its abstraction. Examples of this are “Getting uptime, timetogohometime, TVtime, timeformykisstime…”. However, now he is left with just a clock as a measurement of time, which he is unable to read. Fanthorpe describes the problem by personifying the clock, as a living thing, creating the image of a walking talking clock with a “clockface” and “little eyes”. Instead of a time telling device, it becomes its own living being that ticks and moves. The boy can’t understand it because its language is different, as “he couldn’t click its language”. This contains a pun on the word “click” as it is often used in English to describe understanding something. Hence until the teacher returns with her exclamation, “run along or you’ll be late”, he is held captive by his lack of knowledge as to when his detention is over. However, as he waited “beyond onceupona”, he knew that “he’d escaped for ever” into his daydreams. Fanthorpe uses anaphora at the climax of the poem to highlight this release from time and also to influence the reader where he says “Into the…”, which symbolizes the child being relieved from the constraints of time and escaping reality.

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The poem uses very well one of many situations we find ourselves in as school children, and Fanthorpe captures the sense of frustration and ultimate surrender beautifully. This poem demonstrates the beginning of our young lives, where we often feel free, especially in our wondering uncluttered minds, but in essence, we are very constrained by the structure adults impose on it.

Rita Anyiam St John is one of Nigeria’s most popular poets, both at home and in Europe, who is renowned for commentaries on everyday life in her home country. The poem For Me From You brings us to adulthood and where we become embroiled in building relationships with the opposite sex. As we enter this phase, we feel the excitement of having a choice of our partner from a large group of possible candidates, however, as we get involved, we discover that there are constraints, based on circumstances and personality. Rita Anyiam St. John shows us one of these by expressing a lack of love in a subtle fashion. In this poem, a man strives for the author’s affection by various means such as showering her with gifts and promises, however, she realizes that his love is only about materialism, and not real, emotional love. The author makes extensive use of metaphors to show the lack of confidence in the suitor and the consequences she will face if she marries him, emphasized by the quote “in this dark room…without the shine of the moon…”, which refers to the lack of hope. The phrase “dark room” also gives an empty, depressing effect. The author uses the technique of listing and repetition in the phrases “a nice big kitchen for me from you”, “a little car for me from you”, “a trunk box of wrappers for me from you”, “a fat allowance for me from you”. This gives the effect that the suitor’s attitude better resembles one of a marketplace merchant than a lover, therefore she dismisses his love as false. Furthermore, the suitor’s salesman-like attitude is characterized as fast, flowing, repetitive and monotonous, repeating “much” 10 times in the first stanza. The effect of this is to both captivate the reader and as a manifestation of the suitor’s number of propositions. The title is also repeated seven times throughout the poem as a mockery of her companion, and the excessive listing in stanzas 3, 4 and 6 clarify that their relationship is nothing more than a business deal and contains absolutely no love. Finally, as an important reminder of how unimportant she is in the marriage, she leaves the “I”s uncapitalized throughout the poem. We are taken through an important stage of our life in this poem, and it explains how we are constrained by one of the most important choices in our life. The author’s freedom seems restricted by the culture that surrounds her, and her only escape is not to daydream, like the boy in Half Past Two, but simply to choose not to marry the man, which may have unpleasant outcomes.

This poem paints a picture of the frustrations felt at adulthood and the techniques Anyiam uses are especially vivid, causing the reader to be sympathetic to her plight. As a continuation of my thesis, this stage in life should be full of the expectations of freedom of choice, but in fact, these are dashed many times by the constraints society and its conventions force us to follow.

The poem, Crabbit Old Woman, has an interesting authorship. When it first came to light, it was viewed by many as the remarkable result of an old lady’s musings which were saved amongst her belongings after she died. However, it was eventually credited to Phyllis McCormack, a minor poet of her day in the late 60’s, and has since been part of her collection of poems. In this poem, we are given the opportunity to explore the final stage of our lives. We are told about lack of freedom we have to endure when we get old, and in this poem, we are given a first hand experience about having to deal with these restrictions. In the beginning of the poem, McCormack starts off by giving us a stereotypical view of an old woman “with far-away eyes, who dribbles her food and makes no reply…”. The subject’s lack of control over her life is shown by the phrase “…quite unresisting, lets you do as you will, with bathing and feeding, the long day to fill”. Additionally, this shows us the boredom she experiences, and the fact that she is mentally energetic and longs for activities to fill her long day, but she is physically constrained. Her lightness of expression changes as she moves into a condemning tone, when she exclaims “open your eyes, you’re not looking at me”, where the author uses the technique of enjambment to show her frustrations with her physical inabilities and that she does not want to be seen as useless. To claw back her freedom, she constantly relives the good times of her previous years. In explaining this, the poem changes rhythm to reflect the change in mood.

The poem is very effective and describes our final days in quite a devastating way. McCormack tells us of this demise in verses of rhyming couplets with a two line envoi which echoes the opening lines. The middle section is inspired by, and gives a female response to, Shakespeare’s “Seven Ages of Man”. The first six lines and the last eight can also stand together, without the rest, as a very effective Sonnet, and have sometimes been published as such. Throughout the poem, the decline of our physical state is demonstrated, and it goes hand in hand with the loss of respect that others have for us. This need for the respect from others is something we crave as we grow older.

In conclusion, the poems gave me a look at life that I hadn’t considered before and they signpost significant moments in life’s journey. The picture they painted was not a happy one, but as they revealed how the characters overcame their problems, I realized that perhaps life is not easy and the pathway strewn with difficulties, but in most cases, there is a solution to the problem, and as long as you persevere, you can find it.