The idea of loss is conveyed in both poems ‘Remember’ by Christina Rossetti and ‘In the Park’ by Gwen Harwood. Where Rossetti explores the loss of a loved one through a dying woman who wishes inner peace for her husband, Harwood explores the loss of identity through motherhood. In the poem ‘Mirror’ by Sylvia Plath, the idea of grieving is explored as the narrator is grieving her youth and beauty. Similarly, in ‘Pietà’ by James McAuley, the idea of grief is also explored, however in difference, the narrator is grieving the death of a child.
Rossetti demonstrates the idea of loss through the narrator explaining to her husband that her death is inevitable. Through the poetic technique of metaphors, the narrator reminds her husband that she will be ‘gone far away into the silent land’ where he physically ‘can no more hold [her] by the hand’. Thus, the reader is able to identify through this that the narrator’s husband
…show more content…
The woman refers to herself in the past tense as well as in the first person when she speaks ‘of the thoughts that once [she] had’, conveying that she and the inflicting ‘darkness and corruption’ will leave. Through this, the reader insinuates that she is now gone, and that once again the narrators husband is at a loss because he has now lost a loved one. Alike in repetitiveness, Harwood, through the voice of the mother, continues to write of the contrived and feigned small talk that is in-personal and ‘rehears[ed]’. Once again, the reader is exposed to the mother’s attempt at convincing herself that she is happy. However, it is through the ‘flickering light’ as ‘they stand’ there ‘rehearsing the children’s names and birthdays’ that the mother finally reveals to herself that she has lost her identity. It is only then that Rossetti demonstrates this as the mother confesses, ‘they have eaten me