ENGL 125 Lecture Notes - Lecture 19: W. H. Auden, Robert Hayden, Ambivalence
6 May 2019
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Document Summary
Parents divorced at a young age, raised by foster parents. Mother visted occasionally (happiest times of childhood) Life experiences are deeply haunting, reflected in his poetry. Sounds like it is in the voice of a child. It was his faster father (choice of title) Constantly working, had trouble holding a job. Repetition in penultimate line what did i know . Constant showering of love, but not fully accepted because he is the stepfather. Even when he is home, he is working because love is hard for him. Mixed feelings towards love of family conveyed in this poem. Shifts from third person to first person, back to third person. His observations remind him of his own experience, a ptsd flashback. Tense shifts from present to past, back to present. Makes it more of an uncontrollable flashback (ptsd), showing how traumatizing it was to him. Sounds in the poem enact the sound of the whip.
