Mid-Term Break & Refugee Mother And Child
How does the poet convey the sadness of death in the two poems: Mid-Term Break' and Refugee Mother and Child?'
Refugee Mother and Child', by Chinua Achebe, is a lamentation of senseless death and lost innocence. The descriptive language and melancholy tone gives a sorrowful glance into the life of a Refugee Mother and Child.' Mid-Term Break' by Seamus Heaney is a brief look into a family torn by grief at the loss of a son, brother and friend. Its harsh, angry tone and use of enjambment strikes a cord, knelling deep within the soul.
As the mother in Refugee Mother and Child' strokes her child's hair, it is evident that other mothers there [in the refugee camp] had long since ceased to care.' It appears that the death of ones children has become a regular, almost commonplace occurrence, something western society cannot understand. This is shown comprehensively in Mid-Term Break', when the poet's family is wracked with tears and grief at the loss of their four-year-old child. As we see Big Jim Evans saying it was a hard blow' and the neighbours all sharing in the families pain, we are touched by the contrast between the two poems, seeing one child die unnoticed by all except its mother, and one child die and the whole neighbourhood share in the tragedy. In Refugee Mother and Child' the death is robbed of its dignity by the graphic descriptions and language used, while in Mid-Term Break' the deaths tragedy is conveyed all the more by the grief of the people in it, and the broken sound of the account.
In Mid-Term Break', the poet suffers greatly telling the tale, through his language and detail, we can see that he remembers the event vividly, from personal experience. However in Refugee Mother and Child', we see the mothers grief for a son she would soon have to forget.' We see that she loves her son, but that in her situation, in her place, getting over his death must happen for her own...
View Full Essay