A sense of place can be defined and can be used in many different ways by various different people. To some, it is a characteristic that some places have and some do not, while to others it is a feeling or perception held by people and not by the place itself. It is often used in relation to those characteristics that make a place special or unique, as well as to those that adopt a sense of dependable human attachment and belonging. Homes are often regarded as a place where people get attached and build relationships with their homes. They are often where most feel a sense of place. It is why most regard their home not as a house, but as a home where they have built memories, but not always good ones.
We can see that in ‘Ruins of a Great House’ and ‘The House’ already there isn’t a sense of place that the poet is giving to the reader in the title. The fact that both poems are regarded as houses and not homes already tells the reader that these buildings are not full of fond and happy memories and also shows detachment. We see this detachment in ‘The House’ where Matthew Sweeney uses many techniques such as alliteration, tone, certain sounds and a specific choice of words. However, throughout the poem, the poet never tells us his opinion of the house. He only describes it as it is. The poet never tells us whether he likes the house or whether he simply hated the house. He only tells us what it had, what it looked like and that he grew up there. In a way, this is good for the reader because it allows the reader to use his/her imagination and to read the poem carefully and form his/her own opinions on what the boy thought of the house.
This Essay Is About The Connotations Of The Words "house" And "home"
What would you call the structure you live in? Would it be a house, or a home? While the words “house” and “home” possess similar definitions and can be used interchangeably– after all both do provide some sort of shelter or protection- they embody very different connotations, and their usage evokes different emotional responses. A home does not have to be a building, ...
For example, “The house had a dozen bedrooms, each of them cold and the wind battered the windows…” Again the poet is telling us about the house, not his opinion of the house and this creates an emotionless attachment to the house. We see this similar sense of detachment in ‘Ruins of a Great House’ where Walcott uses the Latin translation of scattered fragments, which is ‘disjecta membra’ in the poem, and this scattering of fragments links into to the title of ruins of a great house where everything is destroyed and broken up. This describes how not only the house is crumbling but also how the relationship of the house and the poet is crumbling and the sense of place is lost.
In contrast to this ‘Ruins of a Great House’ Walcott describes what the house is like and memories in it about slavery and colonisation; in colonised areas, the colonisers have defined the aspects of home and this creates a unique sense of place. But also in ‘Ruins of a Great House’ Walcott says goodbye to nature, and romantic poets were well know for using nature as a way to connect with God, love and also themselves, which we see mostly occur in ‘The Hill Wife’, but seeing as this poem lacks all of those, we can see why Walcott says ‘farewell, green fields.’ Because he could be saying that he wants to say goodbye to these bad memories of this crumbling house which has ‘fallen from evil days, from evil times’, so rather than wanting to have a sense of place in the house, he wants to distance himself.
Nature in ‘The House’ is something that is trying to get into the house and be close to it and almost ruins ‘the House’ with ‘cockroaches’ under the cupboard and when Sweeney finally says that he ‘did grow up there’ we see how he has embraced nature and that he can survive it, where Walcott just dismisses nature. Also unlike ‘Ruins of a Great House’ there is no human contact in most of the poem. There are mentions of slaves in this great house, and if it was once so great, many people must have known it. Whereas ‘The House’ is deemed to be an ordinary house that has had no human contact apart from at the end when the narrative becomes clear and we find out that Sweeney ‘did grow up there.’ This finally creates a connection with the reader because we are now able to picture a young child growing up in this house full of gloom and negative aspects.
The Research paper on Anne Bradstreet House Poem Fire
Anne Bradstreet Poem Analysis Anne Bradstreet Poem Analysis Essay, Research Paper Anne Bradstreet wrote the poem Here Follows Some Verses upon the Burning of Our House July 10 th, 1666. Bradstreet was a Puritan who moved to America. She was the first person to publish poetry in the New World. The theme of this poem is that materials are worthless and the only thing that is worthy is going to ...
The tone of ‘The House’ is extremely important because it communicates the exact mood of the poem to the reader. This poem has a very gloomy and sad tone. We know this by looking the sounds that are used and the rhyme scheme. There is no rhyme scheme for this poem and this helps to bring out the gloomy tone that the poet is trying to achieve. If there were a rhyme scheme then the poem would sound more bright and rhythmic, almost having a sense of musicality to it, which would spoil the overall tone of the poem. This gloomy tone can also be seen in ‘Ruins of a Great House’ when talking about ‘ancestral murderers’ who colonised areas and destroyed cultures. Walcott has no rhyme scheme for this poem which once again echo’s how gloomy this house is because again if a poet uses rhyming, it adds a happy tone to most poems and almost create a childish effect, which in both poems does not occur.
Finally we can see how both poets present a sense of place in different ways. Sweeney uses aspects of nature to present his home and how gloomy it is, but how even though home can be disgusting, anyone can survive it. Whereas Walcott uses other people to create his own aspects of what a sense of place is, for example the colonisers have created that place and made it theirs, and they feel a sense of place in it, as do the slave, but this sense of place isn’t always positive.
