Compare the Ways Poets Use Language to Present Relationships in Brothers and Harmonium

Compare the ways poets use language to present relationships in Brothers and Harmonium

In both Harmonium and Brothers, the poet presents a range of ideas about relationships, one between two siblings and the other between a father and a son. However the demonstration of this connection is done from two very different standpoints. In Harmonium, the poem is told through the eyes of the son and describes the struggle that the now adult has to face about his father’s inevitable death. Stanza 4 demonstrates this when it say that ‘the next box I’ll shoulder…will bear the freight of his own dead weight’ from this we can see that the father will soon, no longer be there to help and make decisions for his child but rather the son will be forced to confront the difficulties associated with letting go of something after many years and consecutively the tribulations of life without a guardian. Conversely, in Brothers we are shown a very different and more belligerent dynamic within a relationship, the poem leads us through the standpoint of a brother who has been put in charge of his younger sibling about which he is not happy. Stanza 1 presents this idea of resentment that the entire poem wishes to convey ‘saddled with you for the afternoon’ the use of the verb ‘to saddle’ compares the way that just as a horse does not have a say as to who sits on its back and is forced to do its masters bidding so too has the brother been made to look after his younger brother without the right to protest.

In Harmonium, many images of beauty are invoked such as ‘sunlight…which could beautify saints’ and ‘gilded finches’ these suggest that the memory of what the Harmonium had once represented and the times and relationship that the child and parent had shared had been good ones. An extended metaphor is also used to great effect likening the ‘hummed harmonics that still struck a chord’ with the fact that the son still feels that the father has a great impact and influence on his life and...