The setting of this poem is a child’s bedroom in a family home.
Relevance
The relationship between parents and children is always relevant. Every generation of parents loves their children but worry about them, and children grow away from their total dependency on their parents as they begin to lead their own lives.
Collection
This poem would fi t well in a collection of poems about childhood, love or parenting.
The child is dependent on her parents but also has her own, inner life: ‘She is inside the sea/And they are outside the sea’. The parents love their child so much that they stand vigil by her bedside ‘Through the night’. However deeply the parents love the child, they are separated from her ‘by a sea’ and feel ‘locked out of their own home’.
The parents look down on their sleeping child and worry that they are ‘Estranged from her’ as she sleeps. The parents’ anxiety shows in their faces: their foreheads are ‘furrowed’ and their mouths open slightly but ‘Pursed-up’. Although the parents feel helpless and ‘stranded’, their love is clear as they continue to gaze at the child ‘Through the night’.
Although the setting is one usually associated with comfort, love and safety, in this case there is only anxiety and alienation. The parents feel distanced from the sleeping child and this estrangement is compared to being ‘locked out of their own home’.
1. What do you think the poet means when he says ‘A child’s face is a drowned face’?
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(10)
2. Choose one image from the poem that you found particularly appealing. Explain your choice with reference to the poem.
3. Which of the following statements best describes your opinion of this poem? – I found this poem disturbing. – I found this poem interesting. Explain your choice with reference to the poem.
(10)
(20)
4. Imagine you are one of the parents in the poem. Write the diary entry you might make after the night described in the poem. Your diary entry should refl ect your thoughts and feelings. (20)
