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Analysis Of Moon By Kathleen Jamie

Decent Essays

In the poem ‘Moon’, Kathleen Jamie explores themes of abandonment, loneliness and disconnection. She does this by utilizing a clearly dysfunctional relationship between a mother and child. The child replaces the either mentally or physically absent mother with the presence of the moon. To explore the emotional distance between child and mother, the author uses dark and light imagery to empathize the child’s loneliness and to evoke the scene of a parent visiting they child late at night. Personification of inanimate objects illustrates the detrimental effects the unavailable mother has on the child’s mental wellbeing. The poem ends with dialogue from the protagonist, the child, pointing out that the moon is not her mother, as if to be …show more content…

However before the moon was described as bringing light into the child’s room. This contrast perhaps highlights the negative emotions that everyone must ‘carry’, despite the positive, good emotions, creating a balance. Also, by describing the moon as a traveller highlights the potentially infrequent ‘visits’ of the child’s mother, in contrast to most mothers who are a constant part of their child’s life. In the third stanza there is heavy personification of the objects in her room and the moon. The room ‘it seemed, had missed her’ (10), by bringing inanimate objects to life the author draws parallels to the child missing her parent silently, silent like the items in her room. The moon has also begun to become characterized and has been framed as inconsiderate, ‘she pretended an interest in the bookcase’. This metaphor conveys how the child feels: overlooked, as if items in her room are more fascinating. Enjambment connects the third and fourth stanza together, the enjambment reinforcing the disconnection felt by the child between them and their parent. A detailed description of the items in the room has been given, highlighting the ignored person, who is second place to anything else in her room. The words used have connotations of sea life, in particular a fish bowl, ‘as in a rock pool’ (13), ‘green bowl gleamed’ (15). This imagery illustrates the feeling of isolation, as rock pools and fish bowls are confined spaces

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