Walking Away
By: C Day Lewis
He remembers the exact day – it’s an important memory.
It is eighteen years ago, almost to the day – Transition from summer to autumn
reflects the transition in the son’s life
A sunny day with leaves just turning,
Negative SIMILE: a satellite isn’t meant to fall
The touch-lines new-ruled – since I watched you play
out of orbit, and to drift away makes the son
Your first game of football, then, like a satellite sound helpless and in danger. The Simile also
emphasises how the father has stopped being
Wrenched from its orbit, go drifting away at the centre of his son’s life.
New boundaries are also being drawn between father
and son, with the son’s newfound independence. Enjambment puts the unexpected word ‘wrenched’ at the
start of the line, which emphasises it. This reflects how the
(Away) Enjambment highlights the way the boy father found the separation sudden and painful.
turns away from his father to follow the other boys.
Behind a scatter of boys. I can see Bird metaphor used to show the father’s concern
You walking away from me towards the school that his son isn’t ready. Describes young bird
Something that creates feelings of pity that doesn’t have all its adult feathers. A bird
With the pathos of a half-fledged thing set free that isn’t fully fledged is unable to fly.
The way someone walks
Into a wilderness, the gait of one Suggests a hostile place – father worries his son won’t survive without his protection.
Who finds no path where the path should be.
Rep. of path emphasises that the father is desperate for his son
Natural image that compares the son to something
to find the right way in life and that he sees him as helpless.
moving in a current of air / water – this reflects his
uncertainty and lack of control.
“loosened” is less painful and forced than “wrenched”.
Air or water moving in a circular motion This shows how the father is coming to terms with what
That hesitant figure, eddying away happened and understands that it’s natural.
SIMILE – contrasts with the satellite simile in stanza 1
Like a winged seed loosened from its parent stem,
Has something I never quite grasp to convey
About nature’s give-and-take – the small, the scorching
Ordeals which fire one’s irresolute clay. Experiences of growing up are painful
uncertain
“Gnaws” is animalistic and vicious - the father Fire turns clay into a pot – difficult experiences of growing up turn children
is still affected by seeing his son go through the into independent people.
tough process of growing up.
I have had worse partings, but none that so Religious imagery – in the Bible, God let go of Jesus,
his only son, when Jesus came to Earth and was
Gnaws at my mind still. Perhaps it is roughly crucified. He did this to show humans that he loved
them. That “God alone” could do it, shows how
Saying what God alone could perfectly show –
difficult it is.
How selfhood begins with a walking away,
And love is proved in the letting go.
To change to a more steady rhythm underlines how the father has come to a philosophical understanding – the son has
Summary
to walk away from his father to find his own identity and the father proves his love for his son by letting him go
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