BAND 5 RESPONSE - “Material” and “Piano” - Compare the methods both poets use to explore family relationships
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Unit 3 - Poetry
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PEARSON (PEARSON)
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Poems of the Decade
BAND 5 Comparative Literature Response (Poetry)
In the A level English Literature exam Summer 2023, this student was awarded the Highest Mark in A level English Literature (Edexcel) in Asia. The student now studies Languages at the University of Cambridge.
Thesis: Both “Material” and “...
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English Literature 2015
Unit 3 - Poetry
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Compare the methods both poets use to explore family relationships (30 marks)
Both “Material” and “Piano” explore how the remembrance of past family relationships and
memories can lead to both fondness and guilt. Both narrators strive to reconcile the comfort
that reliving past memories brings with the weight of having to move on to live in the present.
Both poems explore how the narrators express an initial sense of fondness and admiration for
their mothers by revisiting these past memories; however, they differ in how this remembrance
influences the narrator’s present emotions. In “Piano”, the narrator finds solace in revisiting
these past memories when their mother was present. The sibilance used in describing how
their mother “smiles as she / sings” mimics the mother’s warm and soothing tone and voice,
therefore evoking a sweet sense of comfort and security for the narrator and a strong sense of
yearning for their mother. In contrast, “Material” uses the same technique of sibilance when
describing how their mother “spittled and scrubbed against my [their] face” to instead evoke a
bittersweet type of fondness. The sibilance here is used to mimic the harsh sounds of cleaning
that would have likely irritated or embarrassed the narrator when they were young, an action
that would have distanced the narrator from their mother emotionally. However, when the
narrator is looking back at this action, they now realize that this seemingly overbearing act is
actually an act of tough love representing the extent of how much the mother cared about them
attentively. Therefore, this wistful remembrance, whilst carrying a strong sense of respect and
admiration for their mother’s love and care, also evokes a pang of regret in the narrator for not
respecting the mother’s care enough or possibly regretting the distance between the two
characters. This regret of the distance is further emphasized by the direct comparison of how
“She bought her own; I never did.” The semicolon in this confession demonstrates how the
narrator distinctly didn’t adopt the same kind and thoughtful intentions or acts to become a
similarly attentive mother, but also physically mimics the separation that the narrator feels from
their mother through the caesura’s separation of the two phrases on the page and its break of
the smooth flow of speech. Therefore, whilst “Material” also brings a firm sense of fondness, it
lacks the same dreamlike sweet comfort that “Piano” brings to the narrator, instead bringing a
sense of bitter longing for a counterfactual where their family relationships were stronger and
closer.
Both poems carry a wistful tone and evoke a sense of guilt in the narrator after exploring their
past childhood memories. This is evident at the end of “Piano” when the narrator describes
how they “weep like a child for the / Past”. The writer’s choice of using a simile in place of a
metaphor places emphasis on how although the narrator wishes they were a child again, they
are no longer one, but rather a grown man. This separation of the narrator’s adult and child
selves is accentuated by the end-stopped line, which could symbolize the cruel and
emotionless nature of the adult world and mimic the harshness of this realization.
“Piano” ends in an almost shameful tone, as the act of weeping is often considered effeminate
and weak. A possible interpretation of this could be that the writer finds it hard to fulfill the
societal expectations of being a stoic and strong man and ultimately breaks down emotionally,
unable to bear the pressures of manhood and adulthood. This could signify that the narrator
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