The Experience Of Ageing Essay, Research Paper

The two poems, ?A Crabbit Old Woman? and ?My Grandmother? portray the experience of ageing in very different ways. In ?A Crabbit Old Woman? the poem is written from the old woman?s perspective when ?My Grandmother is written from the narrator?s point of view.

The beginning of the poem ?The Crabbit Old Woman? starts when the woman is old in a nursing home and she is expressing her annoyance at the nurses.

?What do you see, nurses? When you?re looking at me.?

The old woman then tells us about each stage and change of her life. When she does she uses brief descriptions in the short line.

?A bride now at twenty

My heart gives a leap?

This suggests that she seems regretful that life has passed so quickly and she had wished she had stopped at the time to enjoy what she had. During, and at the end of the poem a variation of the following lines is repeated:

?Is that what your thinking,

Is that what you see?

Then open your eyes,

You?re not looking at me.?

This draws in the attention because it is like the poet is really asking the reader the question, and gives the reader a chance to think about what has just been said. The tone changes frequently during the poem, even when she is describing the life she loved there are a few lines that almost seem to bring the fantasy back to reality.

?And accept the stark fact

That nothing can last.?

In the poem ?My Grandmother? the lines are longer and a much more advanced and detailed vocabulary is used to describe the imagery in the poem.

?Among Apostle spoons and Bristol glass,

The faded silks, the heavy furniture.?

Although there is more detail expressed in this poem, simple words are still used but still manage to retain the deep meaning that can easily be understood by anyone. I think this is used to try and create an understanding of how the Grandmother valued all of her material items. A large portion of the poem is dedicated to these items to show that they were a big part of the old lady?s life. The poem is divided into four stanzas, each of them tells a different part of the story.

?She kept an antique shop ? or it kept her?

The first stanza sets the scene for the rest of the poem and starts to tell us a little about what her life was like.

?That she was hurt, I still could feel the guilt?

The second stanza tells us about the relationship between the narrator and her Grandmother and how she felt guilty about refusing to take her Grandmother out.

?Later, too frail to keep a shop,?

The third stanza describes the slow ageing of her Grandmother and how she has to leave her shop, so she takes all her belongings into one room so she can always be with them.

?And when she died I felt no grief at all?

The last stanza details the death of her Grandmother and tells us how she felt. I think she feels guilty, only because she feels no grief. This structure of the poem is almost like a story, it is very effective as it draws the attention of the reader and they almost feel involved in what is happening.

Each poet uses different styles of language to communicate meaning to the reader. In ?The Crabbit Old Woman? the language is very plain and simple, not much use of similes or metaphors.

?A woman of thirty,

My young now grow fast?

The writing is very ?straight to the point? and helps the reader conjure up feelings and emotions rather then images. Because of the rhyming scheme, you can?t help but read it at a quick pace, and any elaborate metaphors could easily be lost on anyone who was just listening to the poem.

In ?My Grandmother? the rhyming scheme, because it is not very strict, creates a sense and atmosphere of melancholy. Jennings makes use of similes and metaphors when creating her images.

?All her best things in one long narrow room?

The ?long narrow room? reminds me of a coffin, and like Egyptian kings were buried with all their money and gold, she has brought all her objects which she finds priceless into her room.

When I read these two poems my favorite was ?The Crabbit Old Woman? I think this was because it has some very powerful lines in it.

?…And nature is cruel,

?Tis her jest to make

Old age look like a fool?

It is lines like this that really get you thinking about how it must be like to be old and how frustrating for people to look down on you because of that.

When I read ?My Grandmother? I felt that the narrator was a boy and not a girl. This is probably because I had though that girls would be more sympathetic and understanding to their Grandmothers. I know this is isn?t fair and rather discriminating but I just got the feeling that the narrator was a boy.

In conclusion, these two poems portray old age as a time in your life when your quality of life deteriorates. ?The Crabbit Old Woman? tells us about how the old women feels about herself and the people who are around her and look after her. On the other hand ?My Grandmother? tells us how the people around an old woman view her and her ways. After reading these poems I feel that I will look at old people in a different way from now on, and realise they that they were all my age once.