A Comparative Analysis of “The Piano” by D.H. Lawrence and “The Gift” by Li Young Lee

One of the most potent works by the writer D.H Lawrence is The Piano, a poem that explores the function of memory in life. A similar concept is explored in The Gift by Li Young Lee. These two poems show that memory plays a complicated role in the journey of life and that it typically poses a dichotomy, acting as a boon as effectively as bane at the very same time. These two poems basically discover both the facets of memory and delineate memory as a potent force in life.

In The Piano, D.H. Lawrence talks about how memory brings with it an uncontrollable sense of nostalgia. This nostalgia, nevertheless, may possibly bring joy as nicely as suffering in the mind of a person. In this poem, the sound of the piano “betrays” the speaker back into the previous, an he is forced to revisit a component of his life he had so far buried in his mind.

The tone of the speakers of both the poems is heavily laced with nostalgia, but this nostalgia affects them in quite distinct and contrasting techniques. The poem The Piano has a melancholic tone, and it is abundantly clear that the poet wishes to deny himself the misery that comes with revisiting the past.

The Piano explores the encounter of a man who is resisting nostalgia since he knows that his dialogue with the previous would weaken him emotionally and make him lose his grip on the present. The expertise of the speaker of the poem is bittersweet as he is betrayed back into his past and forced to confront his memories. These memories inevitably make him long for his childhood and struggle with his present as he is unablle to uphold his manhood and weeps like a child. Softly, in the dusk, a lady is singing to meTaking me back down the vista of years, till I seeA youngster sitting beneath the piano, in the boom of the tingling stringsAnd pressing the tiny, poised feet of a mother who smiles as she sings.

In these lines of the poem, the speaker is taken back into his previous as a woman softly sings to him. The use of the perform “dusk” is extremely considerable. Dusk marks the end of daylight and the starting of evening. This could be an analogy for the state of the speaker’s mind which wavers in between the previous and the present, belonging totally to neither. Just as dusk connects day and evening, it may possibly also been seen as a connecting force amongst previous and present. It is exciting that while the woman in the present sings softly to him, the sound from the previous is that of a boom, indicating that his past is a really potent force in that moment. It is no suprise that the nostalgia which grips the speaker comes with a sense of bitterness more than having lost that previous.

It contrast to this, The Gift explores memory as a boon and defines what the speaker’s past has had to supply him.The speaker expresses that he feels that he has grown in knowledge due to the lessons taught by his father that have been preserved in his memory. The memories of the speaker of this poem, in contrast to the ones of the speaker of The Piano, strengthen his hold on his present and help him forge a stunning and loving bond with his wife: I cannot bear in mind the tale,but hear his voice still, a properlyof dark water, a prayer.And I recall his hands,two measures of tendernesshe laid against my face,the flames of disciplinehe raised above my head.The poet remembers the beauty in the previous memories not the tale, but his father’s calming voice. His father’s voice is likened to “a effectively of dark water” and “a prayer”, indicating that the speaker loves and worships his father. Probably this is a aspect that aids him cherish his memories.

The defiance of the speaker in The Piano can be juxtaposed with the celebration of memory in The Present to kind a complex concept of the role of memory, a facet of life that plays a optimistic as nicely as negative function in shaping a person. The speaker of the very first poem is helpless when confronted with his memories. In spite of the truth that these are pleasant memories, they make im extended for his childhood and resent his manhood. On the contrary, The Present celebrates memory as a beautiful component of the human experience and explores the potency of a universal element, love, and the function of childhood memories in the cultivation of this love in a individual. The dichotomy amongst memory as a bane and a boon surfaces time and once more in The Piano as the speaker celebrates and mourns for is past at the identical time. Nevertheless, a singular aspect of memory is observed in The Present.