Theme of Mortality & Aging in Two Poems
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Both Linda PastanÆs (2002) The Last Uncle and Sharon OldsÆ (2002) The Unswept Room deal with themes of mortality and aging, but in quite distinct ways. PastanÆs poems in The Last Uncle deal primarily with loss, death, and the aging process and their impact on the individual. However, as McKee (2002) notes, in his review of the collection, ôIn these careful, insightful considerations of time and its occasional rough edges, the poet finds much to celebrateö (106). OldsÆ collection of poems deals as much with family dysfunction and sexuality as they do death and aging. However, OldsÆ poems are much more caustic, graphic, and self-involved. One critic maintains, of the works collected in The Unswept Room, that Olds ôwrites poetry of sheer, unreconstructed pathos that is not so much autobiographical as autobiologicalùabout herself from the neck downö (Reasons 2003, 76).Despite the different language and tone of each womanÆs approach to poetry, both convey a preoccupation with the inevitability of death and the impact of aging on individual experience and perception. This is true both in psychological and biological terms, with respect to their impact on the individual. However, PastanÆs poems on mortality and aging belie a greater acceptance and appreciation of their inevitability and the riches they also impart than do OldsÆ works on similar themes. The tone of Pastan toward mortality appears to be one of willing acceptance of an ine
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/ I would work only / in black and whiteö (Pastan 2002). However, we do see some reluctance to embrace the chilling fact that death will remove conscious ability from the speaker. When observing a snow-covered landscape, the speaker thinks ôThis is the death / of color, Winter / is slamming its door / on the heartö (Pastan 2002). However, despite this cold look at the inevitability of death, the speaker leaves us with some consolation from the beauty of the life experience, even if it is one we must leave, ôSoon / nothing will remain / but beauty-- / the austere line / of charcoal moving / across white paper, / of bootprints engraved upon new snowö (Pastan 2002). Such metaphors are considered by the author to bring added meaning to her work. In one interview, asked of her particular strength as a poet, Pastan replied, ôWhat interests me most, and what I hope IÆm strongest at, is metaphorùthatÆs what starts me on poems and what excited me when IÆm reading other poemsö (Powell 2003, 1).
In The Unswept Room, Sharon Olds also employs metaphor but her poems lack the appreciation of beauty and embracing of aging and mortality evident in PastanÆs collection on similar topics. In one poem that expresses the speakerÆs struggles with
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