On her Blindness
‘poetry is about wandering offtrack..a muse, a presence evoking strong emotions’
bathos is defined as a serious idea being spoken about fleetingly and jokingly e.g ‘like a dodgem’
bathos can be
mother his mother Whispers so that no one hears again she's hiding her disability she says it's a living hell it's a reality issued by the voice of his mother that's very muffled and very conversational but she's out here saying being saying a truth that's really irrevolutionary for her and for him both she's admitting that she can't bear it and that she'd rather commit suicide than have to live with this any longer the recurring motif of Hell also shows her dangerous circumstances and there's no cure she says if she gave up hope of
a cure she bumped herself off and her life I mean it's a light-hearted statement with dark humor and bathos but it's clear that there's a there's a very serious splash of Truth inside because his mother hates it she doesn't want to continue living like this and we both know everyone in this room knows both us the audience and the speaker and his mother that there is no cure so it is a joke but what she's saying is that she's close to doing it really she can't bear this any longer the speaker doesn't remember what he said but he
gave the usual salt so not true but appropriate things to say in the situation like it would be okay or of course you'll find the queue and they're both playing this game pretending that everything is all right even though they don't they both don't want to be he describes himself as an adequate he's bored he's guilty he's honest that he wished he reacted in a different way but he couldn't the sejura isolated isolates it locks in the sun it it shows us dramatically that he feels burdened by her and by his admission because he
feels embarrassed as much as I don't think he wants to admit it that his mother is out there missing the food in this nice Parisian Restaurant her loss is physical whereas his loss is emotional he finds it difficult to tell her he has these feelings of being an inadequately strong man because here his mother here is his mother bearing this all all alone and he is he has no way to help her so so in this way the poem also explores the stereotypical exploitations of masculinity and could be compared to
Chainsaw versus the Papas grasp she kept her dignity though even when bumping into walls like a Dodge him her sense of direction did not improve when cast inward no built-in Compass as my father choked instead she pretended to ignore the void or laughed at all the speaker admiringly reflects on how his mother managed to keep her dignity but this admiration and this like use of the word dignity is contrasted by the use of the description like a Dodge Ram card because those cars are very silly they're made to just they're made to
just bump into each other they're typically seen at fun fair as they're bright they're colored they're just something for children to pass the time the smile is trying to rekindle their happier memories of childhood together but it's also a metaphor for how they both don't know how to live in this new world where her mother where his mother can't see it the and jammed line here shows that her sentence senses are controlling her life and even though the vision is only affecting her f everyone feels it within her family because it's
a tangible change although they all try to pretend it's not no built-in Compass it's a humorous element showing how the entire family is in on trying to act like it's a joke and laugh at all the compass is usually a symbol of control but here the mother has none she too ignores the void The Emptiness she puts up a front she uses laughter as a coping mechanism forced to continue as if there is no problem she's relying on an on another's Compass also Compass could be used with connotations of someone's
personal feelings someone's personal kindness guidelines to guide her so she believes that this is what everyone wants from her so she acts this way and others believe that that's what she wants from them so they also are happy to participate in the play and laugh at all her vision is a void and she's trying to protect her family from feeling the void with her or saw things she couldn't see and smiled as when the kids would offer the latest drawing or show her their new toy so we'd forget at times that the long slow slide had
finished in a vision as blank of stone for instance she'd continue to drive the old Lanchester long after it was safe down the Berkshire Lanes she admitted his exhibitions at Meyer films sink into television whilst looking the wrong way her last week alive a fortnight back or saw things she couldn't see so his mother always gave herself leave to pretend that she could see to not disappoint the children really there's an expectation for her to react and to maintain positivity and smile for the children and her family she does it so
well that her family even forgets that she's blind they would forget the slow slide Vision as blank a stone as she careful because she carefully pretends for her family that she can really see the drawing and those drawings are a symbol of childhood so she's really missing up on she's really missing out on her children going up on an important phase in their life because she can't see it anymore the sibilance here slow slide shows the horrific circumstances induced by induced by this blindness it's a slow slide a loss of everything
that's familiar and again it links back to childhood and the loss of childhood innocence blank as a stone is another simile it shows how she's forced to live an entirely New Life his mother would continue to drive a car even if when it was dangerous was she driving the car because she wanted to pretend or was she driving a car because a part of her hope that this is where it would all end and nobody would blame her or rather they'd say oh it was her own fault for being blind and nobody would blame her and
think that she was doing she was trying to bump herself off on purpose the semantic field of this deterioration of vision it's highlighted by the contrast in the visual activities for driving for drawing for sliding admirers suggest that she can still appreciate something when she cannot because her blindness has drowned out her life even when she sinks into television she doesn't really while looking at the wrong way is a Volta that highlights that there will be no more dishonesty there will be no more
pretending that she can see the TV when she's looking the wrong direction it all seemed normal until people began to notice and it was very disorient her last week alive was a fortnight back in parentheses again a comment a reflective tone it shows us that the parentheses are a sort of afterthought like secondary information like oh yes she passed away but is this really important is this really what we want to see in her life her illness and her death rather than the rich life that she has LED and what kind of person she was to
act so brave for society and to act obey for her children who were truly too young to understand the difficulty the death is still a recent and historic occurrence in the speaker's life he's maybe glad to see her suffering gone but he can't help but reflect on her last days her last week was golden weather of course the Autumn trees around the hospital Ablaze with color the ground Royal was Lethal I told her this forgetting as she sat too weak to move staring at nothing oh yes I know she said it's lovely out there dying has
made her no more sightless but now she can't pretend her eyelids were closed in the coffin it was up to us to believe she was watching somewhere in the end golden weather is a pathetic battle showing how she would die surrounded by happiness it's an allegory to show the difference between what the Blind and what those who can see perceive because he can see this beautiful golden day it's an allusion to his warm caring state but she just says oh yes I know too weak to move oh whereas she can't enjoy this view out there because she
also knows her and his clothes and she also knows that she doesn't particularly mind because what's the joy of living in a world you can't see she doesn't want to be here she wants to experience this world and she's hoping that in another life she can Autumn is a deeper season of deterioration and beautiful Decay it's a season of leaves falling down and leaves rotting to make room for a harsh winter but then a new life the clinical location here it's juxtaposed to Nature showing that she's both dying and being
safe something the speaker can't decide as he can't fully understand his mother's condition and her true desires and wishes and thoughts on the topic of death the leaves are Ablaze just like his mother's day still has a fire burning inside her the sun creates an image that the mother can't see but he's telling her the beauty not realizing she can't experience and it's hard to know whether he's harming her or cheering her up in the process the enjamin here shows that it's not a full change she can't be
staring at nothing because this oxymoron indicates the confusion he feels showing her something she can't see the use of dakes is here as well shows how big her reply is oh yes I know she can't be certain of that experience only pretend dying doesn't change anything for her it's still dark but now she can't pretend anymore and it's an added sense of finality her eyelids are closed his description shows that there's no difference it's a euphemism for death it's difficult for us and him and his family to believe that she could watch
them at the end and somehow this being grammatically isolated shows the uncertainty of where she is right now the end emphasizes her death and this entire poem adds poignancy to this idea of someone watching you especially when they couldn't watch you or see you when they were alive and likewise in her final moments he can't see where she is now and then a way he is also blind in a way he's more connected to her in his final moments than he was during during her life when he felt that he couldn't understand her