How Is the Theme of Growing Up Explored in a Range of 20th Century Poems

How is the theme of emergence up explored in a range of 20th century songs? The theme of ontogenesis up is explored in a variety of ways in many 20th century poems, using distinguishable language techniques, that I am passing play to explore, to convey the emotion of small fryren maturement up in the times of class discrimination and racism. The four poems that I have chosen ar all from different perspectives, the childs or parents, or from retrospective points of views, recalling on the speaker systems life as a child.Chapter 7 Black Bottom of The toleration Papers, by Jackie Kay, is an extract of a poem that I am going to analyse. This poem is near a white mother adopting a black child and how she faces racial bullying by the more superior whites in Glasgow, Scotland. The credence Papers uses the child, the white adoptive mother, and the white biological mothers junction in alternating first person narrative, written in the present tense giving the poem themes of grow ing up, bullying and racism.The other two are from retrospective points of views, reflecting on the speakers lives as children and how they had to cope with the difficulties of growing up in a class system society. My Parents unbroken Me From Children Who Were Rough, by Stephen Spender, is a poem about an adult reflecting on his childhood in the upper middle class, and the lower class bullying him because of the social differences, exploring themes of loneliness, remorse and fear.The Road Not Taken, by Robert Frost, is the one-third poem I will analyse, explaining how choosing the correct path will determine the outcome of your life, and that maybe taking the lesser travelled road could make the difference. The Adoption Papers is themed on the effects of racism on younger children while they are growing up. This effect on the child is explored in detail passim the poem and how she has had to cope with being victim of racial bullying, you were fighting yesterday, again. The uses o f caesura and end-stopping show how racial bullying is an ongoing problem for her.While growing up, bullying is eer a problem whether it is discriminative, racial, physical or verbal. The way she learns to cope with bullying is through her fists, which isnt always the answer, whereas in My Parents Kept Me From Children Who Were Rough the speaker was a victim of physical bullying of the aforesaid(prenominal) nature. The children being rough in this poem, were all subjected to be looked down upon as lower class by the high classes causing them to become rough and seen as the bullies in the situation because of their need of a sense of security.The bullies in this poem have many references to the child in The Adoption Papers as she is seen as a victim that fights back against what she thinks isnt fair, and both think that it is necessary to use fighting as a survival method to cope with the pain of being referred to as abnormal or other compared to the upper class who would call the mselves normal. Both of these poems evidence the effects of an ignorant society. In The Adoption Papers, the childs adoptive mother is also faced with having to deal with the effect of racial bullying toward her daughter.She lots tells her daughter to ignore the bullies and the racial remarks, understanding what her daughter is going through and is always in her support, You tell. You tell. You tellyour little girl a doing. The use of censure structure and punctuation here shows one of the effects bullying as had on the mothers life. The very short, two word sentences, presenting the speech of the antiblack childrens mothers, can be seen as frantic, that they are quick to pass judgement and also do not want to be in their nominal head for long because of the social standing.Also the mothers upon hearing that it was a black child, have no second thought on accusing the child showing that, because of their ignorance and racist attitudes, that they werent worth empathising with an d that they would have no excuse. The adoptive mothers sentence structure on the other hand, has no caesura and is only one longer sentence. By structuring this conversation between the mothers like so tells us that the adoptive mother is neither ashamed or concerned by her daughter being of a different race and also suggests that she will always make a finishing point in an argument.The Road Not Taken is a poem also themed on growing up and represents life as roads or paths with different turning points and directions. Upon these turning points, one must choose in which direction to go, the one worn or the one less trodden on. This poems voice is of an adult reflecting back on his life in world-wide and how these paths are just another part of growing up and that, in life, you would come across many different roads from which to choose.Robert Frost expresses this idea end-to-end the poem and also about the election between two roads that had not been used, Because it was grassy and cherished wear / Had worn them really about the same. A tone of regret is sensed here because of how Frost structured the stanza. By having Had worn them really about the same after Because it was grassy and wanted wear, Frosts meaning could be interpreted that the speaker could be mumbling or talking to himself, as if they are proud of their choice even though they know nothing of what could have been on the other path.This is later shown when the speaker says, I shall be telling this with a sigh suggesting that the speaker knows that they are likely to twist the truth, and seem heroic, in a more triumphant manner. Overall, I think that The Adoption Papers by Jackie Kay explores the theme of growing up in a very critical and thought provoking manner by using a wide range of literary techniques, much(prenominal) as caesura, repetition and similes, and that this poem is it most likely to stir the reader because of the detailed use of present tense, causing the reader to feel em pathetically towards the child.My Parents Kept Me From Children Who Were Young uses simple literary techniques, such as repetition, end-stopping and word choice, but in an effective method to convey the harsh realities of bullying while growing up. The Road Not Taken theme of growing up is conveyed in a different manner using a retrospective view, along with a long sentence structure, metaphors and an overall rhyming structure of a, b, a, a, b, to show that you may have regrets in life but life choices are valuable decisions and that is it all a part of growing up.