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Poem Comparison

Katharine Tynan's poem 'Any Woman' emphasizes the essential role of mothers in managing households and nurturing families, portraying them as the keystone of family life. Similarly, Coventry Patmore's 'The Toys' reflects on a mother's unconditional love, contrasting it with a father's regretful discipline, ultimately highlighting the irreplaceable nature of maternal care. Both poems utilize vivid language and poetic devices to convey their messages, though they adopt different tones and styles to express the significance of motherhood.

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4K views2 pages

Poem Comparison

Katharine Tynan's poem 'Any Woman' emphasizes the essential role of mothers in managing households and nurturing families, portraying them as the keystone of family life. Similarly, Coventry Patmore's 'The Toys' reflects on a mother's unconditional love, contrasting it with a father's regretful discipline, ultimately highlighting the irreplaceable nature of maternal care. Both poems utilize vivid language and poetic devices to convey their messages, though they adopt different tones and styles to express the significance of motherhood.

Uploaded by

oruavishyam
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Comparison between ANY WOMAN and THE TOYS

Katharine Tynan, the famous Irish poetess has explored the


maximum faces of motherhood through her short and elegant
poem ‘Any Woman’. The poem conveys women are the keystone
of a house. They have the responsibility of managing the house,
bringing up the children and attending to the needs of the family
members. Hence her presence is indispensable in the family. The
speaker asserts that she who protects the house from wind and
snow (stands for adverse conditions in life) must be protected
against all odds (even under unfavourable situations). The poem
abounds with a flurry of metaphors and symbols. The major figure
of speech, metaphor runs criss and cross the poem, making it more
conveying and powerful.

In the poem ‘The Toys’, Coventry Patmore underlines the same


thought presented in Any Woman. The poem proclaims a mother’s
love is equal to that of God’s love, as a mother is always all-
forgiving and all- loving.
The father (the narrator in this poem) scolds and slaps his son
ruthlessly, for disobeying his words the seventh time. Later he
repents for his action and realises that if his wife had been alive,
she would have been more patient with their son in such
situations. Fearing that the grief wouldn’t let his son sleep
peacefully, the father goes to his bed- side. But finds him sleeping
quietly. The darkened eyelids and the wet eyelashes confirm that
his son had been sobbing or crying for a long time.
He recognizes the truth that, God who moulded or created man
loves and cares for His children more than a father on earth. He ie;
God is so patient and large- hearted with His subjects that He
forgives all wrongs and mistakes we commit in life. Similar is the
love of the mother. Her absence creates a great vacuum in the
child’s life.
The lines:
“Thou’lt leave Thy wrath, and say,
I will be sorry for their childishness.”
reveal the gist of the poem. The symbolic significance of the title
is co- related efficiently with the theme. The line
“Kissing away his tears, left others of my own;”
takes the poem to a higher level of appeal among the readers.

Both the poems here, communicate a similar theme, that nothing


can substitute a mother’s love and care. Although the poets adopt
different styles to emphasise their conviction; the style of
treatment in ‘The Toys’ stands different from ‘Any Woman’. The
poem Any Woman projects explicitly the vital role of mother in a
family, while a versatile style adopted by Coventry Patmore brings
out the same theme implicitly and more effectively (without any
direct reference to the pivotal role of women). On the other hand
the language used in these two poems are picturesque, vivid,
suggestive and powerful. The poem Any Woman takes a strong
and confident tone to bring forth the all- embracing power of a
woman, to hold her family together. Whereas, The Toys employs a
rather serious, sorrowful and more sympathetic tone to bring out
the theme, the poem projects the sorry- figure of the father. The
two poems are really beautiful and touching. The poetic devices
are effectively deployed to make them appealing. The visual
images enhance our imagination and make the poems realistic. In
all, both the poems are embedded with a strong message for our
society.

****

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