Hide and seek by Vernon Scannell Essay

‘Hide and seek’ by Vernon Scannell is approximately a young, restless infant playing the childhood game of hide and seek. It begins simply by revealing the juvenile exhilaration experienced with a child the moment playing a casino game – ‘Call out. Call loud: I’m ready!

Arrive and find me! ‘ Throughout the poets use of exclamation signifies we can see the child’s joy at indulging in the game. It can be exhilarating and fun time pertaining to the child, but it really is also very competitive. The manner in which this individual hides reveals this competitiveness; he meticulously hides below dirty sacking in the storage shed and makes certain his toes aren’t ‘sticking out’. Also when his friends would like him, they may be portrayed while ‘prowling in’, and ‘whispering at the door’.

This further intensifies the degree of competition within the game. However he can determined to win the game, and after a lengthy space of time he thinks, ‘It is the perfect time to let them know that you’re the winner’. By know the child is very confident that he has emerged the victor, however it only exaggerates his betrayal and a sense of abandonment if he finds out the facts.

Finally when the boy victoriously emerges via his concealing place, and shouts ‘I’ve won, I’ve won! Here I am! ‘ he can greeted by a scene of nothingness -‘The darkening garden watches. Nothing at all stirs’.

His childish dreams of a grand procession in his honour are dashed immediately, and we begin to sympathise with the boy as he unfortunately realises that he has become betrayed and deserted by simply his good friends. The most important topic explored in ‘Hide and seek’ is definitely the individual position of one individual. The composition asks the contentious issue, how much do we really matter?

The poet divulges in to this subject and involves the conclusion we are not singularly important in the wider structure of points than we think. ‘Half-past Two’ by U. A. Fanthorpe concentrates more on the notion of time and many ways in which it governs world. The composition revolves around a young child being punished intended for doing ‘Something Very Wrong’. The use of capital letters provides the impression the act determined must have a thing very serious, and also describes the angered possible vocal tone that the educator may have got used once admonishing him. However the next line contrasts sharply with these thoughts by expressing – ‘(I forget what was)’.

The punishment provided by the teacher is to generate him live in the ‘schoolroom till half-past two’. Nevertheless , the words ‘half-past two’ happen to be meaningless for the boy since ‘She hadn’t taught him Time’, and he was as well scared to remind her of that. The boy is often respectful towards teacher, and their social difference is high by the capital letter at the start of the word ‘She’. The educator is regarded as a god-like figure to the boy, that has no electricity or say in any of her imperatives. The unlucky boy does not have any comprehension of time and therefore ‘half-past two’ can be double-dutch to him.

The boy’s definition of time comes from aspects of his own family existence – ‘Timeformykisstime’, ‘Gettinguptime’ and ‘TVtime’. The child, although not pre-linguistic, is not practiced inside the use of standard time and consequently must make use of time simply by thinking of things connected with that. His compound ‘time-words’ reveals his inability to affiliate with the ‘alien’ abstract period that the adults in his environment repeatedly employ. As a result, he does not understand when it is coming back him to leave the schoolroom to return home. This kind of causes him to ignore that time is available, and he begins to dream of the ‘smell of old chrysanthemums’ and ‘the atmosphere outside the window’.

This is a standard example of an epiphany, the place that the boy becomes unimpeded by the constraints of your time, shown by the use of the words ‘into ever. ‘ He is liberated by the bounds of time for any short although, that is until his shocked teacher comes back to find him still generally there. The instructor is a lot apologetic and tells him that he can go home. The ensuing stanza is just about the most important – ‘And this individual never did not remember how when by being unsure of time/He escaped into the clockless land of ever/ In which time covers tick-less holding out to be born.

A feeling of reminiscence is shown by the use of what ‘he hardly ever forgot. ‘ The stopping is particularly yes, definitely as it displays the pleasure felt by the boy since his creativeness runs crazy and this individual eludes period into the ‘clockless land of ever. ‘ The most pertinent theme discovered in ‘Half-past Two’ is that of time, plus the way that governs existence. The composition is articulates the adversities of time and contrasts this with the freedom and happiness experienced by boy when he was free of time. The cruel aspect is that almost all human beings at some point run out of the time; we get outdated, lonely and eventually die because of time.

Remoteness is a major theme inside both poetry because it influences both males concerned in a different but dominant way. The child in ‘Hide and Seek’ is purposefully forgotten and is still left alone to his individual senses: ‘floor is cold’. Isolation is actually a key element in ‘Half-past two’ because the child in question is definitely forgotten regarding in detention and this individual begins to reverie in his individual world.

It is a more powerful theme in ‘Hide and Seek’ because of the harsh mother nature in which the young man is deserted. One of the most foremost similarities in themes between two poetry is that they equally concentrate greatly on better social makes. This is found by the use of the words ‘She’ in ‘Half-past two’ and ‘They’ in ‘Hide and Seek’. The boy in ‘Half-past two’ is very controlled by simply his authoritative teacher; and one may argue that the ‘prowling’ and ‘whispering’ are quite harmful thus causing the son to hide due to his fear of society, not merely because he is playing a game. Period is a identical theme looked into in the two poems, nevertheless more so in ‘Half-past two’.

In ‘Hide and Seek’, time figuratively, metaphorically passes to demonstrate the move of companionship to isolation; and ‘Hide and Seek’ discusses how the world can be restrained by the limits of the time.