contrast Hide and Seek With Piano

Anjoom Ali Faizal

Compare and contrast Hide and Seek with Piano. The poems structure shows the pace of it and the tense of when it has been written. Piano has three stanzas- the first in present day, the second in the past and the last back in the present day. While Hide and Seek has only one big stanza with a plethora of enjambment, this gives the effect of one big flow of thought. The pace shown in the poems seems to be quick, maybe because the poet wants to show that life is quick and short. In the other hand Piano seems more slowly paced due to three stanzas and resembles the title “Piano” which means softly in musical terminology. Also the poem has a powerful rhyming couplet that resembles one of a song, and also relates to how music is really powerful- in the poem, the voice seems to be breaking down into tears by something like music. The complexity of the language shows the maturity maturity and age of the voices in the poems. In Piano, the language seems seems to be more complex by using musical terminology such as “appassionato”. But also within the poem itself the language changes as the voice has flashbacks. When the poet has a flashback to his younger days, he uses words like “boom” and “tingling”. “tingling”. The contrast between the types of language in the poem also relates to the power of music, as it has changed the poets style of language. Similarly, the language in Hide and Seek is also child-like as the poet uses similes that compare the smell to the “seaside”. But “seaside”. But also the poem contains a range of imperative verbs verbs such as: Don’t breathe. Don’t move. Stay Dumb. Hide in your blindness. The commanding language language here is like as if the voice is trying to convey to the readers that to be in a safe place- in this case the hiding spot- you must be strict in you r actions and should not be slacking off. In the same line in Hide and Seek there seems to be quite a bit of “d” sounds“d” sounds- “Don’t…Don’t… dumb”. This sound almost resembles the sound of a heartbeat, and could show the child being inside the mother’s womb and the protectiveness that the child is trying to achieve with the sacks in the tool shed. The image of protectiveness provided a mother’s womb is further explored in Piano. In Piano, Lawrence described being under his his piano, seeming like he’s hiding like Scannell in the shed except here Lawrence is not alone. Whilst his mother is playing the piano which makes a “boom” noisenoise- relating back to the heartbeat- the poet is “pressing the small, poised feet” of his mother and mother and almost seems like he worships her, giving a religious religious allusion of the perfect Madonna and child sort of image, and the poet longs to go back to those days as a sense of nostalgia is given by the stanza. The poet describes how he  just wants to belong to to someone like his mother, and says “…. Till the heart of me weeps to belong”. D.H. Lawrence probably feels like this because he had been voluntarily exiled from Britain and so basically did not belong to his own country and had to travel to places in order to live.

Anjoom Ali Faizal

The meaning of Hide and Seek is: in reality there no one there to help you. This is shown by the cliffhanger type question in the end of the poem which is “Yes, here you are. But where are they who sought you?” This shows the pathetic pathetic reality reality of of life which is that in your life you r actually alone, and such a dark meaning for a poem which was supposed to be about a game played by little children emphasizes this dark message even more. more. Whereas in Piano the message is that it is a sense of belonging belonging that is the real protection, whether it being in the womb or the “Sunday evenings at home”. So while Hide and seek is about loneliness, Piano Piano is the opposite and is about being with other people and having that sense of belonging. The effect given by Piano Pi ano is that I feel sympathy for Lawrence as I can’t relate to his situation so it becomes more interesting to me. On the other hand the effect for Hide and Seek is that I understand the feeling of loneliness and therefore can e relate to the emotion but I don’t feel as much sympathy for Scannell as I do for Lawrence because of the fact that he had also cried in his poem.