Is there a Critical analysis of Walking Away by C Day Lewis?

Answer 1

In addition to the analysis offered below, here is a comprehensive document on this poem: http://imaad.info/Imaad_Isaacs_Foundation/BTG_-_Grade_12_English_Resources_files/Refugee%20Mother%20and%20Child%20(TTC).pdf

C. Day Lewis wrote this poem about his eldest son Sean (bother of famous actor Daniel Day Lewis)

His father reminisces his boys childhood at the time that his son is leaving home and becoming a man.

He starts out by using the image of changing leaves, which are a reference to change, literally change in season but in this instance, life is changing. He recalls his son play school football. He using the image of a satellite, like the moon orbiting around its parent planet. In the same way that the earth is the centre of the moons existence, so too is the poet the centre of his boys existence - but this is changing. He uses the phrase wrenched from orbit - this emphasises the impact that his son moving away from him is having. And like an object in space that drifts away, so to, is his son as he moves away from the poet - drifting away.

Dictionary.com defines Pathos as "the quality or power in an actual life experience".

As the poet describes his son walking away, which is both literal and metaphorical, he uses this word 'pathos' to highlight that his son lacks life experiences. This lack of experience, makes the poet anxious. He describes his son as 'half fledged' - a term that makes reference to a bird that is learning to fly, this process of learning to fly, sometimes takes trial and error, into a wild (and dangerous) world. This is the source of the poet's anxiety, he obviously loves his son and wants no harm to come to him.

He describes the life of his son as a path, and his 'gait' or style of walking, is his way of life and must find his way.

The poet describes his son as a hesitant figure, that is to say his son is as yet, unsure of himself. The use of the term eddying away links up with his simile of an acacia seek. An eddy is a small spiral wind or whirlpool that may moves with the current downstream, this is the same type of movement made by the spiralling fall of an acacia seed as it drifts with the wind as it moves away from its parent tree. This metaphor is significant, as this seek, if it is able to establish itself, will germinate and itself become an established tree, bearing seed of its own. The reference to a man moving from his parents and starting his own life and eventually growing his family, should be obvious.

Nature give and take refers to life and death, joy and sadness, giving and taking, all of which forms part of natures process. To these events, we as humans, attached our characteristic emotion and intelligence, the poet says that he has never been able to come to grips with this enough to explain. He describes this as a kiln in which clay is fired. He implies that these painful experiences in life make one stronger just as a kiln makes clay stronger. The scorching, will burn impurities from the clay, just as these experiences, of his son moving on to this own life, will remove his father's doubt about his son's abilities to 'find his own path'.

In a man's life there are many 'ordeals' he will face. He will see the death of friends/family, he will have lost the love of another and various other experiences. Yet the poet says although these possible experiences are worse, his sons 'walking away' gnaws at his mind. Gnawing is slow, it is drawn out and it is ceaseless.

The poets says that his sons 'selfhood' - or developing of his own self - is achieve by his 'walking away' which is to say, pursuing his own life, gaining his own experiences, making his own mistakes and gaining his own wisdom.

The poet concludes by saying that his love for his son is proved by allowing him to pursue selfhood.

Llewellyn Teacher