The poem, Testing Reality, by Tony Harrison talks about the difficulty a child has to accept his mother’s death and the importance of a mother in a child’s life. The mayor themes the poet talks about are death and the feeling of abandonment. Through the poem we can see how the poet was deeply affected by the unfortunate event and how he considers it as abandonment. The resentment he feels towards his mother’s death had a great impact upon his life and expressing it seems to be the main purpose of this poem. These two themes, death and abandonment, are shown with techniques such as the tone, the alliterations, allegories, the symbols and the rhythm in it. With the use of these methods the poet expresses the sadness and hard times in his life after his mother left him. Through the poem, the poet suggests that a mother is essential in a child’s life.
The characters in the poem are the narrator, his dead mother and the birds. Each one of these few characters has an important role in it. The narrator is the child that lost his mother when she was seventy years old. Even though the narrator was not a child anymore when his mom past away he reacts as one. He feels grateful for all the teaching his mother gave him while being alive but feels abandoned in a ways. His hard time accepting death makes him look childish and immature. The death mother in the poem represents the role they have upon a child’s life. The entire poem is about her death and the meaning of it. When she dies the narrator realizes he is now alone and it is his turn to become the parent. The death of his mother made him understand that he is no longer “the child”. The birds have an important role in the poem as well. They represent the theme of abandonment. When the narrator sees them fly away from the church’s roof he feels it was his mother leaving him. These three characters build the mayor themes in the poem.
The literal action in the poem is the narrator watching birds fly away from a church’s rooftop. The church is located in a town called Beeston, a town in Nottinghamshire, England. All this action is an allegory of his mother’s death and his feelings of abandonment. An allegory is a good technique to express his feelings in a more poetic rather than direct way. It is a subtle manner to make us understand what his mother’s death meant to him. This hidden message the poet expects us to find makes the poem more interesting and beautiful. The birds represent life and how it is in its nature to end. The death of a seventy-year-old woman is expected because she is an old woman. It is in nature to die around that age and this is represented with the birds.
The author uses a childish style along the poem to give emphasis on the theme of abandonment. He uses the childish style to recognize that his feelings can be considered childish. This style is shown when he writes “20” or “10,000” in numbers instead of using the words. This is the way a child would have written it. Also, due to the fact that the poem is mainly about death the style is also serious and sorrowful. After reading it you can clearly sense it is not a joyful poem, in fact it is a sad poem. The style is very important because it represents the child we all have inside. Even though we are grownups we still have childish feelings and dependency on other people, in this case mothers.
Also an important matter the poem talks about and questions is reality. The ways human beings accept it and deal with it. “Testing the reality” can be considered as challenging it. Instead of being afraid of death we have to learn to live with it. The poem suggests the author believes in after life. This is shown by the sunrise he talks about. We can come to the conclusion that he is starting to realize that death is just a new beginning because a sunrise represents one. It not only shows his acceptance of reality, but also the way his handling the cruel reality he faced when his mom “flew away”.
The last stanza in the poem can be considered one of the most important ones. It is the stanza that marks the change from the childish style to a more mature one. The rhyme scheme in the last stanza is perfect, 10 syllables each verse representing the stability the narrator has gained. This stability in when he learns to accept his mother’s death. He becomes again a man and leaves the childish feelings behind. The poet uses this method to make us realize that accepting death may be hard but not impossible and sooner or later we have to do it.
After reading the poem we can come to the conclusion thatfacing reality can be extremely difficult. Death is one of the few things as human beings we cant escape from and we are destined to face. The poem suggests that when someone dies it’s the ones that are still alive the ones that suffer, and the ones that die have the opportunity to start a new life. Through the poem we can see how the author attitude changes. At first his like a child and at the end we can see he reaches stability. We can see how he matures and learns to appreciate the times when his mother was alive. He recognizes everything he knows thanks to her. Testing the Reality is a beautiful poem that shows us the importance of a mother in life at the same time it talks about the reality we face as humans in a lifetime.
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