The poem "Walking Away" by Cecil Day Lewis was written for his son Sean. The author uses strong imagery and symbolism throughout the poem to relate with his son leaving home and going out on his own. Thru these images and icons the reader can understand the issue he, as a dad, is having with enabling go.
This poem opens with a daddy remembering again on his son's child years, "It really is eighteen years back, almost to the day-"(1), that his child is giving home and entering the world exclusively. The father starts by looking back again on "a sunshiney day with the leaves just turning, " (2) making the audience think of the changing seasons. The change of times symbolizes the beginning of change in their lives, both residing in the world without the other. Lewis paints the picture of "a satellite television / Wrenched from its orbit, go drifting away. " (4-5). The image of any satellite's orbit, like a satellite orbiting the Earth, helps illustrate the way the father feels about the partnership with his son. Just as a satellite knows only its orbit, the daddy is aware that his child only recognizes life with his daddy. When Lewis discusses being wrenched out of orbit, he's discussing the jolt of recognizing that his boy is leaving home. The very last area of the first stanza discussions about how exactly something extracted from its orbit will drift apart, the daddy is talking about his son going out by himself and the fear of his child growing distant.
The second stanza opens as the father pieces as his boy walk away toward university. The author's words: "Along with the pathos of the half-fledged thing set free / Into a wilderness, " (8-9) and the utilization of the term pathos allows the audience to visualize two different thoughts as the daddy watches his kid. The first being a feeling of compassion or sorrow that as he pieces his kid walking away the father problems that his child does not have any life experience. The other image is that of a father watching his boy calls for steps toward growing up and learning the lessons only life can show. The father message or calls his boy "a half-fledged thing establish free" (8) which pulls on the images of birds and other pets or animals forcing offspring out in to the wilderness to learn independently. In this case the wilderness is the school that the young man is going to. "The gait of 1 / Who discovers no path where the route should be. (9-10)", the writer discusses a path which symbolizes his son's life and uses the word 'gait', or a way of walking, to describe the way his kid will start his life. The first type of that estimate symbolizes his child being by himself, having his own life-style, and indicates that the father and son no longer walk life in the same way. When the author talks about not finding a path that should be there, he symbolizes his sons makes an attempt to get the same course that he and his father shared for such a long time. It really is this lines that models the son to locating his own course in life to have the way he decides.
As the 3rd stanza starts, "That hesitant physique, " (11), the daddy sees an doubtful boy looking for his own way. "Eddying away / Just like a winged seed loosened from its mother or father stem, "(11-12) this simile draws images of any wind flow that loosens dandelion seeds which have matured and bears them away to develop into their herb and bear their own seed products. The next couple of lines all interact surrounding the same idea but if u break them up you get an improved image of what the writer or father is trying to say, "Has something I never quite understanding to convey / About nature's give-and-take"(13-14). These lines speak about how the father recognizes or sees something in his kid that gives him desire. He admits that he was never in a position to understand the give and take of dynamics. He was never able to explain the pros and cons, or highs and lows of life or even to deal with these to his son. But the creators wording makes one suppose even with all the stress and uneasiness the father feels about enabling his boy go, he seems he is ready. The very last bit of this stanza talks about, "the small, the scorching / Ordeals which flames one's irresolute clay. "(14-15) which symbolizes the harshness of life and the pain of future what to come as his son detects his own path. But the creator knows that though these experiences will be hard on his child, he also has learned these things will also make him more robust, this knowledge allows the father to check out his son departing and thus sensing more secure that he'll find his way.
"I have experienced worse partings, but nothing that so / Gnaws within my head. "(16-17) symbolizes the thoughts of the daddy as he's making go of his boy. He's possessed worse goodbyes and had to lost people before that he needed very hard, but none of those things have ever before bothered him just as much as letting his boy go. The very last lines of this poem are most likely this most important, "How selfhood starts with a walking away, / And love is proves in the allowing go. "(19-20), these lines sum up this poem at its core note. The only way to find your own path in life is if you walk away, from the safe practices and cover of your parents. The final line is the most crucial because the daddy finally realizes that for him to seriously overcome his son heading away he must let him go. In that act he will have the ability to show his boy how much he truly adores him and that he has faith his kid will figure out how to find his own course in life.
