Theme of Death as Explored in Crabbit Old Woman, Remember,...

In the three poems Crabbit Old Woman, Remember, and Refugee Mother and Child, the similar theme is death. Remember is a sonnet by Christina Rossetti, which goes into the thoughts of a dying woman imploring her lover to forever remember her, only to change her mind after the volta. Phyllis McCormack’s Crabbit Old Woman tells of an old lady’s opinion on her nurses’ perception of her. Refugee Mother and Child, written by Chinua Achebe, is an emotive poem which depicts a mother’s unwavering devotion towards her dying son. In Remember, there is heavy repetition of the word ‘remember’. This emphasizes the main objective of the poem, which was to tell the narrator’s partner to never forget her. The first ‘Remember me’, is almost like an order,†¦show more content†¦The reader’s sight, smell and touch senses are provoked as they read through the stanza. The imagery suggests that the children are almost skeleton-like, which the reader can depict. Undoubtedly, the reader who find these pictures repulsive, which is the intended effect. There is an emphasis on the word ‘wash’, which the narrator does to stress that the children have poor cleanliness.Achebe holds nothing back and is intentionally grim, as he wants the reader to have a realistic view on the reality of the children’s conditions. This rouses emotion from the reader. The repetitive use of the word ‘ghost’ has connotations of death, which shows that what was once a smile is now gone. It also hints at the fact that the boy is dead. The mention of the mother’s ‘pride’ and ‘singing in her eyes’ reflects greatly on her heartening and positive attitude, even though she is in the toughest of circumstances. Even though her son barely has any hair left, she still shows affection, combing through it tenderly. This causes the reader to admire her, and her unconditional love towards her son, hence the comparison with Madonna and Jesus. The fact that he is the one with ‘rust-coloured hair’ connotes that his health was deteriorating, like the effect of rust. The final simile has a devastating effect, as Achebe compares the son’s previous usual routine of breakfast and school to his mother’s new routine of ‘putting flowers on a tiny grave’. The word ‘tiny’ displays the fact that