In literature home is rarely portrayed as a place of perfect happiness. Compare and contrast this for ‘The House’ and ‘The New House’.
I believe that the poem ‘The New House’ by Edward Thomas is about a person, most likely the poet due to the first person narrative that has moved into a new house. However, we can see from the language used in the poem that he does not like the house, and it constantly disappoints him. Robert Minhinnick’s poem ‘The House’, is, in my opinion, about a man in the loft of his home trying to fix the electrics, realising that the house owns him, rather than vice versa as you’d expect. Both of these poems certainly do not portray happiness through their meanings, and rather give the houses negative connotations. I believe this would have a shock effect on the reader, who would expect poems about people’s houses to have a happy theme.
The structure of ‘The House’ is that of five stanzas all of equal length and line length, which I believe represents the tediousness of the house, which is obviously a word associated with something of ‘perfect happiness’. In addition to this, the poem also shows lots of links to conflict, using language that has connotations to war, such as ‘warfare’ and ‘territory’. This is no different in the structure of the poem, and it could be said that the identical stanzas represents the electricity off and on, and similarly to this, the poems rough iambic pentameter is rough like the houses electricity flow. I believe that it’d be difficult for a reader to understand the significance of this poems structure because it’s not something you notice at first glance, however once they get to grips with it they’d realise that the structure itself tells a story.
In comparison, ‘The New House’ has a mixture of line lengths, with them alternating from short to long each line. I believe that the fact there is short then long lines represents the ups and downs of life within the house for the individual featured in the poem. Adding to this, the longest line of the poem ends with “without end”. I believe that Thomas done this intentionally in order to show to show that the ups and downs will never end and that is just a fact of life. Finally, ‘The New House’ has an ABCB rhyming structure which is ever present throughout each stanza. I believe this also represents that the house will always be the same old each day and will never change, purely because it is made merely of bricks and water, therefore has no human-like persona/mind, like that of ‘The House’.
The first noticeable bit of language in both poems is their titles. Both feature the word ‘House’, therefore it is no surprise that both poems are presented without ‘perfect happiness’! Both are poems are in first person narrative, therefore will be presented from the point of view of the poet. I believe that if they saw the house as perfect, then they’d describe it as a ‘home’ rather than just a house as a home is more personal and is to our own tastes therefore has the possibility of being perfect for both Minhinnick and Thomas. As already noted, Minhinnick’s ‘The House’ often uses language that is usually associated with warfare. I believe that this is to show the fight during the poem of the man fighting against the age of the house to see who owns who. This can be seen through the line, “myself against its fifty years”. This a clear use of personification, giving the house the ability to be able to fight. In addition to this, the line does not seem to show much confidence in himself and Minhinnick seems to have accepted the fact that he is going to lose the fight. This can be seen through the fact he gives no description of himself, where as we learn something else about the house – it was built 50 years ago. At the end of the poem Minhinnick seemingly admits defeat by saying ‘the house has swallowed me.’ Not only is this another example of personification from the poet, it is also an extended metaphor. Throughout the poem Minhinnick is discussing past tenants that have been consumed by the house and eventually died there, and it could be said that the length of the poem is him going through his time at the house, only to eventually accept his fate at the end of the poem and die. This is because he describes himself as having been ‘swallowed’, which is a term where there is no turning back from and nothing else to come; that is it – the end.
‘The New House’ often uses language that has negative and unhappy connotations such as “moan” and “dread”. This certainly does not help in presenting a theme of ‘perfect happiness’, and rather gives the impression that Thomas does not like the house.