Themes of Loss and Innocence in Blackberry Picking by Seamus Heaney and in The Park by Gwen Harwood

Poems Blackberry Picking by Seamus Heaney and In the Park by Gwen Harwood explore themes of loss and innocence. Heaney and Harwood both focus on the idea and themes of youth going into adulthood, from an innocent child or a time in their youth where they perceived life with hope and high expectations until adulthood that shows its harsh realities and disappointment. Both poets use symbolism to explore themes of loss of innocence, showing contrast between youth and growing up from being happy and young to being disappointed. Both poets use a negative tone in their poems and they use imagery and similes to describe and explore the passing of time. Heaney uses imagery and change of negative tone to describe how the black berries overtime became a “fur, a rat-grey fungus" to show the audience the change of mood and the sight that Heaney saw. While the first stanza Heaney uses sensuous imagery and a more positive tone to describe this type of stanza, he uses techniques like similes to explore taste and smell “"sweet like thickened wine" Heaney describes the blackberries before they became rotten. Harwood uses passing time for her poem, she uses imagery like “flickering lights” to describe passing of time.

‘In The Park’ it has themes of young-motherhood Harwood uses symbolism to show the reader how the man’s life and woman’s life are represented. When the woman goes to the park she meets her ex and realises how different their lives have become and the opposite paths they took. Harwood describes how the woman does not have time to look after herself “her clothes are out of date” symbolically meaning she wears the same old clothes and her life is extremely focused on her children she has no time to buy anything new. The man is mentioned to have a “neat head” meaning he has a trendy neat haircut and symbolically shows that he has all the time and money to care for him. Harwood describes how he is so blessed to have moved on and not be with the women and her three children or he would have ended up like her. In blackberry picking, Heaney uses symbolism in the blackberries, the fresh blackberries is a symbol that is mentioned in the first stanza where the berries are beautiful, sweet and fresh which can contrast with youth, hope and high expectations in life. Then in the next stanza has the symbolism of rotten blackberries where the blackberries become “a fur, A rat-grey fungus, glutting on our cache” and the blackberries became fermented and gross, can symbolize and contrast with aging, the harsh reality, and beauty fading away making the mother more of an empathetic character to the audience.

All in all both poets use symbols and themes to connect with the idea of youth and high expectations that become faced with aging, growing up and disappointment and themes of loss is shown when hopes, happiness and dreams become crushed.