Analysis of Enter Without so Much as Knocking

Enter Without So Much as Knocking What is the poem about? The Poem follows the journey of a man’s life from birth into society to death. It shows how he and his family conform to society as becomes just like everybody else taking a critical view of modern day society. The signs throughout the poem indicate that we, as humans, are told how to live. Beginning with the birth of the child in the hospital, comes home to hear Bobby Dazzler on the TV, where the baby is seen as lucky because he doesn’t understand what he is saying doesn’t mean anything to him. As a young child it is shown how he and his family conformed to be like every other family. As a young boy his mum won some money where the family was able to buy the typical ‘Australian’ station wagon. Going into young adult hood he changes from being optimistic to becoming just like everybody else and losing his individuality, greedy for money only thinking about himself. By death he is seen to have been an untrustworthy and selfish man. They try to give his body an identity “adding a healthy tan he’d never had” What is the poet trying to say? The main idea of the poem is Memento, homo, quia pulvis, et in pulverem reverteris… Remember man that thoughart dust and unto dust that shall return. The poet is trying to say that it doesn’t matter how many consumer items and materialistic things you buy, everybody ends up the same way, back to dust again. He is trying to say that the world is run buy consumerism which has lead to conformity and taken away the individuality of many people. The conformity is shown in stanza three through the signs which we all live by. Bruce Dawe highlights that humans seem to destroy and change everything they can get their hands on, but they have been unable to change the stars, or had gotten around to fixing them yet. Dawe shows that as we change from childhood to adulthood our views on the world and society change, we become more greedy, selfish and most people only care about themselves