Compare how difficult relationships are portrayed by Simon Armitage in 'Harmonium' and James Fenton in 'In Paris with You'
In both “Harmonium” and “In Paris with you”, a difficult relationship is portrayed though Armitage and Fenton write of two different kinds of relationships, the reader has no problem detecting the difficult relationship.
One of the very first things we see in “In Paris with You” is the speakers inability to say the words ‘I’m in love you’, frequently he says “I’m in Paris with you” as a replacement, using the city that is associated with love and romance instead. Perhaps Fenton is trying to portray that the speaker was hurt through a relationship in the past which is not allowing him to say the word “love” due to a painful association. The only times the speaker ever mentions “love” is with negative connotations, he says “do not talk to me of love. Let’s talk of Paris”, “love” is portrayed in a bad light showing once again that the speaker may have had a less than comfortable encounter with it before. The speaker is likely speaking to a woman and asking for a relationship, and though we never see a response the difficulty of the situation can be seen as the speaker is obviously still in love with his previous lover, still “getting tearful” after “a drink or two”. A similar trait of omission can be seen in Harmonium, though far less subtle, at the end of the poem. The speaker’s father has only just mentioned that the next box the speaker shoulders will “bear the freight of his own dead weight”. However the speaker doesn’t seem to be able to form a reply, “too starved of breath to make itself hear” The relationship between father and son is not shown by Armitage as very open, though a close bond is implied through the Harmonium, the speaker is unable to express his true emotions in this situation suggesting that their relationship may be distant in terms of empathy.
There is an air of reminiscence in the poem, especially in phrases like “for a hundred years” or “where father and son,/ each in their time”, the father and son hold a shared interest in the “Farrand
One of the very first things we see in “In Paris with You” is the speakers inability to say the words ‘I’m in love you’, frequently he says “I’m in Paris with you” as a replacement, using the city that is associated with love and romance instead. Perhaps Fenton is trying to portray that the speaker was hurt through a relationship in the past which is not allowing him to say the word “love” due to a painful association. The only times the speaker ever mentions “love” is with negative connotations, he says “do not talk to me of love. Let’s talk of Paris”, “love” is portrayed in a bad light showing once again that the speaker may have had a less than comfortable encounter with it before. The speaker is likely speaking to a woman and asking for a relationship, and though we never see a response the difficulty of the situation can be seen as the speaker is obviously still in love with his previous lover, still “getting tearful” after “a drink or two”. A similar trait of omission can be seen in Harmonium, though far less subtle, at the end of the poem. The speaker’s father has only just mentioned that the next box the speaker shoulders will “bear the freight of his own dead weight”. However the speaker doesn’t seem to be able to form a reply, “too starved of breath to make itself hear” The relationship between father and son is not shown by Armitage as very open, though a close bond is implied through the Harmonium, the speaker is unable to express his true emotions in this situation suggesting that their relationship may be distant in terms of empathy.
There is an air of reminiscence in the poem, especially in phrases like “for a hundred years” or “where father and son,/ each in their time”, the father and son hold a shared interest in the “Farrand