Piano and Half Past Two

Half Past Two, Piano and Refugee Mother and Child share a common theme of childhood. In Half Past Two, the author talks about remembers about the feeling of simplicity and timelessness during his childhood. In Piano, the poet expresses his feelings towards the loss of childhood in comparison to his present. In Refugee Mother and Child talks about the loss of a child and the misery they all have to go through.
In Half Past Two, by U.A. Fanthorpe, we are taken into the past from the very start with the use of “Once upon a time”. The first line of the opening stanza displays the poem as if the author is looking down upon it like a memory. Her use of “Once upon a time” shows a distinct relationship to childhood and a child’s fascination for fairy tale stories. This illustrates how much of a fantasy a child’s life is and how simplistic it is. It also shows that their life is perfect like a fairy tale. Fanthorpe uses a child’s relationship to fairy tale well because fairy tales are very unrealistic. This relates to children well because they are unaware of the outside world, like a fairy tale.
Fanthorpe uses very simplistic language in her poem which relates to the simplicity of childhood for a young child. Another thing Fanthorpe utilizes to show how this story relates to childhood is rhyme. This is because rhymes are more likely to be written by a child. Since there is no rhyme scheme to the poem it creates a sense of disorganization which relates well to the life of a young child. Fanthorpe uses run on words, such as “Gettinguptime”, to show that children take everything at face value rather than understanding/comprehending it. Fanthorpe also shows that simplicity doesnt just reside in childhood but in the mind of the child as well, through the use of run on words.
However, Fanthorpe doesn’t incorporate any other important literary devices such as alliteration, similes or metaphors in her text which