When someone with a firm set of beliefs is faced with change, the experience can be very painful. Forced to confront a new truth, they lose their sense of security. But it is said that change is the great human 'myth' of self- transcendence. It means we can connect with ourselves in a deeper way, experience ourselves as part of something far greater, and step into the whole flow of life. Thus, change is often painful, but necessary.
Just ask the young girl from "father and child". Trapped in her childhood innocence, she believed death "clean and final". Using highly narrative fast and confident language like "Daybreak; I rose; I crept out with my father's gun- we see her single mindedness. She is so sure that what she believes is true, she shoots a half-blind owl in defiance of her "old no-sayer" father, and then sees death for what it really is. Complicated, messy, painful. The owl "dropped and dribbled", tangled in its internal organs. This use graphic imagery and alliteration depict death as a .
tragedy of prolonged pain. This shatters her belief and outlook of the world. She realizes her naivety as she cries in her father's arms, "owl-blind in early sun". But, 40 years later in "nightfall", through more serene, descriptive language, we see the necessity of her experience. She demonstrates ripe knowledge about the inevitability of death, knowing it's something that "no words, no tears can mend." Her father, to her once an enemy unwilling to let her see the world, is now an "old king", whose "night and day are one". Thus although growing up was painful, she learns truth, matures and appreciates her father because of it.
This theory where a whole system of belief comes tumbling down, is also evident in "Prize-giving". Here, professor Eisenbart, trapped in his own ego of scientific knowledge, starts a proud, pompous and complacent man. With enjambment creating the natural sounding language of this poem, his vainness flows on.
