A relationship is an emotional connection to someone involving an interaction between two or more people. There are many types of relationships, some functional and others far from being workable. I will demonstrate this through my texts of; Little Fugue, and Morning Song both poems written by Sylvia Plath; the movie, Love Actually; and the book, Trickster’s Choice by Tamora Pierce.
Little Fugue by Sylvia Plath is my first example of how we all perceive our different relationships. This poem is about Plath talking of her father and herself and the lack of communication between the two.Throughout the poem, Plath contradicts herself, saying, ‘I was seven, I knew nothing’ yet she constantly talks of the past, remembering. Her tone is very dark and imposing, she uses many images of blindness, deafness and a severe lack of communication, ‘So the deaf and dumb/signal the blind, and are ignored’. Her use of enjambment shows her feelings and pain in some places, in other places it covers up her emotional state.
She talks of her father being a German, a Nazi. Whilst her father may have originated from Germany, he was in no way a Nazi, or a fascist.He was a simple man who made sausages. ‘Lopping the sausages! ’ However she used this against her father, who died when she was but eight, saying that she still had night mares, ‘They color1 my sleep,’ she also brings her father’s supposed Nazism up again, ‘Red, mottled, like cut necks.
/There was a silence! ’. Plath also talks of her father being somewhat of a general in the militia, ‘A yew hedge of orders,’ also with this image she brings back her supposed vulnerability as a child, talking as if her father was going to send her away, ‘I am guilty of nothing. For all her claims of being vulnerable and innocent, she uses many images of Nazism and gore and images of murder, crimes and blackness. On top of her previous images of blindness, deafness and communication, or lack thereof. This poem has shown me that not all relationships work, not everyone can run to their daddy.
Not every father has those skills to be able to talk to their children on a personal level. Trickster’s Choice by Tamora Pierce is similar in the respect that the main character, Alianne, or Aly, has little to no communication with one of her parents.However, in this case it is with the mother, Alanna. Aly is the daughter of the fearsome ‘Alanna of Pirate’s Swoop and Barony Olau, Kings Champion’ and George of Pirate’s Swoop, the Spymaster of Tortall. When her mother returns home from war, Aly and Alanna argue.
Aly, dreading spending time with her mother when all Alanna wants is to make her daughter more like her, takes out her small boat and decides to visit friends of hers down the coast. On the way, she is caught by pirates, who take her to a slave port in Rajmuat, on the island of Kypriang, capital of the Copper Isles.There, she is bought by a family whom she lives with for years following. Aly is also approached by a god, asking her to help his island, help him to rid it of the rule of the white people and bring it back to the original people, the Kypriangs, she does this through the family who bought her, the Balitangs.
Aly’s relationships with the Balitangs changes dramatically. She isn’t liked by any of the men or the Nobles, until she speaks up and saves their lives, ‘…we hear silence in the woods, and we arm up. She also reminds them of the gods message to them, the god is Kyprioth, however when he spoke to the Balitangs, he was posing as his brother, Mithros, so they believe her to be ‘chosen’ by a god higher than is reality. They listen to her, putting on a show, and sure enough, a group of bandits ambush them.
After that, Aly’s relationship with the family changed somewhat. The Duke and Duchess began to trust her more, allowing her more liberties than any other slave. Her acts changed the Balitang’s views on her greatlyThey begin to trust her to the extent that they asked her to remove the slave collar and become a maid, Aly declined. ‘Nobody questions a slave.
’ Aly also develops relationships with other people. The daughter’s of the Grace’s, Dovasary and Sarai, and with a man who was once a crow, Nawat. As a crow, he was always fascinated by humans, Aly in particular. So using a special brand of innate magic, Nawat changed himself to human form. A crow’s perception of relationships is very different from a human's. Nawat sees Aly as a potential ‘mate’.
The relationship between the two was rocky and awkward at first, with Nawat trying to feed her with his own mouth and Aly resisting, confusing the poor birdman. However, slowly, Nawat’s vision changed, becoming more human than crow, slowly. Towards the end of the book, Aly is reunited with her father, who managed to find her through his spy system in Corus2 and Rajmuat. She decides to stay even though she hasn’t seen her family in months, even though she knew it was going to leave her mother and father heartbroken and pining for her return.Her views had changed from the daughter of a spy to a spy herself. This has taught me about resilience and that not all people are what you think.
There is a strong strain of racism within the Luarin (white) forces, against the Raka (natives). However, throughout the book the Luarin’s views towards the Raka changed somewhat in the way that they were actually seen as human, previously they were seen as ‘Raka dogs’. Aly’s relationships with her mother changed in her absence, as Plath and her father never did. As a contrast to Little Fugue, Morning Song is a comepletely different view from Sylvia’s eyes.
It also has connections with Aly’s aunt, Veralidaine Sarrasri, she had a daughter whilst Aly was in Kypriang. Morning Song is a balance of a mother’s love her newborn child and the darker side of life that such an event brings attention to, such as death, and an overwhelming sense of not knowing how to look after such a small and dependant creature. The poem swings between a sweet sentimentality and the dark feelings of postnatal depression. The first line starts of the Plath’s shrewd view on love, ‘Love set you going like a fat gold watch’.From the beginning Plath seemed to see the baby as something totally different to herself, almost inhuman.
She uses the child’s ‘bald cry’ to symbolise the child’s coming into the world. She brings back the inhumanness of the child in the way that the ‘bald cry’ takes its place ‘among the elements’. This also suggests another contrast with the mother as elements must be pure and indivisible. Purity, like the child’s cry, is the simplicity of feeling and instinct, a feat impossible for humans to accomplish.
Plath contradicts herself yet again by saying that, ‘Our voices echo, magnifying your arrival’.Even so, the child is referred to as a ‘statue’, yet another inhuman an obsolete thing. Plath’s child may be beautiful and valuable, but it is an object, not yet human. She addresses her child with the words, ‘I am no more your mother/Than the cloud…’ This seems to be as though Plath truly believes her and the child to have little to no connection other than the fact that Plath had carried it for nine months. Despite the newborn’s vulnerability and utter dependence, the mother and the child are separate, different.Progressing from watch to statue, to a moth, ‘Flickers among the flat, pink roses.
’ Despite the smallness of the child, the ‘moth-breath’ causes a ‘far sea’ to be hard in the mother’s ear. For all her claims of her child being an alien, she still stumbles from bed ‘cow heavy’ at a single cry from the child. Morning Song is literally the cry of a baby, as it calls for it’s mother. The relationship between mother and child is strong although Plath seems to view her child as something totally unchildlike. She doesn’t seem to be able to connect with her child in any way.
