Analysis of Robert Graves Warning to Children :: essays research papers

The poet George Santayana once said, The subject involvement of guile is invigoration, animation as it very is, but the function of device is to make life better. Robert Graves rime Warning to Children proves any aspect of Santayanas quote. Warning to Children speaks of the wondrous, diverse aspects of our lives and our temptations prevents us from experiencing these aspects. Finally, the poem gives readers a warning towards these temptations, and with it, implicit instructions as to how to avoid them and to ultimately trey a better life. Throughout Graves poem, Warning to Children, a recurring theme can be observed that life is wide of diversity. This diversity is represented in the poem with the usage of colour, blocks of slate cover dappled red and green, enclosing tawny yellow nets, enclosing fair and black acres of dominoes, where a neat brown paper contribution This thematic material is repeated several times throughout the poem, and creates an attribute of a nev er-ending cycle of colourful, wondrous things. The theme and the image that goes with it creates an allusion of the life that everyone wishes that they have one that is forever full of different things to see and do. In this sense, this poem reflects upon part of Santayanas quote The subject matter of art is life.The image of the perfect, diverse life that is described in Warning to Children does not translate into the reality of life, however. This is realized in the poem when the narrator begins lecture about the brown paper parcel, tempting you to untie the string. With these lines, Grave introduces an aspect of esurience to the poem. The poem then goes on to discuss the consequences of being cupidityy by describing what would happen if one wishes to greedily pursue the never-ending diversity that life has to offer Children, leave the string alone For who dares undo the parcel finds himself at once inside it, on the island, in the fruit This time, however, the word enwrap is used to describe the fact that whomever should dare to undo the parcel depart become literally trapped inside all of the colour things without the king of actually doing anything with them. The message being conveyed here is that despite the colourful aspects of life, greed will always be there to prevent one from experiencing them. With this, the poem fulfills the second part of Santayanas quote life as it actually is.