Analysis Of My Grandmother By Elizabeth Jennings

Introduction to the Analysis

From the third person point of view, Jennings painted a clear image of an aged person's way-of-life (her grandmother). 

The poem opened with comparison; comparing the abode of the grandmother to an "antique shop". From the poem, naijapoets.com is of the opinion that old age has some stages (initial frailty, intense frailty, and death) the first stanza described the poem-speaker's grandmother as being old and lonely. She only had things than beings as companions: "Apostle spoons and Bristol glass/ The faded silks, the heavy furniture/ She watched her own reflection in the brass/ Salvers and silver bowls, as if to prove/ Polish was all, there was no need of love."

Jumping to stanza three, the grandmother was in an intense frailty and all youthful remnants surrounding the old woman (acting as her cherished company) lost their meanings and were moved aside into "Sideboards and cupboards" because she was "too frail to keep a shop, she put/ All her best things in one long narrow room/ The place smelt old, of things too long kept shut"

The Summary of Events

The poem speaker stood in state of mournfulness but pretended she didn't feel grief after the death of the old woman. She said in stanza four:

"And when she died I felt no grief at all,
Only the guilt of what I once refused.
I walked into her room among the tall
Sideboards and cupboards_ things she never used
But needed: and no finger-marks were there
Only the new dust falling through the air."

The Message of the Poem

From the message of the poem, one with deep thought will figure so many things; futility is one among. It became obvious in the final stanza of the poem that many cherished things were left behind not excluding the poem speaker. 

Based on the theme of "aging to death" loneliness is human's worst enemy but people neglect the company of their aged ones calling them out-of-date. The theme of remembering the loved-ones inspired the poem. Elizabeth Jennings couldn't stand the lost of her grandmother by so doing transposed the elegy into something close to a satire. 

She claimed no grief but narrated the lonely plight of the old woman and how she so much need human company. The poem is interesting because it brings back to readers mind the truth that "We never a good thing till is gone".

Samuel C. Enunwa aka samueldpoetry
(the Leo with wings flying)