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Comparing Morgan's The Grasshopper And The Bell Cricket

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The location in both ‘The Glasgow Sonnet No.1’written by Edwin Morgan and ‘The Grasshopper and the Bell Cricket’ written by Yasunari Kawabata, is very different. In ‘The Glasgow Sonnet No. 1’, Morgan conveys to us the location of Glasgow which is desolate and poverty-stricken. Whereas, in ‘The Grasshopper and the Bell Cricket’, Kawabata describes in detail, the colourful, bright location which surrounds him.

‘The Glasgow Sonnet No. 1’ is a poem written in third person. Morgan uses a Petrarch style; splitting the poem up into an octet and a sestet. The octet depicts the desolation of the Glaswegian area and the sestet goes into detail of what lies within these flats which are a key feature in conveying the level of poverty which grips this …show more content…

For example, ‘The Glasgow Sonnet No. 1’ has a dark and sombre atmosphere. This is made clear when Morgan states, ‘Four storeys have no windows left to smash’. Here, he is referring to the high rise flats in Glasgow in which today’s society deem as unsuitable to live in. This is because of the damp draughty conditions which the inhabitants have to endure. The onomatopoeic use of the word ‘smash’ reinstates the destruction of this area. It is evident that there is no sign of these damages being repaired which shows that no one cares about this poverty-stricken area. Morgan ends the octet in saying ‘that black block condemned to stand, not crash.’ The alliterative ‘b’ is a harsh and cold sound which conveys the harsh conditions which are faced by those who live there. The word ‘condemned’ makes it clear these high rise flats were rotting away and no one was willing to spend the time or money on demolishing the flats. Additionally, the onomatopoeic use of the word ‘crash’ which we associate being painful, reinstates the horrible fate in which these flats and the surrounded are subjected to. Compared to this, ‘The Grasshopper and the Bell Cricket’ has a much more colourful and brighter atmosphere. This is evident when Kawabata goes into detail of the colours of the lanterns which surrounded him. ‘Not only were there crimson, pink, indigo, green, purple, and yellow lanterns, but one lantern …show more content…

‘The Glasgow SonnetNo.1’ is set in the dark, dreich city of Glasgow. Whereas, ‘The Grasshopper and the Bell Cricket’ is set in Japan. It is clear that the location described in the Glasgow Sonnet is dark both physically and emotionally when Morgan states:

The man lies late since he has lost his job,
Smoke on one elbow, letting his coughs fall thinly into an air too poor to rob.
Through this statement, we feel sorry for the man described as he is sleep deprived due to the worry of being jobless. We get the sense that this man has given up hope when Morgan says the man is ‘letting his coughs fall’. The word ‘letting’ suggests that he is not bothering about his poor health. The personification of the ‘air’ reinstates the desolation as not even nature, which is usually associated with pure and beautiful, can even improve these awful circumstances. In comparison to this, in ‘The Grasshopper and the Bell Cricket’, Kawambata describes what he saw in Japan:
At the base of the embankment was a bobbing cluster of beautiful varicoloured lanterns, such as one might see at a festival in a

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