Year 12 IB Extended Essays 2017

their innocence behind, just as they abandon their childish ideals. The powerful imagery of a

child forgetting more as he gets taller embodies the movement away from the ultimate truth as

time passes. The passing of time in the poem is represented through the repetition of “autumn

winter spring summer”, placed in differing orders. No matter what one does, time is destined

to pass. Youth is intrinsically transient, just like the seasons that cummings lists. This idea is

reminiscent of Robert Frosts’ Nothing Gold Can Stay (1923). Cummings again addresses how

“children are apt to forget to remember”, employing his signature individualistic phrasing and

juxtaposition. The phrase appears nonsensical but once it is allowed to permeate one’s mind,

the meaning is clear. We are so quick to forget what we value as children, yet when we finally

reach adulthood, we long for the immediacy and innocence of our youth.

old age sticks 2 delves deeper into the youthful eagerness to grow up as represented in anyone

lived in a pretty how town 1 and explores the eternal connection between youth and old age. The

poem begins by stating that “old age sticks/up Keep/ Off/ signs)”, representing older

generations as traditionalist and rigid. Cummings personifies both youth and old age, which

serves to further connect the reader to the concepts by giving them human characteristics

stereotypical to the old and young. Old age doesn’t want youth trespassing on their territory,

for if the young grow old, old age has nowhere to go to but to death. Cummings utilises

punctuation to create meaning, enclosing old age’s actions in brackets, representing restriction

and conservatism. Youth’s actions are outside of the brackets, representing liberation and

rebellion. This forces the reader to focus on the poem as a whole; the macrocosm, rather than

the individual lines, the microcosm. This, itself, is a metaphor for how one should live their

life – not obsessing over the inconsequential events but, instead, observing the bigger picture.

“youth yanks [old age’s signs]/ down(” just as fast as they are put up, accentuating youth’s

refusal to abide by their rules, bringing to mind youthful passion and recklessness. The uptight

8