“Rising five” by Norman Nicholson Essay

The theme of the poem, “Rising five” simply by Norman Nicholson is that humans, adults and children, like nature will be impatient and they are always planning to the future and, in effect, will be dead in the event they do not use a moment to understand what is surrounding them (the present). This motif is exhibited by means of topic, carefully picked diction, figures of talk, parallel construction and antithetical parallelism.

To demonstrate the concept of the impatience the poet begins the poem by citing the young man when he says “I’m rising five, certainly not four” which usually also introduces an irony that one and so young should certainly measure his life regarding numbers and appearance forward to the near future when he should have no need to do therefore. The word “alive” in the initially stanza is also an satrical diction that suggests that the boy is more dead than alive. To help make the idea of impatience more crystal clear to the reader the poet also uses parallel created refrain by the end of each stanza: “not 4, but growing five. Not really may, yet rising June.

Not working day, but increasing night. Not now but increasing soon. Certainly not living yet rising lifeless, ” demonstrating that with impatience loss of life is coming sooner than expected.

To convey the idea that nature just like the boy is impatient, hastening quickly to get the finish range, to end the season, the poet uses antithetical parallelism: “we never view the flower, Nevertheless only the fruits in the flower: never it, But the particular rot inside the fruit. ” What the youngster does not realize is that nature (the periods and their specialty for example (spring is the season for the flowers to bloom)) by no means dies although only results the next season and will returning again and again, but after the youngster dies he can be gone for ever. The fact that people stop being individual if we reduce life to numbers is definitely conveyed in the seventh brand of the initially stanza if the poem reads “fifty-six months or perhaps a week more. ” The poet person could have chosen to use the terms “four years and 8-10 months, ” but chose to use the words and phrases “fifty-six” to emphasise more within the numbers.

Although these terms aren’t spoken by the youngster it is an emphasis on the usage of amounts, showing the fact that boy features reduced his life to numbers and therefore is no longer living fully. By quoting the boy and introducing an irony as well, using ironic diction, parallel built refrain, antithetical parallelism, subject matter and significantly emphasizing the utilization of numbers Norman has masterfully demonstrated the impatience the world provides, humans and nature.