The 3 poems I am choosing for my final paper are Spring and Fall, Eveline, & Araby. These three poems display the idea of youth by having the main character/ narrator speak of their youth. All 3 poems show how life during youth is a lot easier than adulthood.
Everyone knows that youth does not last forever and sadly, people age. As time progresses all we are left with is our memories and dignity. As your body and actions age, your memories from youth stay the same. In life, especially as we grow up and lose our youth, we face difficult decisions. These decisions may seem problematic, but they are a part of growing up.
While it's important to think about the future when we have to make choices, it's also necessary to reflect on the past. Sometimes, the lessons we learn from previous moments in our lives help influence our decision -making for the future. Therefore, as we lose our youth, we gain more wisdom,; this wisdom, in turn, leads to better choices in the present.
This idea of troublesome decision -making is seen in “Eveline”,. tThe main character, Eveline Hill, has to choose whether to run away with her lover or stay home with her father. She uses her memories of her youth to realize that she wants what she already has to continue for her future.
One of the more disappointing realities of life, death, is implied in “Spring and Fall.” We see Margaret, a young girl who is saddened to see the leaves of a forests' trees fall. In her youth, Margaret is affected by such a small situation. Her parents discuss how she will be perturbed when she faces a truly upsetting circumstance later in life. One of the biggest emotional pains to deal with, the srealituationy of death, is obviously one that will greatly harm Margaret later in life, if such a small thing makes her so sad. Therefore, the lesson we take from this is that we must not let the little things get to us so that when the real troubling situations occur, we can be prepared for them.
In this poem, “Araby”, the narrator finds himself, in his youth, obsessing over a girl he barely knows. This leads to him watching her leave her house and walking behind her just to see her. His obsession becomes unhealthy as he falls behind in school because he is distracted by thinking about her. He then tells her he'll attend a 'bazaar' and buy her something from it.
After he gets there late and arrives to a closed down event, the reader can assume the narrator feels as though he has merely wasted his time. The lesson we take away from this story is that even though we are young, we shouldn't obsess over our feelings, especially those that can get yous into trouble. Also, that we still have time for our feelings to develop and for our minds to completely understand the meaning of each emotion.
All of theses poems display the idea of youth and teach young people that even if we feel old or think we’re old, we can still learn for our mistakes and teach ourselves new ways to express our emotions.
As time goes on, so does our age and every second throughout youth is priceless and irreplaceable. We need to capture each moment while we still can, and remember them for the rest of our lives. Youth can only happen once, so therefore do not make choices you will regret in adulthood.
It is important to focus on choices for the future but you cannot forget the importance of the present time. It’s important to live while you’re young, and to remember where you started off. Youth will show you how time is not on our side because it passes by within a blink of an eye.