The Piano
D.H. Lawrence
D. H. Lawrence (1885-1930) was born on 11 September 1885 in Eastwood, a coal-mining village in Nottinghamshire England. He was the fourth child of a struggling coal miner who was a heavy
drinker. His mother was a former schoolteacher, greatly superior in education
to her husband. Lawrence’s childhood was dominated by poverty and friction between his parents. He
was educated at Nottingham High School, to which he had won a scholarship. He briefly became a teacher. Despite
his hard background he grew up to become a writer that wrote about the
relationships between men and women and between human beings and the natural
world. He became one of the greatest figures in 20th-century English
literature. In 1912 he met Frieda von Richthofen, a professor’s wife and fell
in love and eloped [ran away] with her. As a result he led a nomadic or
wandering existence. DH Lawrence became a novelist, storywriter, critic, poet
and painter. D.H. Lawrence died from Tuberculosis on March 2, 1930. D. H. Lawrence was close to
his mother as he grew up. When she was ill in 1910, he assisted her death by
giving her sleeping medicine. He wrote several poems about his close
relationship mother. ‘Piano’ is one such poem.
The Piano [text]
D. H. Lawrence
Softly, in the dusk, a
woman is singing to me;
Taking me back down the
vista of years, till I see
A child sitting under the
piano, in the boom of the tingling strings
And pressing the small,
poised feet of a mother who smiles as she sings.
In spite of myself, the
insidious mastery of song
Betrays me back, till the
heart of me weeps to belong
To the old Sunday evenings
at home, with winter outside
And hymns in the cosy
parlour, the tinkling piano our guide.
So now it is vain for the
singer to burst into clamour
With the great black piano
appassionato. The glamour
Of childish days is upon
me, my manhood is cast
Down in the flood of
remembrance, I weep like a child for the past.
Summary
In the first stanza, the speaker places
himself in a romantic situation. A woman is performing and singing for him. The
speaker creates an interesting atmosphere by using the word ‘softly’ and
setting the action at dusk. The woman’s singing opens up the speaker’s memory.
He then sees himself as a child playing with his mother’s feet as she sings for
him at a piano. He remembers the great noise made by the strings of the piano. Thus
a conflict is suggested. The woman in the present is set against the woman from
his past, his mother. His mother smiles warmly at him as he sings. Lawrence
has established a conflict between a lover and his mother.
In the second stanza, the speaker admits
he tries to stay focused on the present. But the emotional power of the song
drags him back to his past. The song’s intensity has a secret influence on him.
He ignores the singer and travels back to his childhood. In his heart he longs
for the secure and cosy Sunday evenings of his childhood with his mother
singing to him. He fondly remembers the wintry scene outside as the family
group sang hymns to the tune of the piano.
In the third stanza, the speaker shows
the battle between the powerful singing in the present and the irresistible
draw of his memories. He is aware of the woman reaching the climax of her song.
She plays the black piano with powerful feeling. The memory of the past is more
glamorous than the present. As a man he should pay attention to the powerful
singing of the woman who sings so passionately. But memory conquers his
manhood. He remembers his mother’s singing with floods of tears. He becomes his
childlike self again.
Memory
Lawrence shows that memory has a more powerful grip on him than the scene that
he is part of as the woman sings to him. He gives into to the temptation to
travel back in time to relive the secure feelings he had with his mother. As he
remembers, he misses his childhood feelings so much that he forgets he is a man
and weeps like a child. The poem is a conflict between present experience and
memory. Memory wins. Childhood has more glamour than a woman singing
passionately to him in the present. The theme of memory could be expressed here
as a conflict between the present and the past. The past wins.
Relationships
The poem shows the strength of
relationship between a man and his mother. For an adult, he has a somewhat
unhealthy craving for his mother. There is a conflict in his heart between
affection for his mother and passion for his lover. The smiles, sound and touch
of his mother mean more to him than the passion that his lover is expressing
through her song in the present. The mother and son relationship seems to be
the main relationship in the speaker’s case.
Music
The poem explores the powerful influence of music. The poet’s lover is carried away by her own performance. She expresses her inner passion. Yet the very song she sings transports the speaker down memory lane. Her singing reminds the speaker of music and song that mattered a lot to him at another time. The music, which should have appealed to him in the present, brought him back to charming childhood scenes with his mother. Music reconnected him with a happier time—a time when he was close to his mother. He focuses a lot on the sounds made by the piano: ‘tinkling’ and ‘tingling’, ‘boom’ and ‘appassionato’.
Childhood
In Conflict With Adulthood
This theme can be discussed in the same terms as the theme ‘Memory’, explored above. Childhood was a time of intimate moments with the speaker’s mother. This childhood intimacy is more appealing to him than an adult relationship. It shows that Lawrence was not a balanced adult. He was dominated by a relationship that had been removed both by death and by the sheer fact of his growing up. His heart ruled where his mind should have. Sentiment, or soft hearted feelings, defeated passion.
- Repetition The piano is repeated in each stanza. The word ‘tinkling’ is nearly a repetition of ‘tingling’. The repetition of ‘weeps’ emphasises the speaker’s emotional need for his mother, even though she is dead. ‘Appassionato’ echoes ‘boom’.
- Imagery The poem provides two clear images of women playing a piano; one a mother to a child, the other an adult to an adult. The poet provides clear word pictures, especially of the cosy scene in the parlour on a musical winter’s evening.
- Metaphor Memory is compared to a vista, which usually means a view across a landscape. Memory is also compared to a flood.
- Personification The piano is compared to a guide.
- Simile The poet compares his emotional self to a child.
- Language The language is intimate and conversational. It is also the language of narrative as the speaker is telling it like a story, building up to the climax of the last sentence. The words ‘boom’ and ‘appassionato’ capture the increasingly loud sound of the well-played pianos. The words show the difference between the speaker’s ordinary mother and the polished, classically trained woman in the present.
- Metonymy Feet represent the speaker’s mother.
- Contrast The past is contrasted to the present, a mother to a lover, a childhood self to an adult self. There is a clear contrast between the cosy parlour and the wintry scene outside.
- Tone Overall the tone is intimate and revealing. Note the opening word: ‘softly’. There is an emotional longing for the past, known as nostalgia. The word ‘betrays’ indicates a tone of guilt at ignoring the singer’s personal effort. The poet also feels sorry for himself, referring to memory as a flood and giving in to a desire to weep. There is also a tone of inner conflict when the speaker finds himself battling against his desire to remember the past at the start of the second stanza. There is a warm tone where the poet describes cosy childhood scenes. The tone is passionate when the speaker describes the passion of the young adult female singing to him in the present.
- Atmosphere A romantic atmosphere is created by the words of the opening line. The description of the climax of the singer rising to a crescendo is also passionate. The memories of his childhood create a warm, secure atmosphere. The words ‘parlour’ and ‘hymns’ create an old fashioned atmosphere. The words ‘flood’ and ‘weep’ create a sad atmosphere.
- Paradox [apparent contradiction] The music played so powerfully in the present, draws the listening speaker back into the past. The more the performer tries to appeal to the speaker, the more he loses focus in the present. As the piano reaches its climax ‘appassionato’, the speaker is ironically flooded in remembrance.
- Alliteration The ‘b’ in ‘betrays me back’ emphasises the sense of helpless guilt experienced by the speaker as memory begins to dominate. The repeating ‘p’ sound in the fourth line of the first stanza highlights the contact between son and mother and the rhythm of the piano playing.
- Assonance The repeating long ‘o’ sounds of the first two lines of the last stanza show the musical climax of the singer’s performance. The repeated ‘i’ sounds in ‘smiles as she sings’ create the facial effects of a smile as one reads those lines.
- Sibilance [repetition of ‘s’ sound] The repeating ‘s’ of the opening line deepen the feelings of intimacy and romance.
- Form The poem is a simple lyric in three stanzas. The present dominates the first two lines of each stanza. Childhood memories intrude in the third and fourth lines of each stanza.
- Rhyme There is a simple and repeated rhyme scheme. The first and second lines rhyme in each stanza. The third and fourth lines rhyme in each stanza. For example in the second stanza the endings are: ‘ong’, ‘ong’, ‘ide’ and ‘ide’. This simple rhyming fits the poem well. It expresses the simplicity of childhood. It also creates an obvious music that matches the music of the piano, which is the subject of the poem. Not the internal rhymes created by similar words: ‘clamour’ and ‘glamour’ and ‘tingling’ and ‘tinkling’.
Analysis: Piano.
D. H. Lawrence’s Piano shows a man
experiencing nostalgia as he listens to a woman singing which reminds him of
his childhood.
The man is reluctant to remember those days and be affected by them, but the song which the woman is singing seems to have a slow subtle impact on him and despite his hesitance he gives in to his emotions and yearns for the days of childhood: the cold Sunday evenings in winter when it used to now outside and they, mother and son used to sit in the warm comfortable indoors and sing melodious hymns with the help of the piano.
The man who was listening to the lady
singing now thinks that it would be useless for her to continue on as he is
already so affected by his memories that he is just physically present, his
mind elsewhere. Without any thought of his adulthood, he bursts into tears
remembering the blissful ignorance and innocence of his infant years. He starts
weeping, thus bridging the gap between his past and his present.
Lawrence uses words in such an intricate manner
throughout the poem that they end up creating vivid and delightful imagery. By
using the word ‘vista’ he propels the images of the reader’s own childhood in
front of his eyes so that one experiences the same thing that man
experienced. These images ‘take him back down’ into the memories of his
childhood. This immediately brings to mind the image that growing up is similar
to climbing some difficult mountain and in his adulthood, the man is right at
the top, and from there he falls into his childhood again. Onomatopoeia used in
describing the ‘boom’ of the ‘tingling’ strings of the piano indicates that the
man in the poem is none other but Lawrence himself, as the tiny detail that the
piano would sound loud to a small child and consequently would be described as
booming when later remembered even as an adult is so simply portrayed and thus
removes all doubts that Lawrence is writing from personal experience. Further,
the man remembers that his mother’s feet were ‘poised’ betraying the respect
and awe a little child has for its parents. Even at that tender age, the child
identifies dignified elegance with his other.
The words ‘in spite of myself’ and ‘betrays me back’ show the immense struggle that the man goes through with his own warring desires. The need to remain solidly footed in his adulthood and the yearning to give that up for the innocence and joys of childhood tear him apart and he goes against his own desires by giving in to the latter. Again the words used are so simple yet effective in describing the evenings spent by the fire that they paint a vivid image in the readers mind: one of comfort, warmth and unlimited acceptance. This scene casts a melancholy shadow over the poem, as the man remembering these simple moments from his past suggest that he no longer has the comfort of a family or home to lean upon, and that his life is riddled with difficulties and worries for him to long for the dull and boring adolescent years.
This poem achieves that delicate balance
between being cliché, sentimental and being full of self-pity; and expressing
empathy. This is done because though the overview of the poem is simple and
direct, there are some strong words which are sprinkled throughout with such
apt accuracy that they intensify the powerful feelings that a man experiences
when he is torn between his past and present lives.
The title of the poem, ‘Piano’ is quite suiting as music is proven to be the strongest trigger of memories. Also it implies that playing the piano, and subsequently music, played a large role in the man’s life: his mother used to play and sing hymns on the piano in his childhood, and even as an adult he finds the time to escape the responsibilities for a few hours by attending musical concerts as the woman singing and playing the piano could be seen as such. The piano was their guide in his childhood, and it still continues to show him the way through life.
Nostalgia is the central idea behind the poem but one would not be wrong to say that it also throws light on the pains of growing up. The man in the poem has traveled the road of life and has reached his adulthood, a phase of life which is associated with freedom of will and power of right. But he still contemplates giving all that up; his heart ‘weeps to belong’ and his ‘manhood is cast down a flood of remembrance’ as the ‘glamor of childish days’ overcomes him emotionally. He throws away the confines of his ‘manhood’, breaking the unspoken rule that men aren’t supposed to show emotions by crying for his childhood. When does a person experience such contrasting emotions? It is only when the responsibilities and burdens of adulthood become too much to bear that one starts wishing that one could somehow go back to one’s immature and ignorant days of being a child, free of worries and still holding the limitless possibilities of growing up in its hand, head full of unbroken dreams and untarnished ideals and principles.
Thus is ‘Piano’ another one of Lawrence's
masterpieces, as he once again portrays the complex workings and dealings of
the human heart in such a refined, elegant yet simple manner that he pulls at
all the right heartstrings and one finds oneself tearing up while remembering
one’s own childhood days.
CLICK THE FOLLOWING LINK TO LISTEN THE RECITATION OF THE POEM
"THE PIANO"
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