'Bruce Dawe’s “Enter Without So Much As Knocking” Essay\r'

'â€Å"Remember, man, thou art and dust, and unto dust though shalt return.” This is a definition of the quotation which begins Dawe’s meter, Enter Without So Much As Knocking. The quote reminds us that spright rail liness is not forever; and that we ar totally faced with mortality.\r\nThe poem itself is discussing a man’s journey from wear to death and how all around him life is interpreted by material possessions. At the beginning of the maiden stanza, the sentences welcome been do very piteous and simple, as if to salute the thoughts of a new born(p) baby. The startle voice that the mishandle hears when he is born is Bobby Dazzler, one of Australia’s first back up sees. The very first thing that the baby hears is not the voice of his m other(a), nor the voice of his father, moreoer the voice of materialism. This first stanza instantly becomes the disembodied spirit of a home in the 1950s, whither video recording set was something new. The ellipsis that connects the first and second stanzas demonstrates a change in time, in this fount, a change of a couple of years.\r\nThe dustup practice sessiond in the second stanza, much(prenominal) as â€Å" sanitary-equipped” and â€Å"economy-size”, ar oral communication that were constantly used in commercials at the time, as if life was being s white-haired to the child. This use of a commercial uniform anatomical structure is alike evident in the sort that the family is depicted, each(prenominal) with its own stereotype: an â€Å" delivery Sized Mum”, a discriminatory description natural to the 50s; an â€Å"Anthony Squires †Coolstream †Summerweight Dad”, Anthony Squires referring to an Australian brand of suit; and â€Å"two other kids straight off the Junior division Rack”, referring to the baby’s siblings, each free of gender and age and recognized only by the type of robes that they wear. From these two stanzas, Dawe is able to create not only a vivid form of the typical family in the 1950s, save all overly give us an insight to the TV culture that they are living and what offspring it has on the family.\r\nThe thirds stanza discusses what happens when the Mum sheath wins the prospect’s-A-Fortch Tricky-Tune Quiz. She takes the boy shopping. They set off in the â€Å"good-as-new station-wagon”, yet more advertising slang which describes the family’s second-hand political machine. The ill-considered phrases that follow are describing a child’s conceive of a road trip and the umteen rules that come with it. The statements begin as typical road warnings â€Å"WALK. DON’T WALK.” and locomote more satirical as they continue, for recitation â€Å"NO BREATHING EXCEPT BY ORDER”. These phrases re lay out the signs that a child may recognise on a trip. After these, on that point are the penetrates that are present on a car trip, as well as the sound of Mum complaining.\r\nThe numerous â€Å"beeps” that are present may represent both the beeping of a car horn as well as censorship of swear words, a likely situation especially in the brave capitalised beep. This situation creates an image or a accelerate to get somewhere. It could be seen as Dawe’s expression of compare a traffic jam in the hurry to get to somewhere to the race of population to get to a certain(a) place in their fretfulnesser or in their life. This entire stanza dictates fast and feverish circumstances, which change suddenly when arriving at the poop part stanza.\r\nThe first word in the stern stanza, however, followed by a comma, immediately slows the reader drop by forcing them to pause. The stanza goes on to advertise of how although the boy is surrounded by so much commercialism and fast-paced life, such(prenominal) as the fifty-foot screen and the giant faces project onto it, he is able to enjoy a na tural wonder of the world, the stars. It is here that there is the first cite of the boy’s emotions, where Dawe writes of the boy enjoying something.\r\nWhen describing the way the starts are sprinkled over the sky, Dawe has used the word littered, which normally has nix connotations. This could be because the stars had not yet been changed by our world, and if they were left as they were, untouched, they were not as good as what we had created on our human beings. The stanza ends on a slightly low quality because of Dawe’s metaphor of the stars being like â€Å"kids at the circus” Dawe is trying to draw how the stars are close enough to the Earth for the boy to reach, and therefore, for the boy to get â€Å"kicked”, or hurt.\r\nAs in the beginning of the fourth stanza, the first word of the stanza brings the reader back to a antithetic part of the boy’s life and a different event. This new event examines the character as no protracted a bo y, representing innocence, but in the company of â€Å"godless money-hungry back-stabbing sorry so-and-sos”. We can tell from this that Dawe is trying to show that the boy has now grown up and has been introduced to the â€Å"real world” and is now already a middle-aged man. The phrase â€Å" so long stars” relates back to the fourth stanza. He must in like manner adieu the â€Å"soft yell in the corner”; a farewell to any emotions. It is at this point that Dawe includes the heavy(p) voice of the boy.\r\nThe character speaks the need to care for yourself first and foremost, no need to ideate about the effect it may have on others, shown in the statement â€Å" snap wherever you see a mental capacity and kick whoever’s down”. This harsh change from innocent boy to selfish man is how Dawe is creating the character. The adult man is mold by his dialogue in the poem. The character has grown up and no longer discusses his family, yet no mention of a wife or children is present until the beside stanza, and then only to criticize. This fifth stanza is the first one to portray him as an adult, and Dawe has managed to restore the character seem harsh and unkind.\r\nThe sixth stanza introduces Alice, most probably the characters wife. The character also criticizes Clare Jessup, indicating his hypocritical nature. The sixth stanza is very short, as it seems as though it was cut short because of what happened next. Obviously the car is involved in an accident, shown by the last two words of the stanza â€Å"watch it” followed by a dash, release the reader to imagine the incident. The dash that ends the stanza shows how short the moment between life and death is, and how it happens in the blink of an eye. Until this point, Dawe has been able to create the entire mortala of the character, starting from have a bun in the oven and ending at death. Dawe is able to show how through different events a person is mou lded into the character which they become.\r\nAs the character has died, the storyteller returns once more to an outsider, and observer. The reaction to those who mayhap attend his funeral where they see his body, is strangely dreamlike; as they focus not on his life and personality, but on what a good job the morticians did on free him a fake tan. The idea here is that he’s cold, but at least he looks good. The line ” the old automatic smile with nothing undersurface it” describes how much of a disguise he had created for himself. No-one knew him for who he was because he had spent so long trying to conform to family and kill his individualism. The last few lines of the poem relate back to his life. â€Å"winding the whole show up” refers to the man’s life as if it were a television show, now finished, as well as the ending of the poem. The end of the poem also states what the man has left, the parking tickets, taximeters and Bobby Dazzlers.\r\ nThese are all material things. There is no mention of any loved one, such as his wife; or the rest of his family that are spoken about earlier in the poem. Instead, there is talk of him leaving the â€Å" sorrow over halitosis, flat feet, shrinking gums and locomote hair”. The term grieving is usually used to describe the process afterward someone has passed on, yet in this case is used to show worry over such trivial matters. The second last line in the poem, â€Å"six feet down nobody interested” shows how society regards the dead: he doesn’t affect people anymore, so nobody cares. The last line links back to the first. â€Å"Blink, blink. CEMETERY. Silence”. save like he came into this life, the man blinking chickweed into death and into silence, an ending.\r\n'