Comparison of poems; Names and Oak Terrace

Both of these poems have many links and similarities between them, but little difference. There is still difference but not on the same scale as similarities.

One similarity, is the idea of loss of identity in each of the poems. The First poem, 'Names' is more of a obvious lose of identity but it is also still prominent  in the second poem. In the first poem is all about how the women's names change through the years, changes with the family she has, changes with her losses and changes with her personal health. 'Now she was Nanna. 'Everyone/Calls me Nanna,' this is the point towards the end of the poem, when she has family and grand kids, her identity is beginning to be lost. She was know as so many names in her life, 'Mrs Hand.', 'Miss Steward', 'Lil', but now she has grand kids and now she is older, all her names have gone, and she is now simply known as 'Nanna'. All her past names were linked with parts of her life that she has lost, Mrs Hand, was the name she got when she got married. But her husband died, she lost that name. Lil, was the name linked to her childhood, but she grew up, she lost that name as well. All these names she has had, have linked with parts of her life, that have now been lost. Almost like a timeline of names, demonstrating her life. This is another link between the two poems. Lose. As well as physical lose, as i said, both are about lose of identity, all her names have gone. Leaving her just as Nanna. She is nothing anymore, other than, Nanna. Then when you reach the end of the poem, she is back to being called her birth name 'Eliza', this time, all of her life has been erases, almost kind of forgotten. She now has no name dedicated to key parts of her life, there is nothing in her name to signify everything she has been through, it is almost like she is back to the day she was born. No history, no experiences, all forgotten, back to just a name.There is also a idea of lose of identity in the other poem. However, in a very different way this time. This time there is no one in this women's life, to identity her. No names are ever mentioned in the poem, nothing in the poem to identity anything about her personally. It again, also has a link to lose. 'The house is quiet now' she used to have somebody there? Was there once somebody to give her a name, to make her a whole person? Either way, she now has nobody.

This also creates a difference between the poems, in the first poem, the names signify history to the women's life, we know that there is a history to this women, whereas in 'Oak Terrace' there is no names to create a history for her. The names give us nothing. Instead of names being used to create history in this one, we have lines that describe possible memories of her life.'A brothers brain melting to madness'. This could be one of two things. It could either mean, she is just imagining a hypothetical life, in which somebody's brother is losing their mind, and how their family deal with it, but more likely is that in her life she has had to deal with a brother losing his mind. If the second option is the case, then we are starting to get a back story on this women's life, however not using names like in the previous poem.

There is the now obvious similarity of lose in both peoples, in 'Names' as she lost things in her life she loses her names given to her as well. Also, there is lose in the second poem, there is indication that she has lost people in her life, 'The house is quiet now.' Both poems strongly involve idea of lose and death.

There is another key similarity in both poems, mental health. In the second poem it is more obvious, 'brother's brain melting to madness. Seven years of common trouble;'. However, in the poem 'Names' it is very key too, less obvious, but key none the less. 'And for those last bewildered weeks/She was Eliza once again.' These lines indicate at alzheimers, as mentioned in earlier lines of the poem, she is now a patient. The fact it says 'bewildered weeks' shows that she is not well, distressed and indicates she is forgetting things. Follow that with the line 'Eliza once again' reinforced the idea that she is forgetting things, she forgetting who she is. Due to her illness she has forgotten her history, her life, and only remembers very old things, back to when she was only known as Eliza, known with no history, a fresh life. This also, again, ties in with the idea of lose. She has lost her mind, lost her history, lost everything.