Analysis of Robert Graves Warning to Children :: essays research papers

The poet George Santayana once said, â€Å"The subject matter of art is life, life as it actually is, but the function of art is to make life better.† Robert Grave’s poem â€Å"Warning to Children† proves every aspect of Santayana’s quote. â€Å"Warning to Children† speaks of the wondrous, diverse aspects of our lives and our temptations prevents us from experiencing these aspects. Finally, the poem gives readers a warning towards these temptations, and with it, implicit instructions as to how to avoid them and to ultimately lead a better life. Throughout Grave’s poem, â€Å"Warning to Children,† a recurring theme can be observed – that life is full of diversity. This diversity is represented in the poem with the usage of colour, â€Å"†¦blocks of slate enclosing dappled red and green, enclosing tawny yellow nets, enclosing white and black acres of dominoes, where a neat brown paper parcel†¦Ã¢â‚¬  This thematic material is repeated several times throughout the poem, and creates an image of a never-ending cycle of colourful, wondrous things. The theme and the image that goes with it creates an allusion of the life that everyone wishes that they have – one that is forever full of different things to see and do. In this sense, this poem reflects upon part of Santayana’s quote: â€Å"The subject matter of art is life.† The image of the perfect, diverse life that is described in â€Å"Warning to Children† does not translate into the reality of life, however. This is realized in the poem when the narrator begins talking about the brown paper parcel, â€Å"tempt[ing] you to untie the string.† With these lines, Grave introduces an aspect of greed to the poem. The poem then goes on to discuss the consequences of being greedy by describing what would happen if one wishes to greedily pursue the never-ending diversity that life has to offer: â€Å"Children, leave the string alone! For who dares undo the parcel finds himself at once inside it, on the island, in the fruit†¦Ã¢â‚¬  This time, however, the word â€Å"enclosed† is used to describe the fact that whomever should dare to undo the parcel will become literally trapped inside all of the colour things without the ability of actually doing anything with them. The message being conveyed here is that despite the colourful aspec ts of life, greed will always be there to prevent one from experiencing them. With this, the poem fulfills the second part of Santayana’s quote: â€Å"life as it actually is.