Give an analysis of the poem "Piano" by D. H. Lawrence.

Writing of a childhood memory brought to life, D. H.
Lawrence portrays a nostalgic moment for an adult who remembers a special time in his
past in the poem “Piano.” The narration is first person point of view with the narrator,
an adult being pulled back into his
past.

Setting and
tone

The setting is two-fold.  The
atmosphere is dusky and soft. The speaker is sitting somewhere with his lover singing to
him.  This transports him back to his boyhood home. It is a memory poem that draw the
adult back to his mother’s piano.  The tone is intimate and yearning.
 

Summary

Everything
in the poem inspires the feelings of love and wistfulness for the time in the past that
was special to the speaker.  The music that he hears is soft as the woman sings to him.
He is whisked back to a scene in his youth: as a boy, he sits under the piano as his
mother plays and sings.  His memory brings back the thought of his mother’s tiny feet as
he presses them.  She does not scold him but smiles at him as she continues to
sing.

The speaker thinks that this song has deceptively
pulled him back in time despite himself.  He is a man who should not be responding to
this reminiscence because men do not show emotions; however, his heart feels such strong
emotion that he weeps.  The Sunday wintry evenings with the family singing hymns in the
warm living room and the piano providing the tune tug so strongly at his heart strings
that he cannot resist.

Back in the present, the singer
continues on with the piano playing passionately, but the singing is like noise in
comparison to his recollection of the time with his family. Recalling the childhood
family time consumes him, and he takes off the facade of the macho man while he weeps
for his past.

readability="6">

…my manhood is
cast

Down in the flood of remembrance, I weep like a child
for the
past.

Literary
devices

Imagery
provides the “vista” or visual perception of his memory. The metaphor
that is used compares memory to the view seen across a landscape as
though the scene is a flood of memories. The traditional image of a wonderful family
sitting around a warm, crackling fire singing together and enjoying each other’s company
makes any reader long for his childhood home. Through
onomatopoeia, the sounds of the piano, the tinkling and
tingling support the atmosphere of the cozy time
together.

The vocabulary and diction
in the poem convey the mixture of feelings that the speaker struggles
with between his desire to not lose his masculinity and the tug at his heart to return
to his childhood. The rhyme and structure of the poem add to the thought pattern of the
speaker: three quatrains with rhymed couplets throughout the poem. The word choice
indicates the poet’s strong respect and love for his mother and his
family.

Theme

Memory
has a hold on the speaker of the poem.  He misses the special moments with his family. 
The poem is a conflict between the mature man and the enamored boy sitting under the
piano listening to his mother.

The poem expresses the
important relationships that people have in their lives.  Mothers and sons have special
bonds. The woman who sings to him becomes noise when he thinks of his mother’s love
expressed in her song.  The smile of his mother means more to him than the place that he
finds himself in as an adult.

Music influences the soul. 
The poet is carried back in time by the tune that his lover sings. Rather than making
him feel closer to the woman singing, it lures him back to a happier
time.