Growing Up
Essay Question
Simon Armitage’s Kid deals with the theme of growing into our identity. Look again at this poem, and at one other poem from the Identity anthology which also deals with the theme of growing into our identity.
With close reference to the ways each poet uses language, compare and contrast what the speakers in the poems say about growing into our identity. You should include relevant contextual material.
Introduction
Both “Kid” and “In Mrs Tilscher’s Class” explore the theme of growing into your identity. Simon Armitage’s “Kid” describes the motivation behind the speaker’s rather harsh and difficult cutting of ties with his mentor, Batman, which forces him to grow up quickly, leaving him with strong feelings of resentment and anger. Carol Ann Duffy’s “In Mrs Tilscher’s Class”, by contrast, the speaker describes her caring, nurturing teacher and the warm classroom environment which support the speaker’s personal growth. However, both speakers are excited by the prospect of growing unto their new identities.
Role Models
While we are maturing and exploring the world, our perspectives are often shaped by role models. Therefore, it is no surprise that the two poems feature adult mentors, but they are presented as polar opposites: Mrs Tilscher is an undoubtedly positive, loving influence, but Batman is an immature, inauspicious role model for the young, impressionable Robin.
Robin is bitter towards Batman, the “big shot”, who is idolised by so many loyal “followers”. However, the speaker presents him as just a man with a terrible sense of self-importance and a ridiculously inflated ego. He was supposed to act as a “father” figure and claimed that “he was like an elder brother” to Robin, but his scandal with the “married woman”, juxtaposed immediately after those ironic statements, further proves his poor suitability to fulfil either of those roles. In other words, when Batman was supposed to be shaping Robin’s identity as a well-rounded, mature individual, he was actually indulging in an extra-marital affair. Batman focused only on himself and used Robin to complete his “heroic” image in the public eye, acknowledging him only when it suited him and not caring for Robin’s real feelings. This selfish, egocentric behaviour could adversely affect the development of Robin’s own character. In this way, Robin needs to grow into his adult identity without the help of a role model.
On the complete other end of the spectrum we have Mrs Tilscher. The speaker clearly adores her, going as far as to say her classroom was “better than home”. This simple sentence emphasises the statement. Her “chanting”, a low and melodic voice which leads the children in their song, conveys her tremendous skill as a teacher by creating a dynamic, exciting atmosphere for them to learn and grow into their identities.
Mrs Tilscher distributes “good gold stars” to her pupils – the alliteration of the solid consonant /g/ sound draws the reader’s attention to the happiness and self-worth that comes from a positive affirmation of our identity. The fondness and love held by the teacher for her young wards is reiterated when the speaker tells us that “Mrs Tilscher loved you”. The speaker feels appreciated and comfortable to explore her identity in the safe space created by her teacher, while Robin is left with a sense of abandonment and discontent towards the man who failed to facilitate his growth and didn’t support his grow into young adulthood.
Change
Leaving your familiar surroundings and finding your own way in the world is part of everyone’s life, shaping our identities in many different ways. Both poems show the speakers’ journey to independence and adult life, but this jump happens in very different ways. In the final stanza of “In Mrs Tilscher’s Class”, the speaker begins to crave freedom and becomes eager to make her own way in the world outside the walls of the classroom. We can see this desire through a change in diction, especially the description of the change in season and weather. The speaker uses polysyllabic words, such as “feverish”, “electricity”, “untidy”, “fractious” and “heavy, sexy”, to describe the atmosphere. These images connote a change in the speaker’s identity because they represent her growth into the stormy adult world.
The speaker is keen to be cut loose from the ropes binding her to the safety of school and Mrs Tilscher’s classroom when she “ran through the gates, impatient to be grown”. This contrasts with the first two stanzas of the poem, where the reader can see how much she adores school and cannot imagine leaving the safe haven created by Mrs Tilscher in her classroom.
Leaving school behind is a universal experience. However, Duffy is writing about her own story, when she left St Austin’s Catholic Primary School in England in 1967. Mrs Tilscher was actually her teacher so the poem is lovely way to show her appreciation to old role model who, inevitably, she had leave in the past.
Robin also suddenly cuts ties with his childhood, but his growth is much more bitter. Batman and Robin go their own ways, with Batman claiming to have “let” Robin “loose to wander”. The flimsy alliteration of /l/ in “let” and “loose” could help to signify a sense of romanticised freedom from Batman’s point of view while showing Robin’s hurt and loneliness at the same time. The truth of the situation is revealed when Robin exposes Batman’s lie, disclosing that he “ditched me, rather”. The blunt colloquialism and hard consonant /d/ sound is in direct contradiction of the notion of being set free. Robin views this as a moment of rejection and abandonment.
In spite of this unceremonious separation, Robin “turned the corner”. This cliché illustraes his physical departure, but also the obvious symbolic turning point in his life and identity. He embraces his new, unanticipated freedom but does not let go of his animosity and acrimony toward Batman. It is worth noting that the hurt, disappointment and anger felt by Robin actually reflects Armitage’s own reaction when he heard Robin would be cut from the “Batman and Robin” series. This moment is the inspiration behind the poem.
Where the speaker in “In Mrs Tilscher’s Class” feels excitement and anticipates leaving her childhood behind willingly, Robin is cut off and left “in the gutter”. These differences in starting points of their odyssey into the adult world will impact their identities in hugely different ways contrastingly.
Young Adulthood
While children are growing into teenagers and, eventually, become young adults, we experience huge physical, emotional and social changes and challenges, which means we lose, piece by piece, the innocence and blissful ignorance that comes with childhood. In “Kid”, the reader sees Robin shedding his youthful, juvenile image and don a more edgy, adult identity that he crafts for himself. This remodelling is signified by his change of costume.
The scorn in his tone is unmissable when he sarcastically describes his old outfit with the diction of a fashion designer: “Off-the-shoulder Sherwood-Forest-green and red number”. The colours sound child-like and immature, and the whole ensemble sounding foolish and obviously unsuited to his new persona. Robin’s new attire consists of “a pair of jeans and crew-neck jumper”. He does not want his clothing to identify him, keeping his appearance neutral, blending in with any other boy in their late teens or twenties. Reflective of his clothes, his personality has become subdued and cool, perhaps in order to make people take him more seriously. Robin also reminds the reader that he has grown “harder, taller, stronger, older”; the combination of adjectives helps to paint an entirely different picture of himself as someone to be afraid and intimidated by instead of a little boy in a garish, colourful costume, tagging along in Batman’s shadow.
The speaker in “In Mrs Tilscher’s Class” is introduced to different aspects of the adult world than Robin in the last two stanzas of Duffy’s poem. The metaphor describing the growth of tadpoles from “commas into exclamation marks” compares the shape of them to punctuation marks of a similar form. The “comma” is a pause before the next stage of their development – “exclamation marks”. The punctuation is now bigger, stronger, and perhaps more vulgar, reflecting the growth of the speaker as she matures in a physical and mental sense.
Duffy creates sympathy for the speaker at the end of the third stanza, making the reader feel pity toward her. She looks desperately to her parents for confirmation that the “rough boy” was wrong in his ideas about procreation but does not receive the denial she wanted. Instead, the speaker “stared” at her “parents, appalled,” when she “got back home”. The reader is saddened that an important part of her childhood innocence has been lost and we empathise with her initial shock and repulsion. When she “asked her how you were born”, “Mrs Tilscher smiled, then turned away”, seeing that she was no longer able to protect the children from the blunt, profane reality of the beginnings of life.
Conclusion
In conclusion, both speakers grow beyond the innocence of their childhood identity. For Robin, that change was full of bitterness towards his mentor, Batman. By contrast, the speaker in Duffy’s poem realised the limitations of Mrs Tilscher’s classroom and raced out of the school gates into her new identity. The speaker in “In Mrs Tilscher’s Class” had a joy-filled experience in the classroom and left when she felt ready. Sadly, Robin lived a life in the shadow of his mentor, before being discarded and left bitter, resentful and with an overwhelming desire to prove himself as more than Batman’s “ball boy”.
