Robert Gray Poem- Old House and Late Ferry

In Robert Grays poems, he uses language to capture human experiences. In two of his poems; old house and late ferry, gray has effectively captured human experiences by his varies poetic languages and through insight and feeling. Throughout both texts late ferry and old house, grays main message in the poems, with his critical analysis, is the destruction of nature by mankind. In old house, gray has captured the human experience of the process of death. He does this through insight and he effectively conveys this with poetic language such as the use of metaphor. This is the title itself old house. The title doesnt literally mean an old house, but in this concept, Grays imagines it to mean more of an institute or a hospital. Gray has used this metaphor to capture a humans sense while looking out from the interior of an institute or hospital, about to pass on. In late ferry, gray captured the human experience of leaving home for the first time and doesnt feel comfortable with his upcoming life style, in the city life. He provides insight to capture this experience by using imagery.

In this text, gray presents the city as being fake, in contrast to his previous, and natural habitat; nature. His imagistic language is present throughout the text to emphasis how artificial the city is. An example of this would be neon, which is fake lights; this implies that even the city light is artificial. Also, Grays portrays the bridge to be a giant prop, this insinuates that the city is just a huge production, with fake objects to make it seem real and natural. Gray captures the feeling of human experiences in old house by emphasising the purity of death. He effectively conveys this through the repetition of white, which is symbolic for light, purity, calmness and innocence. This is evident with the quotes: white yacht and the white coat. The white yacht is to symbolise the transport, which will be taking him away, and the white coat is to symbolise the doctor in a pure white coat going to help him on his journey. In the poem late ferry, gray expresses his feeling to capture human experiences. An example of this would be his repetition of the word dark.

He uses this to emphasis his feeling of uncertainty; of unknowing what it would be like to go to another area, with a totally different lifestyle, to a more fast paced society. Dark is also symbolic for death, and in late ferry, Gray conveys death as a loss of innocence of when he leaves his home. Another insight which gray conveys in old house to capture a human experience is the symbolism of the yacht. As all humans know, a yacht floats on water; there are certain destinations that it will reach. In old house, gray captures the process of death as the flow of a yacht, as this symbolises the flow, it also symbolises how a yacht may not always flow peacefully, and in this text, the death may not always be calm. Although this may happen, gray portrays the death to be gentle on the yacht. Another insight that gray expresses in late ferry to capture human experiences is the symbolism of redness. The symbolism of the colour redness, in the concept which gray has referred to as a symbolic word, he was trying to emphasis danger, anger, devil and temptation. Although red is also a colour of love, in this poem, Gray used this symbol because it can also easily capture a humans experience of danger, anger and temptation.

Gray also expresses his feeling in the text old house to capture a human experience is by the imagery of deep sea. He uses this imagery in this poem to emphasis this dark place in which he now lives. Deep sea can be a cold and scary place. This would capture a human experience because deep in the sea would be a dark and lonely which is something a human can feel and relate to. Gray expresses, in late ferry, a human experience captured by the language technique of symbolism, this is of colour. In this text, gray uses the colour of yellow to express light, and sun, and to emphasis the preciousness of the colour yellow, which also symbolises gold. In this text, gray conveys yellow as the happy colour of the light, which is more natural and sweet to him, especially compared the fake lights and colours of the city. Poetry is definitely language used to capture a part of human experiences. This is evident in both late ferry and old house, which were written by the poet Robert gray. He informs his audience of the destruction of nature, and this is happens by mere humans. This is evident by the artificialness of the city in late ferry, and of an old house actually being an institute in old house. He does this successfully through various uses of poetic language techniques.