Human Experiences and the Passage of Time: Assessing Works by Slessor and Munch Anonymous 12th Grade

The experience of time passage and the effects of this process is a collective and individual human experience. Time is something which can in no way be stopped or changed, meaning its actions and consequences are inevitable. This is a concept which is explored within the texts ‘Wild Grapes’ and ‘Out of Time’, both by Kenneth Slessor, as well as ‘The Scream’ and accompanying poem “The Great Scream in Nature” by Edvard Munch.

‘Wild Grapes’ by Kenneth Slessor explores the deterioration of landscape, people and memory caused by the passing of time. In the first stanza of the poem, Slessor paints the audience a picture of a devastated and desolate orchard. This picture is evoked by the use of visual imagery which describes the orchard in detail as being old, “full of smoking air”, “full of sour marsh and broken boughs”, and “kept no more by vanished Mulligans”. Slessor then uses imagery in the second stanza to recount his memory of the orchard when it was well-kept, blossoming with ripe fruit and before it became overrun by wild plants. This shows us the extent of deterioration which has occurred over time when this image is compared to that of the first stanza. It is in the third stanza where Slessor introduces symbolism. The wild...