The Glass Jar Summary

The title of this poem is ‘The Glass Jar’, by Gwen Harwood. It was published in 1963. It is a narrative, a poem that tells a story. The poem employs an ‘a-b-b-a-c-c’ rhyme scheme. It describes a child’s frightening experience of a night at home and the sense of loss he experiences as a new day begins. The poem’s main theme is about the belief that humans hold in a higher power. It suggests that faith in a higher power is never absolute, and that it can abandon people in their time of need.
I have chosen to represent this theme through a drawing.
In order to convey a belief in a higher power, Harwood employs the use of religious imagery, whereby the words convey powerful images in a religious context. She uses terms such as ‘monstrance’,