English Journeys In Les Murray's 'Away Bound Train'

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English Journeys Essay A Taoist quote, “the journey is the reward” sums up the reason we as humans go on journeys. People embark on journeys everyday from catching a bus to school to trekking through the Sahara. No matter what, when someone embarks on a journey they are changed from their experiences. This essay will discuss how the characters of my chosen texts have encountered new ideas, people, events and communities throughout their journeys. Les Murray’s beautifully written poem, Away Bound Train, is clearly identified with the main character encountering new ideas. An assumption of a journey is that they bring change and this certainly holds true for Away Bound Train. Murray has used the train ride as an extended metaphor of travelling through life. Away Bound Train seems to be a reflection of Murray’s life as he has…show more content…
Like Away Bound Train it has a theme of travelling in a train as the journey. There is no extended metaphor but rather the journey of soldiers to their old towns and communities. The idea of encountering new people is relevant to this journey poem as the people that they encounter are not new but instead it is them, the soldiers, who have changed and are new. “Old terrors doze” shows how the soldier’s journey home has changed them from what they were. I also believe that the soldier’s are going to see the old towns and communities differently upon their return. This can also be seen as encountering a new community upon a journey. This poem connects with Shakespeare’s The Seven Ages of Man speech. Shakespeare’s speech shows the transition between the stages of a man’s life like Troop Train Returning and shows the transition back to men in peacetime. The soldiers have all encountered ‘new’ people on the train back home, however, they just don’t know

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