POKU David OKAE - MY Grandfather PDF

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Comparing the rhyme grandfather's clock to the heartbeat...

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NAME: POKU DAVID OKAE CLASS: HUMAN BIOLOGY 2 INDEX: 8595819 QUESTION: ANALYZE THE SONG “MY GRANDFATHER’S CLOCK” My grandfather's clock was too large for the shelf So, it stood ninety years on the floor It was taller by half than the old man himself Though it weighed not a pennyweight more It was bought on the morn of the day that he was born And was always his treasure and pride But it stopped, short never to go again When the old man died Ninety years without slumbering His life seconds numbering It stopped short, never to go again When the old man died… “My Grandfather’s clock”, the song talks about an old man with a clock. The clock was bought on the morning of his birth and thus he felt this wonderful connection to it. In his own words, he described the clock as his most faithful servant because the only form of pay the clock required was a winding at the end of each week and it was up and doing after that. In addition, it was to him his treasure and pride till the last years, days, minutes and seconds of his long-lived ninety years. From the extract, it can be inflected that, the clock is likened to his heart, this relation is confirmed in the unusual alarm which sounded in the darkness of the night, presumably the same way he would have an irregular heart beat if his heart was failing. The heart, as an organ has a need of oxygen and as long as a person receives oxygen, the heart continues to beat, in a similar way the clock required winding at the end of each week. Another similarity to be noticed comes in with the clock stopping, never to go again the moment the old man died, just as the heart ceases the moment a person’s stops breathing. The “tik tok” rhythm of the second’s hand can be

equaled to the “lub dub” sound of the heart, where the atrioventricular valves’ closure produces a lub sound and the closure of the aortic and pulmonary valves produce a dub sound. The heart beats from the time it is completely formed till death just as the old man received the clock on the morning of his birth. Its faithfulness can be compared to how the heart never rests unless it encounters a defect in relation to when the old man wounds the clock for it to work again after a week. The measure of his clock was sixty seconds in a minute as heart gives 70 to 80 beats per minute. Finally, the soft and muffled chime of the clock can be correlated to the slow heart rate as the last moments of the old man’s life fade away....