Analysis Of The Poem Titled The Panic Of Growing Older By Lenrie Peters

Read the analysis of this great poem below...

In the poem titled “The Panic Of Growing Older”,the poet, Dr Lenrie Peters seemed preoccupied by what can be considered as how some factors: Time, ambition, hope, etc affect the adult stage of human beings.
Lenrie Peters, took age 20 upwards as his case-study to show how the events of adulthood unfold. He revealed that a person begins adulthood with beautiful hopes:
“at twenty stilled by hope of gigantic success and exploration”. Ten years later, one has gained the achievement of
raising a family, one
becomes unnecessarily
busy in domesticity that won’t give room of seeing the moon, one begins to suffer emotional pains due
to inability to achieve
expected goals. He put it this way: “Copybook bisected with red ink
and failuresq-nothing to show the world”. He further explained that
the scientific prove of life longevity is uncertain because “hope is not a
grain of sand” since human being can die at
anytime.

THEMES...

1. Uncertainty of human
future and expectations
2. Varying challenges
of adulthood
3. Personal and Public
expectations of
adulthood
4. Captivity of being an adult.
The gigantic hopes that
one have at age twenty are uncertain and at the age thirty brings emotional pains due to failures. Even the proof that one will live longer enough to achieve the expectations waiting to be achieved is not certain.
As one grows through
adulthood, various

challenges confront one's endeavors, affecting both the personal expectations
and the public expectations,i.e, those things the world and the people around expect a person to
achieve as a growing
adult.
“From now on the world has you” shows that every adult is a captive or a slave to the world; one must impress with achievements to be
regarded as a success.
Reference: www.naijapoets.com