Index IntroductionTony Harrison's National Trust: Summary and AnalysisConclusionReferencesIntroductionPublished in The School of Eloquence in 1978, Tony Harrison's "National Trust" is the embodiment of his frustrations with the British social class system. Through this poem, he tells how, after receiving an educational opportunity after the war, he was estranged from his family. “National Trust” presents its opinions regarding this controversial transformation, including its subjective comments on the celebration of the past. Harrison wrote “The School of Eloquence” as a weapon, illustrating the oppression of the uneducated and criticizing the upper classes. It demonstrates the quintessence of a society in conflict at the end of the 20th century and focuses on the class struggles of the past; after all, “National Trust” was composed as a corrupt 16-line Meredithian sonnet, reflecting the corruption of the upper class. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original National Trust essay by Tony Harrison: summary and analysis Harrison shows his resentment towards the upper class by criticizing them unequivocally in "The School of Eloquence". This approach is demonstrated by the way he describes the founders of the National Trust; the “brave upholders of law and order” ironically described “borrowed a convict,” objectifying an entire social class and subverting ideas about personal dignity through commodification. Harrison is demonstrating the endless greed of the upper class, further revealed through enjambement in the first verse, which also shows the opening words "bottomless pits" as indicative of aristocratic indulgence. The “National Trust” accentuates the corruption of the upper class through this class's ignorance of the suffering of the working classes. Symbolic of this, the line “and valiant upholders of our law and order” has eleven syllables, breaking the iambic pentameter of the poem and alluding to the discord beneath the aristocratic facade. Similarly, Harrison criticizes the elite through the oxymoron “good flogging,” which is indicative of the ignorance of the ruling class, particularly its glorification of suffering. Harrison embodies his frustrations by trivializing the aristocratic vernacular, with ironic language such as “hush-hush” and “someday” mocking the elite's idiolect and also alluding to the elite's inadequacy to govern. In particular, ideas of corruption are highlighted by the hiss of “silence”, which suggests the deliberate silence of the higher social classes and highlights how “the silence of scholars is a very different thing from the silence of miners” (Spencer, 1994). Harrison here affirms “his role as spokesperson for the inarticulate” (Young, 2000, 136) by attributing negative ideals to the upper class. This tactic demonstrates his anger, born of the corruption of the upper class and “the class system that had made his parents and people like them feel inadequate” (Burton, 2001, 18). However, Harrison uses linguistic otherness to distinguish himself from the working class and “the language in which they swore him,” clearly distinguishing between himself and the working class in general with the pronoun “they.” This choice of words represents his need to assert himself as an individual, originating from his dislocation from the social class system. It also implies his resentment of the working class for their passivity in allowing their own oppression. Harrison, it seems, considers the working class inferior in decisiveness, with a “tongue that weighed like lead” (Harrison, 1978). Nonetheless, Harrison defendsthe working class in “National Trust”. He centers the sonnet on the symbolism of the "convict" who was "winched... down" from the "Castleton" mine to gamble on "its depth," exposing how aristocrats deprived the working class of a voice in society, and manipulated them to make them “flayed, grey, mad, stupid.” This monosyllabic “dumb” is figurative of working-class oppression, emphasized by its placement on a separate line at the end of the stanza. The homonym is repeated, representing its dual meaning and indicating Harrison's need to defend the working class, as opposed to his anguish at their own repression. Furthermore, its harsh and explosive qualities suggest that the author is indicting the upper class, thus reflecting on the contrast between “mute” and the onomatopoeic sibilance of “silence.” This feature highlights how the suffering of the working class was clandestine, significant in “National Trust”, while Harrison further questions modern history. By opening the sonnet with “Bottomless Pits,” he connects to the way he opens his poem, “Book Ends 1,” with the explosive “Baked.” Since “Book Ends” focuses on Harrison's relationship with his parents and his exclusion from social class, this connection shows how his emotions seep into his writing, explaining his resentment towards the class system displayed throughout The School of Eloquence. Harrison further highlights the oppression of the working class in “Castletown.” Here, the polysyllabic “castle” is indicative of aristocratic power and the juxtaposed monosyllabic “ton” is phonetically silenced with a shortened vowel sound, also revealing the northern vernacular. This subtle usage symbolizes how the working class was oppressed by the upper class; Harrison strives to emphasize this theme throughout the School of Eloquence. It draws on the explosive “B” and “P” sounds of “Bottomless Pits”; by juxtaposing these with the contrasting sibilances of "Bottomless", Harrison reinforces his view of how the voice of the working class has been silenced by society. He also uses contrasting language, such as the harsh, explosive “booming” and the onomatopoeic “silent”; this further juxtaposition shows a further comparison between the two classes and demonstrates the oppression of the working classes through the power of the ruling class. Similarly, in “Book Ends 1,” he juxtaposes “shattered” and “silences,” demonstrating that Harrison sought to use the “School of Eloquence” as a weapon and illustrating how languages ​​like Cornish were suppressed by history. Furthermore, the idea that “stupid people go down in history and disappear” represents the position of the working class in the social hierarchy and the corresponding loss of language and culture. The “convict” that the aristocrats sent “down” the mine could be a metaphor for this oppression, also connecting to Harrison's ideas in “Working”; the way the working class is “lost in this sonnet” reflects his need to preserve it through The School of Eloquence. Harrison also demonstrates working-class suffering in other, but firmly related, ways. The title “National Trust” is polysemous and represents both the name of the company that seeks to preserve history and the way in which the nation has an obligation to remember the plight of the working class. The use of this title highlights suffering and causes readers to question the celebration of the past, particularly how “Cornish tin miners were robbed of their work, their native language and the ability to organize themselves in a prototype of a union” (Spencer, 1994). ). Suffering is also suggested by the broken rhythm at the end of the first verse. The preceding caesura=1817849)