The comparison of the poems “Country Towns” and William Street” by Kenneth Slessor, facilitates his perspective and thoughts about Australia. “William Street” is in reference to the actual street in Sydney that connects the Central Business District with Sydney’s red light district. “Country Towns” gives a generalised idea of Slessor conveys his fondness of Australia despite his description of the sleazy red light district and sleepy rural town. The contrast atmosphere of city and country life found in Australia is demonstrated through the comparison of the two poems. The environments of William Street and country town are at variance, (rid of the comma add ‘as’) seen through the poet’s eloquent description in each poem. His exploration of…show more content… Slessor uses rhyme to demonstrate the image of Australian as being laid back. Rhyme is used to created many effects in the poem including giving stanzas flow and (get rid of ‘and’ this allows you to show what Slessor is trying to achieve) to reinforce meaning. He uses the consistent rhyme to make the image memorable. The emphasis on the words “sleep” and “deep” add to the sleepy and slow moving feel to the phrase “Verandas baked with musky sleep./ Mulberry faces dozing deep.” The “d” sound is in (delete ‘is in’) highlights (don’t use the same word twice in the same sentence) the depth of sleep, emphasising on the tired, sluggish feeling,(get rid of the comma) to highlight the image of Australian as being relaxed. The red light district demonstrates more of an urbanised Australia. The image of an urbanised Australia is evoked in “William Street” in the first stanza when it mentions (Contrastingly, in “William Street” the image of urban Australian is portrayed in the first stanza) “The red globes of light, the liquor green, the pulsing arrows and the running fire”. The use of personification helps emphasise on the brightness and size of the neon lights. As these lights are said to be “pulsing” and “running” it gives the idea that these lights are spread out throughout the whole city, lighting everything up. These bright neon signs are generally found in large urbanised cities, thus the image of an urbanised Australia being presented in William Street. Through the description of the red light district as an urbanised city and country town as a laidback environment, it shows what Slessor is saying about
