1. IB Lit - Paper 1 - Better Days by A. F. Moritz
Not long ago, being young meant having little to no worries and although blissful youth has become
tainted by the growing pressures young people face,it remains a time we all wish we could savour
everlastingly. In ‘Better Days’ by A.F. Mortiz, the author explores the euphoria associated with
adolescence only to then depict the distresses experienced when making a transition from childhood
to adulthood in the form of a coming-of-age story. The narrator adopts a very reflective tone when
nostalgically recounting his past, and later shifts to a more prosaic tone when describing the struggles
of early manhood and finally the tranquility of old age.
The poem is organised into three-lined non-end rhymed stanzas; in the first three stanzas, the speak
celebrates his youth when reflecting on his teenage years. He compares his reminiscing to a “bird
crossing [his] vision”, this idyllic image framed in a simile impresses the reader and highlights the
speaker’s awe in recounting these memories. In the second stanza, the speaker recounts and praises
his years of sexual indulgences, painting a vivid image of “moist nights” spent with “girls” where
“boys ripened”; the visual imagery employed here is evocative as the reader can visualise bodies
transmitting their “moist[ure]” and heat into the atmosphere as they would engage in sexual congress,
and the metaphoric phrase “boys ripened” conveys the sexual maturity these young men had reached,
which the speaker takes much pride in. In line five, the speaker later admits to having been an
advocate of youthful iconoclasm as he comically describes his hedonistic tendencies and youthful
rebellion as “holy drunkness” and a “violation of the comic boundaries, defiances that never failed or
brought disaster”, here, the speaker prides himself in “never” having suffered any severe
repercussions for the transgressions he committed in his youth and the author applies the oxymoron
“holy drunkness” to emphasise the speaker’s opposition to the cherished beliefs he would have likely
been expected and encouraged to uphold by his parents along with any other authority figure young
people normally feel inclined to rebel against.
In the third and fourth stanzas, the speaker ensconces the reader into a rural setting and impresses us
with picturesque images. The speaker talks of ‘Days on the backs and in breath of horses’, the visceral
image a horse’s ‘back’ together with the tactile imagery employed when describing the ‘breath’ of the
horse that could be felt expresses the bucolic awe often associated with farm animals and rural life in
general, which is accentuated by the sensual images of “smooth waves” being tossed on the “muscular
water”; the sibilant adjective “smooth” together with its dynamic interaction with the “muscular
water” gives this stanza the dreamery mood and maritime image and makes this setting so captivating
and awe-inspiring to the reader.
The fifth stanza is the poem’s volta as the speaker shifts from a positively nostalgic tone to a more
adverse and prosaic one when describing the difficulties he encountered as a young adult. The speaker
admits that the positive memories of his youth that he alludes to in the earlier stanzas “never come
back” but are instead “blott[ed]” by the thronging images of the hardships he suffered during a “time
of poverty” and “struggle”, and the speaker interjects the formal aside “the muddy seedtime of early
manhood”; the bright colours and aestival images evoked in the previous stanzas when the speaker
describes his rural origins are juxtaposed by the dull and “muddy” colours and images evoked in this
stanza to establish the severe contrast of attitudes the speaker possesses towards these antithetical
phases of his life; whereas the speaker celebrates the former phase of his life - a time of pleasant
adolescence,he condemns the latter for it had been a dismal period in which he had to abandon his
juvenile pursuits and was required to assume his responsibilities as a “man”.

2. From the seventh to ninth stanzas, the speaker reflects on more recent years where the pressures of
“manhood” forced him to adopt a recumbent position from which he would observe his surroundings
pensively. The speaker talks of an “old man” whom he would spend “night after night” in a “diner [...]
watching”, this line alone conveys the speaker’s high regard for this figure whom the he does not give
a name, which suggests that he never actually conversed with him. The speaker later describes him as
being “a studious worker” and reveals that he was an “artist” who would “always” wear the “same
worn-out suit”, the adjective “studious” along with the “worn-out suit” the old man dons demonstrate
his assiduousness and it becomes clear that this level of commitment and engagement with his work is
what fascinates the speaker about the old man; his occupation as an “artist” and willingness to spend
“long nights [...] under the sour light” give the “old man” a sense of purpose, which cannot be said
about the poem’s protagonist who in paying so much attention to his surroundings has become
suspended in existence with little to no sense of purpose apart from admiring this figure whom he
later admits to and is regretful of never having spoken to.
The concluding stanza includes the speaker’s epiphanic revelation and ends on an ambiguous note.
The speaker refers to the “old man” as a “friend” whom he would “see each day” but “never spoke to”
and the contemplative tone the speaker adopts here expresses the regret he is grappling with and in the
penultimate line, the speaker retrospectively realises that these days he had “hoped soon to disappear”
deserved more appreciation and that his juvenile years together his perennial admiration of this “old
man” form the cumulative sum of “Better Days” that can only exist as memories to be enjoyed [old
age].