How does Tony Harrison reveal the physical and psychological harm caused by social injustice in his poetry?

Harrison’s use of imagery and tone in ‘Working’ paints a painful portrayal of the physical damage inflicted on 14-year old Patience Kershaw by the social injustices of industrial systems. Primarily, he describes her once ‘golden hair’ as ‘chafed fluffy first and then scuffed off’. Here, the fricative ‘f’ sounds slow the pace of the poem and therefore seem to parallel the painful and enduring process of Kershaw’s hair loss as she is ‘head down thrusting a 3 cwt corf’ in the mines. Later, he describes her head as like a ‘chick’s back, then eggshell, that sunless white’. Utilising the image of a ‘chick’, and later, ‘eggshell’ is blatantly indicative of Patience’s vulnerability, but also, dehumanisation, whilst the revelation that her head is ‘sunless white’ denotes deprivation, malnourishment and a fundamental loss of youthful vivacity. Subsequently, it could be concluded that Harrison renders visible the idea that the social injustices of industrial work and childhood labour that perpetuated throughout the 19^th century were inevitably causing of intense physical (and most likely linked to this, psychological) harm.
Furthermore, Harrison’s characterisation of the convict in ‘National Trust’ is more explicitly revealing of the psychological harm that social injustice can cause. The ‘winched down’ convict is listed as being ‘grey, mad and dumb’. Here, the adjective ‘mad’ most obviously connotes a psychologically degenerated condition; but also, ‘dumb’ could be suggestive of intellectual delay, and ‘grey’, of a loss of strength both emotionally as physically. This is emphasised when it is revealed that ‘Not even a good flogging made him holler!’; the convict lacking the energy to even react to further physical torment. It follows that in his writing Harrison again reveals that social injustice is provocative of psychological and physical harm amongst the oppressed classes. Extending this, he may also imply that social injustice is psychologically damaging to those in power. For example, the upholders of law and order are described as ‘stout’, believing that the ‘flayed’ and ‘winched’ convict is merely being ‘borrowed’. The adjective ‘stout’ could denote excessive greed, whilst the suggestion that the ‘gentlemen’ believe that their convict was ‘borrowed’ could be indicative of a fundamental refusal to acknowledge reality (the reality being that by ‘borrowing’ the convict they are inflicting considerable harm upon him). Therefore, it could be said that as with the oppressed, social injustice is psychologically harming to the powerful; causing them to possess illusory beliefs and become overwhelmed by greed.