A Comparison: Guilt And This Day In History

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A Comparison – “Guilt” and “This Day in History” "To have guilt you've got to earn guilt, but sometimes when you earn it, you don't feel the guilt you ought to have" (James Dickey). This quote is a perfect representation of the two poems that use guilt as their main theme, "Guilt" by Leona Gom and "This Day in History" by Bert Almon, due to its ability to explain the fact that we as humans constantly commit certain actions with a result of a different reaction then we usually expect. Although the two poems differ in their titles and the types of guilt they express, the two poems are similar in a way that they both explain the ways that we as individuals selfishly tend to view our needs, actions, and lives take more importance over those of others.…show more content…
Guilt is given 3 different, but very similar definitions. "Guilt: (1) The fact or state of having committed an offence, crime, violation, or wrong, especially against moral or penal law; culpability. (2) Feeling of responsibility or remorse for some offence, crime, wrong, etc.., whether real or imagined. (3) Conduct involving the commission of such crimes, wrongs, etc" (The Free Dictionary). Therefore, if you knew the slightest bit of what the term guilt meant, you would have a good understanding on what the poem was going to be about. The title of the poem "This Day in History" written by Bert Almon most likely will generate a series of questions such as: When and where did this take place? What actually happened? Why did the world get fine sunsets? Did people get hurt? Therefore, if the reader did not know anything about the incident that the author is talking about, the reader might not understand as much as wanted. The reader would then have to possibly do some
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