How Does the Writer Portray the Reactions and Response Towards Mr Samuel's Electric Lights?

541 Words3 Pages
How does the writer portray the reactions and responses towards Mr Samuel’s electric lights? In “Electricity Comes to Cocoa Bottom” the poet, Marcia Douglas, uses many different poetic devices and techniques to portray the reactions of the people watching the lights. In the poem there are 3 stanza’s. And these stanza are written in free verse with no rhyme or formal rhythm to them. At the very start of the first stanza it starts with “Then” this give the start of the poem more of a story or fairy tale start. Even more it takes the reader straight into the action as though it was a story. It also sounds like the poem has already begun and that the reader is joining part way through. But they hear the main part. One of the poetic devices that are used is the poets point of view. Marcia Douglas uses words like “They” being a collective but also from her point of view showing that she wasn't there, other wise it would be from her perspective, and there were a mix of people there. The writer uses a variety of characters to show their response to the electricity coming to Cocoa Bottom. She uses long sentences to show how eager the children are to see the light. “They camped on the grass bank outside his house,” “watching the sky turn yellow, orange”. The word ‘watching’ shows how much they want to see the light as they waited watching the sunset which must have felt like a long time. The writer uses various actions to help visualize the response to the electricity. “Such a fluttering of wings, tweet-a-whit, such a swaying, swaying.” The use of these onomatopoeic phrases helps us to see how nature reacted to the light being turned on, which was a reaction of excitement and awe. The tone of the poem progresses from a happy and enthusiastic one to a less enthusiastic and disappointed one. It starts off happy as the children and nature itself are

More about How Does the Writer Portray the Reactions and Response Towards Mr Samuel's Electric Lights?

Open Document