Sexton saw writing as a way to escape. She was a confessional poet. “‘Confessional’ is sometimes used to describe the representation of extreme, personal, possibly painful experiences, for therapeutic or cathartic effect” (Matterson 49). Sexton was often shunned because of the graphic material in her poems like adultery, suicide, and masturbation. “Sexton once wrote that poetry ‘should be a shock to the senses.
In the 1690’s, the character of Abigail Williams would be dreadful and obnoxious. Her actions of adultery would deem her imprisonment not only for herself, but for John Proctor. It is her latter actions of perverting the court of Justice which would sentence her for imprisonment in the 21st century. Her criminal offence and her personality of being malicious and wicked, however powerful and mature, allow the audience to appreciate the story and realise that she is pivotal in the play. She is a character who appears in critical parts of the play, and adds crucial information by her language, gestures and actions.
In their day and age these characters would be judged by many factors including social and cultural backgrounds, crimes committed and personal traits. Both of these writers seem to conjure their audience into a state where it compels them to relate to certain characters. Lady Macbeth certainly loses or suppresses her feelings of cowardice. Throughout her appalling invocation to the spirits of evil to “unsex her”, proving her ambition to attain her goal. In Jacobean times women were seen as inferior and even in the Victoria era, thus she required external forces to crush her conscience to allow her to fulfil her ambition.
At any rate, the fact that he is not with her has driven her to insanity and forced her to keep him alive in her mind to escape the pain of unfulfilled desire. This poem is a villanelle which uses a number of metaphors, rhythms, and vivid imagery to express deep emotion, depression and a sense of hopelessness. The title could be taken literally to mean madness as in anger or it could be taken figuratively to mean madness as in obsession. The words of the poem suggest madness as in insanity. The author uses alliteration in only two lines of the poem.
Especially when she reminisces in the final stanza about the time she was young and beautiful, illustrating her complete lack of confidence. Nevertheless, she is still presented as a foul character who threatens the reader, with the line ‘Be terrified’. The poem also ends with the line ‘Look at me now’ which has a double entendre (double meaning). It could be read as a cry of despair or, as a threat – if you did look at Medusa you would die! This leaves the reader feeling conflicting emotions for the character, probably similar to how Medusa herself feels in the poem.
For ATP, in the first couplet, the speaker is angry at his friend; in the second, at his foe. This difference immediately makes the simple poem less simple. As we continue on reading the couplets are beautifully rhyme, meter and show the importance of the purpose which is tolerance and forgiveness. In TMVTL rhyme is not respect and it too sentimental. The central idea is there but not coherent.
This sort of pain is compared to death when he refers to the woman “[having] put on black” .This typifies the pain that men can feel and shows a somewhat excellent sensitive side that not only Shakespeare but other patriarchally born men of his time may have shared. Following these somewhat harsh words seen in the opening lines it can be noted this isn’t a normal petrarchan sonnet, instead it is labelled an anti-petrarchan sonnet due to its subtle attack on a unattainable idealized female. Shakespeare uses the senses as well as emotions cleverly in the poem. Although he knows this beautiful woman has no similar feelings towards him the man still can’t help but proclaim her beauty. In line 4 the poet shows just how
Despite the fact that the short story ought to be considered as a whole when analyzing it, the chief element of each work of art is its ending. In this story, there is an abrupt, open ending which leads the reader to ask him/herself moral questions such as the punishment Mary Maloney would have received if she were discovered, was she mentally insane because of her actions? As far as I am concerned, Dahl wanted to
The first refrain, “I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead”, both contrasts and shares parallel structure with the second line, “I lift my lids and all is born again” (1, 2). By purposefully creating a structural contradiction, Plath draws focus to both a theme in the poem and a view of her own: people see things not as they are, but as the people themselves are, the world is a reflection of the person observing it (Buckley). This obscurity in reality is what creates the conflict for the speaker. The second refrain, “I think I made you up inside my head”, brings instability and self-doubt into the poem as the speaker questions if the one she loved so much, the one who still gives her so much pain, ever existed to begin with. The fact that this line was chosen as the second refrain, reappearing at the end of many stanzas including the first, and is always surrounded by parentheses seems to indicate that it is meant as a second thought for the speaker, a doubt of sanity always present and something thought only to herself, not to the “you” she is addressing, who is likely the one she
The Victorian Era was characterised by very rigid perceptions of gender and class. Brönte’s Jane Eyre challenges these rules. It is, therefore, no surprise that the novel was met with sharp criticism. Most critics of the novel were, in particular, concerned with the apparent insult that it posed to the accepted image of femininity of the time. One review states that the novel proves to be filled with “ruthless rigour [which] must command our admiration, but [is] almost startling in one of the softer sex” (The Christian Remembrancer).