“Softly” creates a warm setting to the readers, but then with a juxtaposition of “dusk” creates a negative image which becomes a conflict to the first one. The conflict is used to represent the conflict in the narrators adulthood and childhood. There is a mixture of happiness and sadness portrayed through his thoughts. When “taken back down” to the “vista of years”, he “sees” his mother and him playing the piano together. He pictures the close physical bond they had as he was “pressing” his feet on to hers.
Throughout many of her poems Duffy writes of loss of innocence from numerous perspectives. She does so particularly in ‘In Mrs Tilschers Class’ and ‘Lizzie, Six’. ‘in Mrs Tilcher’s Class” showing the initial joys of childhood which are lost with the gaining of knowledge, and ‘Lizzie, Six’, a shocking portrayal of child abuse and loss of innocence. The theme of innocence presented in these two poems can be illuminated by Pugh’s poem ‘Sweet 18’, which is a dramatic monologue from an older woman, dreaming of a youthful boy with ‘the unknowing’ ease of his age. To begin with, Duffy writes about childhood as ultimately a loss of innocence as children ‘come of age’.
Miguel Salazar Prof. Austin ENG 200 March 3, 2014 The ending of relationships is all but too common. When the one who was once the one to turn to, the one source of light during dark times, the answer to every unanswerable question is reduced to nothing more than a memory of what was once a true love. The ending of such love is often first realized when one is already deep into the trail towards the end. In the story Dear Jack by Melissa Checker, an unnamed woman faces a similar situation as she writes a letter to what is presumably her boyfriend, Jack, while he is gone on a family trip for a few days. Essentially, the theme of the story is that of how love fades, but is hard to let go of.
Just as she used time of day in The Violets, she uses seasons to symbolise a time in her life. Autumn symbolises her middle age. In this stanza she paints a grim picture of her innocence lost as she has become aware of age and death by saying “we stand, two friends of middle age by your parents’ grave in silence among the avenues of the dead.” The reason she has chosen to set this part of the poem at the grave of her friend’s parents because of her love for her own parents, and she deeply empathises with her friend’s loss. It is typical in her poetry that, when the present becomes too miserable, Harwood will transcend the current time and return to a happier memory. However in this poem she cannot find a happier memory and recalls a dream instead, “I dreamed once long ago, that we walked among day-bright flowers.” Her use of positive imagery such as the “day-bright flowers” lightens the mood and achieves the same effect of the memories in The Violets, as she stops thinking of death and causes the reader to forget the unhappy nature of the initial memory and be emotionally moved by the warmth of the following memory where she is “secure in my father’s arms.” In her poems The Violets, Father and Child and At Mornington Gwen Harwood demonstrates through her use of memories, her loss of innocence, the love for her parents and how quickly time moves.
In both short stories the main characters are devastated by the depart of their loved ones, and have troubles coping with it. (last name) 2 The short stories Paper Pills and Stockings both have similar Characteristics, but also different characteristics to show the coping of the loss of a loved one. Paper Pills is told in a narrative Point of View, and Stockings as well. In both of these stories the author shows how the magic has not left them, in different ways of corse. In Stockings the author clearly states that Henry Dobbins still loves her even though she broke up with him, but in Paper Pills it is a little harder to notice.
The novels Ethan Frome and Catcher in the Rye by Edith Wharton and J.D.Salinger, respectively, are two great works that depict two characters’ struggles in life. Three themes that both novels share are the need for companionship, regret over lost potential and immersion in a fantasy world. Ethan Frome and Holden Caulfield are both very lonely characters in desperate need for companionship and compassion. They both search for human contact of sorts to prevent the onset of loneliness. Frome marries Zenobia Pierce prematurely, only to obviate “the mortal silence of…long imprisonment.” (Wharton, page 61) He wanted “the sound of a …voice” to fill the void on his farm.
• Why did Rip go there? • What were the signs he was asleep for so long? • Historical context/significance Richard Cory (song by Simon & Garfunkel, poem by E.A. Robinson • Compare and contrast • Responsibility within both the song and poem “Ichabad” – John Greenleaf Whittier • Author’s message • Literary devices The Joy Luck Club – Amy Tan • The auntie’s concerns (central message) • The origin of the Joy Luck Club • Relationship between AnMei and her mother • Symbolism of the color, red and the red candle • The sense of self and belonging of an Asian-American woman • Responsibility within the text • The conflict in “Two Kinds” A Streetcar Named Desire – Tennessee Williams • Relationships between characters • Themes & motifs “A Rose for Emily” – William Faulkner • Characters • Theme • Plot • Literary devices “Ain’t I a Woman” – Sojourner Truth • Pillar of fairness – why does the poem fit? • Civil rights • Women’s
Resentments & Regrets: An Examination of Losing Family Relationships Through Poetry Family relationships tend to get complicated, and often over time becomes fragile like fine china. Stubborn resentments that build up over time within a family from past wrongs and miss-steps will inevitably lead to pain, loss, and regret; and like a neglected infection that leads to amputation, the pain is overwhelming intangible yet set deep within the body and consumes the mind. Rachel Hadas eloquently illustrates this belief in the fragility of family relationships and the consequences of destroying them in her poem “Thick and Thin,” where in only 18 short lines and 103 powerful words, she delivers this affirmation of her own regret, this sorrowful plea to the heavens for help, and this lonely apology letter written to the lost, written for the lost. Hadas demonstrates mastery at capturing emotion in her writing through her thoughtfully chosen usage of diction, sounds, and images, specifically emphasizing the role of time while cleverly playing with the dual means of words, such as “thick” and “thin”. She artfully delivers traditionally warm and happy images of family memories with lines like “fingerprints, palm-prints, even marks of teeth” (line 8), while at the same time exuding only the tangibly painful emotions that come from losing relationships with family.
Reading this poem, however, we do not experience it as a display of cold or abstract mechanics. Instead, it is raw and deeply emotional, for all that the empirical details of the underlying sorrow (what it is actually "about") are concealed from the reader. We "understand" the sadness without "knowing" its source. Stanza 1 begins in a domestic scene as a grandmother reads jokes from an almanac to her granddaughter. However, grief is suggested by the Autumnal atmosphere and the “failing light “.
Based on the academic exercise that had been given, I have studied some poems based on the theme of school. After I have studied those poems, I decided to choose 6 of them to analyse and write a reflection about it. The poems that I have chosen are “First Day at School” by Roger McGough, “School is not so cool” by Chantel Braatz, “Going Back to School” by Stephen Vincent Benet, “Dunce” by Robert W. Service, “Two Schools” by Henry Van Dyke, and “The School in August” by Philip Larkin. I choose these poems because they are the most interesting poems that I have read. First of all, I would like to give my opinion on the literary devices which was found in these 6 poems.