Harmonium and Nettles Harmonium and Nettles both highlight the theme of memory. As they both are looking back over past memories that are painful, the poems feature the feelings of being helpless in stopping the hurt that was caused. The writer in Harmonium feels remorse for the things he hadn’t said to his father as Armitage states “then mouth in reply some shallow sorry phrase or word too starved of breath to make itself heard”. The writer in Nettles is protective of the recurring threat to his child that he can’t destroy. “rain had called up tall recruits behind the shed,” this quote shows the father cannot destroy them .They differ in the way they felt powerless however as in Nettles the father is feeling powerless because of a physical threat whereas in Harmonium it is an emotional threat of the inevibility of death and unspoken feelings that makes the writer feel powerless.
This war and battle imagery used in the poem helps the reader to understand deeper, about the metaphorical meaning of this poem; that it is not just about comforting his son from the pain of the nettles, but also about the future pain of which he knows he will experience in his life. He knows that “My son would often feel sharp wounds again”, meaning he will soon in the near future may come across the same
Elie and his father have a strong relationship and Elie wants to survive with his father. Rabbi Eliahou and his son’s story makes Elie realize that he has to take care of his father and both of them live. Rabbi Eliahou’s son treats his father badly and leaves the father, because he does not want to be stuck with an old man. His son got both of them killed. In response to this Elie asks, "My God, Lord of the Universe, give me strength never to do what Rabbi Eliahou’s son has done,"(67).
Literary Analysis of Seamus Heaney’s poem, “Digging” Seamus Heaney’s poem, “Digging,” is about a narrator remembering the work done by his father and grandfather, compared to the kind of work the narrator has chosen, which is writing. Reading through the poem, we see the narrator “digging” the ground of his memory and feeling both proud of and humbled by the hard labor his father and grandfather put in planting and digging potatoes. But in the end the narrator feels his choice of work in life is writing, and he will be content with that. In this essay I will analyze how Heaney uses diction, imagery, and sound techniques to contribute to the theme of choosing one’s life work. The poem is made up of nine stanzas, and from the first stanza we are taken through the narrator’s memory into the past, and then back to the present in the final stanza.
The Spade and the Pen: The Passion of Life In the poem “Digging”, the author, Seamus Heaney, recalled his father and grandfather’s painstaking, yet rewarding work on growing potatoes and cutting turf. The persistence and passion emanating from the author’s father and his grandfather inspires him to a passion of writing. Through an implicit metaphor, the sentence at the end of the poem: “I’ll dig with it” (31) suggests that the author’s “squat pen” is his “spade”, and the purpose of that metaphor is to expresses his determination of using the pen as a spade to record life and sticking to it forever. At the start of the poem, the speaker emphasizes the importance of a pen to him- just like a gun towards a soldier by using gun as a vehicle of pen (2), the “spade”—which was an important tool to his fathers before him, in the author’s case is his pen. The spade symbolizes the passion the author’s forefathers had in their work and the passion the author has for his work is symbolized by his pen.
‘Digging’ is very much like ‘Follower’, in the sense that it shows how the young Heaney looked up to his elders - in this case both father and grandfather. Seeing his father (now old) “straining” to dig “flowerbeds”, the poet recalls him in his prime, digging “potato drills”. And even earlier, he remembers his grandfather, digging peat. He cannot match “men like them” with a spade, but he sees that the pen is (for him) mightier, and with it he will dig into his past and celebrate them. Heaney challenges the stereotype of ‘Paddy with a spade.’ The stereotype contains some truth - Irishmen are justifiably well known for
When Willy has a flashback of when Ben visited him and they discuss about their father, Willy says to Ben that “I still feel kind of temporary about myself?”(Death of a Salesman, 51). From the quote, Willy gives the reader the clue that he wanted his father to play as an important figure in his life but was not present in his life Since his father left him it has caused a negative psychological impact on Willy. This includes Willy always trying to be a friend to his sons oppose to playing the role of a fatherly. This can be clearly proven when Biff steals the football. During this scene, Willy says to Biff that ““I want you to return that.
He is obviously biased against his father and wants his mother’s sole attention. This point of view provides humor because Larry thinks that he actually belongs in his father’s place, as his mother’s sole companion. Sexuality is involved in the story’s humor because the boy sees his mother as a spouse and he thinks that they can have children together. 3. Larry calls it irony that his prayers were answered because he prayed that his father would return from the war, and when his father actually returns from the war, he wishes that he would leave again.
“Stop the Sun” ~ B. M Response to Literary Essay The name of this piece is “Stop the Sun”. This story is about how Terry’s father has been through the Vietnam war, how his eyes always go away, and how Terry is trying to find out what the war was like so that he could try to understand what his father was going through. In this story Terry is trying to find out what the war was like so he could understand what his father was going through. I am like Terry because I will keep asking questions until I get answers that I can understand like the time I did when my brother was sick with kidney problems. The theme of this story is trying to understand a problem is better than not trying at all even if understanding completely
Indiana’s motivation to find the Holy Grail inside the cave was his father. His father had returning the Holy Grail to him. If he had failed, he would have lost his father and possibly even his own life and this so I chose and I chose numberthis and it looks like he had taught Indiana morals and the knowledge of the book of clues to get through the cave. Indiana’s most valuable heroic characteristics include: bravery and sacrificial. I noticed these particular characteristics while he was on his journey into the cave to find the Holy Grail.