“Maud: A monodrama” is a complex exploration of love, death and society, conveyed through an erratic narrative with a near-schizophrenic speaker who laments the death of his lover, Maud. Received badly by most contemporary critics, the idea of “Maud” being both “mad” and “mud” shall be examined in this essay and the reasons why certain critics may have regarded it in such a way. The speaker’s madness, delusion and cynicism pervade the poem. The neurotic, frantic and exasperated speaker may have led to certain critics regarding the poem as “Mad”. In the first stanza, the environment in which the speaker’s father committed suicide is personified as having “lips” that are “dabbled with blood-red heath” and “red-ribb’d ledges”.
Medusa is described in a very negative manner. On the other hand, the final stanza makes us feel pity for her. Her lover had other ‘girls’ meaning he was unfaithful and the rhetorical question that follows makes Medusa seem desperate. This part of the poem evokes feelings from the reader as she is clearly distressed and suffering. She reminisces about when she was ‘fragrant and young’, illustrating her complete lack of confidence.
With no real purpose but to be mindlessly massacred. Through personification, the guns responsible for taking so much human life are made out to be monstrous, even evil. The poem also likens their deaths to a funeral, but one where the bells are shots, and the mourning choirs are the army's bugles. The drawing down of the blinds, the traditional sign to show that the family is in mourning, has been likened to the drawing of a sheet to cover the dead. Through various literary techniques, Wilfred Owen enhances the meaning of the poem.
‘broke/choke’ Here a rhyming is used by the poet in order to emphasize the mothers’ trauma and desolation which shows that she was affected emotionally and physically. The title of the poem ‘‘The Hero’’ is an oxymoron in comparison with the rest of the poem. Meaning that it is ironically termed in order to create a comparison between the real meaning of a hero and Jack who is the kind of coward who gains the contempt of his comrades by trying to escape. The ironic tone of the title also raises the question of what a hero is through the whole poem which shows how cruel the war is to have destroyed precious ideas of heroism. The first stanza begins with ‘‘Jack fell as he’d have wished, the Mother said’’ An image of a grieving mother opens the poem.
The reporter wants the reader to sympathise for the double killer Robert Harris. He says “gurgled and gasped for air as the cyanide gas choked the life from him” The reporter has used strong emotive language to emphasize the pain harris went through. In the article the reporter clearly wants to make the reader feel like Harris was killed in the worst way possible. The writer states “If you asked me i’d say that was not a clean humane way to die “ this makes the reader feel like it was a horrible way to die and he wouldn’t report on it again. In the article I see a killer die the reporter wanted us to be in favour of Harris when he wrote “We had heard he had broken down and cried to a guard shortly before he was tied to the chair with leather straps” This makes the reader feel as if Harris was remorseful towards the victims families.
A Grave Repercussion Emotions can be fatal when left to fester. Often, people’s feelings can cause their rationality to decay and drive them towards abnormal behavior. In Shakespeare's Hamlet, Ophelia snaps under the heartache of her fathers’ death, forcing her into madness. Eventually, her anguish throws her into a grave with which she cannot escape. The grief she suffers is what leads to her derangement, and in turn, her own death.
Macbeth State of Mind after Killing Duncan Immediately upon returning after he has committed the crime, it is obvious that he is highly disturbed by the crime that he has committed. He tells Lady Macbeth that he cannot pronounce the word “amen.” This implies that he is now unholy. In addition, this begins the insomnia that drives him to madness. He says that he heard someone say “Glamis hath murdered sleep, and therefore Cawdor/ shall sleep no more. Macbeth shall sleep no more” (II.2.55-57).
This is shown in the statements “lice and lack of rum,” and “bullet through his brain”. This makes it obvious of the poets point on war as he would have most likely witnessed this first hand and seen the losses due to mental breakdown. Whereas in another poem of Sassoon’s “Glory of women” he uses Irony and Alliteration as well as Personification to display women’s Misguided and hypocritical beliefs of war with it easily being visible in the last two lines and the beginning lines of the poem. This poem is more of a n angry statement about women’s bragging rights about their lovers being “wounded in a mentionable place” or “worship decorations” and use of personification in “war’s disgrace” with plenty of lines of alliteration such as “heroes, home on leave,” and “hell’s last horror” shows how much Sassoon feels the public and women are misguided towards war. However in a poem by Issac Rosenburg “Break of Day in the Trenches” the title make you feel as if the poem shall be positive, but after the first line you are to be mistaken.
Victor is “disturbed by the wildest dreams” and sights Elizabeth. “as I imprinted the first kiss on her lips, they became livid with the hue if death”. This builds the atmosphere and develops the contrast between life and death. It also gives a sense of imagery. This shows that from the moment he had tried to bestow life into the dead, he accomplished the total opposite; he causes the living to die.
Kowalski’s beast-like traits and inhuman strength are opposed to Blanche’s language capabilities right from the meeting between the two. Within this section the playwright portrays Blanche to have poor people skills as well as a desperate defiance and an intellectual ability. Williams also contrasts these traits with Stanley’s rough and compact nature that are part of the modern era of America that is going to crush and get rid of the older, weaker America that Blanche symbolises. Firstly, Williams uses personification to emphasise the immense force and effect that the family deaths have had on Blanche. This emotional turmoil is portrayed as powerful “blows in (her) face and (her) body” showing how painful that these deaths were for her and how influential they were in the loss of Belle Reve.