Finally, it will analyze the way he uses characters and settings to create a believable world that draws the reader into his greater theme. William Faulkner has several re-occurring character types that appear throughout his novels and short stories. One of the most dominant character types is the unfit father figure. In the novel As I Lay Dying, the narrator leads the audience to believe that Anse is leading the family on a journey to bury his lost wife as her dying wishes; however, Anse is the exact opposite. He uses his family throughout the story to achieve selfish benefits.
In the story both the characterization and conflict help to show how “pride is at the bottom of all great mistakes.” The characterization of the narrator allows the reader to see the problem brought about by having too much pride. The author’s use of indirect characterization in “The Scarlet Ibis” is one way the story relates to the quote. In the beginning of the story, the narrator said, “It was bad enough having an invalid brother, but having one who possibly was not all there was unbearable, so I began to make plans to kill him by smothering him with a pillow.” This demonstrates that the narrator has a hard time dealing with his brother’s disability. The author allows the reader to see how desperate the narrator is to have a typical life with an ordinary family. The narrator feels that it is one thing for Doodle to be disabled, but he would rather do away with Doodle than deal with the embarrassment of having him in his life if he were mentally weak as well.
Dulce ET Decorum EST “Dulce et Decorum Est” is a powerful poem by Wilfred Owen which depicts the horrific conditions endured by young soldiers during World War One. The poem is divided into four sections: a description of the numbed, shell shocked conditions as they struggle to return from the frontline, an account of a gas attack, its haunting effects on Owen and a plea not to glorify war. Owens’s use of vivid imagery is particularly interesting in Verse one. For example the soldiers are described as “knocked kneed coughing like hags”. This is good word choice because it shows us how the men are suffering and that they are tired.
Relationships often consist of many layers which are strongly depicted by poets. The writers of ‘Manhunt’ and ‘Quickdraw’ present them very effectively. In ‘Manhunt’, the narrator speaks of her relationship with her husband, a soldier who has returned from war with physical scars; whereas, the narrator of ‘Quickdraw’ expresses an intensely painful relationship as a result of her lovers inconsiderable amount of phone calls and texts. Both poets use emotive language to convey the immense pain suffered in their relationships. In ‘Manhunt’, instead of using a cliché representation of a soldier (powerful and well-built), Armitage chooses to characterize the persona’s husband as weak and fragile, “the damaged, porcelain collar-bone”.
Both seem to be condemning this unfair outcome of war on individual peoples’ lives. “Disabled”, a poem written by Wilfred Owen, tells the story of a boy, excited to join the war, to earn his glory, who suffered grievous injuries in service and came home, not to the cheering and pride he had anticipated, but to people who “inquired about his soul”, and exiled him from normal society. This same theme is apparent in ‘Regeneration’ when Sarah comes across the mutilated soldiers at the back of the hospital, in chapter fourteen. Sarah feels anger at their treatment “If the country demanded
Tyler Evans Margo Williams English 113 September 22, 2011 Haunting Memories in Roethke’s “My Papa’s Waltz” Theodore Roethke’s Poem “My Papa’s Waltz” is often viewed as a loving relationship between a father and son but when viewed in context it is actually describing the atrocious memories of the relationship the son recalls with his father. Bobby Fong of College Literature states in an article, “Despite its seeming lightness, "My Papa's Waltz" is a poem of terror, all the more terrible because the boy is frightened and hurt by the father, even in play.” (78) The poem begins with an image of a helpless child and a careless, drunken father playing crudely through a house. In the first stanza Roethke states, “The whiskey on your breath could make a small boy dizzy; But I hung on like death such waltzing was not easy. “ (1-4). When alcohol is thought of in a situation such in relation to a father and son, there is immediately a negative vibe.
It can be inferred from the last two lines in the stanza that the personas mother was displeased and concerned only with her pots and pans. The personas tone is protective in stanza three when he speaks of the battered hand that held his wrist, probably to hold out his hand to receive lashes or to drag him. The persona also speaks of how when his father missed, the belt buckle would scrape his right ear. This is another example of the persona still clinging to the memory of a father by placing a positive spin on a negative situation, in this case the situation is being beaten with a belt and having the belt buckle scrape his ears. However, the persona makes it appear as though his ear brushed against the belt buckle when his father missed a step during the waltz.
Hardy uses slang to get the reader involved in the poem, this allows Hardy to make a strong point in highlighting the irony behind how war can turn friend into foe simply by association and sway the reader against war. Both poems are against war and the reasons and ethics behind them. Though Hardy uses a more direct approach to get his point across, both poems successfully complete the objective that the poets had for them, which was to open the reader's eyes to the true reality of war. In "Dulce et decorum est", Owen is showing how the press and public at home were comforting themselves in the belief that all the young men dying in the war were dying noble, heroic deaths. Owen on the other hand, shows how the reality was quite different; the young men were dyeing and deaths in the trenches.
The poem has a slow pace created by the caesura within the sentences; Sassoon has done this to make the poem reflective. The first stanza consists of a mother being told her son has died during his service in the war. The use of the name “Jack”, a very common name, the poet has used this man/boy who has died to imply that it could have been anyone of the soldiers in the war. He uses the collective pronoun “we”, in “we mothers are so proud,” to show that the mother represents all mothers receiving the news that their son has died. Sassoon is trying to encourage the readers to notice the extent of the risks and dangers which come with war.
This change highlights the realisation of the situation of the boy. This change in narrator also adds opinion to the poem and changes the view on the poem. Before this change, the reader felt detached from the events but this change introduces a judgmental character, enveloping the reader. Owen keeps a third person, omniscient narrator throughout; however, he does not lose out on the emotions of the characters In Frosts ‘Out, out’, the boy’s feelings are mainly dominated by desperation whereas in ‘Disabled’ the soldier undergoes a period of regret and remorse. His reasons were, ‘someone saying he’d look a god in kilts’ and to ‘please his Meg’.