Stream-of-Consciousness and Memory: “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall” Memory is the ability to retain information that one is able to look back on in the future. Memory is also an ongoing process of re-creating good memories and trying to forget painful memories. Katherine Anne Porter often uses memory as a theme in many of her short stories. It is said that re-living one’s memories in order to get a full understanding of what happened is a painful experience. This is shown in her short story “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall”.
There is acceptance that the past is to be valued and that it cannot ever be lived again. Memory shows the retrieval of the past in this poem, and it creates awareness of mortality in an attempt to defeat the tyranny of time and knowledge of death. “The Violets” show a melancholy mood which holds emotion and memory in the conscious
Repetition is further explored paired with the use of motifs and symbolism when Becca receives a wooden box with a carved rose and briars on it that belonged to Gemma; inside she found pictures of a younger Gemma, a ring and other belongings from her grandmother. The repetition, motifs and symbolism of the briars and roses suggests that the fairy tale is now an important part of Gemma and her past,
Her poetry takes a common incident or ordinary person and given a structure that is not a plain recitation of facts, poems that “skillfully combine biography and history” (325). She has stated in an interview with M. Wynn Thomas in 1995, her works have been influenced by Langston Hughes, Gwendolyn Brooks, Richard Wright, and James Wright. Dove is also asked often about her influences other than writers and repeats that she is “obsessed with” what she calls the “underside of history”. In the interview with M. Wynn Thomas, Dove said that the “underside of history” is the “dramas of ordinary people - the quiet courage of their actions, all which buoy up the big events” (The Swansea Review). Dove believes “putting these private events” alongside historical events makes the personal and historical equally important.
Gwen Harwood’s poetry encapsulates human experiences as both timeless and integral to the formation of our present perceptions. By examining the role of memory in her poems “The Violets” and “At Mornington”, Harwood identifies that their significance is that of an everlasting memory that will dominate over time’s continuity and the inevitability of death. Through the exploration of this universal concept and its overarching examination across her body of works, Harwood’s poetry possess textual integrity and simultaneously addresses the personal and universal audience thereby resonating with a broad audience and a number of critical perspectives. Engaging with her own personal experiences, Gwen Harwood conveys the echoing message of the dominant
'How does Yolen use various characteristic of the text to create a engaging story for her reader' The Book 'Briar Rose' is written by Jane Yolen. Yolen is a writer, journalist and a poet. She uses human experience to create her piece of writing that involves love, death, family, the human spirits and important past. Yolen use Characteristic to engage with her reader by featuring or quality belonging typically to a person, place, or thing and serving to identify it. This is shown through the use when Yolen symbolism throughout the novel.
The poetry of Gwen Harwood deals with themes which reflect universal problems such as human existence, loss of innocence, unavoidable death as well as time, youth and age. Her poetry evokes the modern reader to take the opportunity and explore the different interpretations for the relentless movement of time, where she reflects on her childhood memories. The poem ‘The Violets’ and ‘Father and Child’ allow Harwood to recollect positive and negative incidents in her childhood, where she celebrates the power of memory to give life to the past. ‘The Violets’ reflect aspects of childhood and memory, which are idealised. It encompasses the growth of the persona from innocence to experience, where the child’s loss and change are evident.
In the poem, The Century Quilt, by Marilyn Nelson Waniek, includes a few literary techniques to develop a complex and deep meaning that the speaker attributes to the quilt. The Century Quilt that speaker refers to is a representation of her heritage. She uses vivid imagery such as the “yellow brown of Mama's cheeks” and her “yellow sisters” to refer to the past and present. This is an indication that the poem is contemporary. She uses flashbacks and memories to describe her memories in a peaceful way.
To what extent has the comparison you have made between W;t and Donne’s poetry shown how particular concerns, although timeless, impact differently on individuals in different contexts? John Donne a metaphysical poet from the 17th Century examines death and elements of the human conditions through his poems ‘Death be not Proud,’ ‘The Relic’ and ‘A Valediction; Forbidding Mourning.’ The conditions of humanity, death and pain are then recreated in the comparative text W;t by Margaret Edson. The particular concerns that Donne highlights in his poetry fashion the axis on which W;t rotates. The impact of the 17th Century context caused Donne to reject the medieval ideals about death. Edson constructs her protagonist to flow parallel to John Donne’s philosophies, resurrecting the metaphysics he made timeless.
Siti Aisah The Ambiguity in Anne Sexton’s Poems and Her Writing Technique especially in ‘Us’ Anne Sexton is a poet and playwright. She is famous for his poetry that plays some of his personal life. She also has the same tragic fate as Sylvia Plath. Anne Sexton's poetry tells stories that are immensely significant to the mid-Twentieth-century artistic and psychic life. Sexton understood her culture's malaise through her own, and her skill enabled her to deploy metaphorical structures at once synthetic and analytic.