Adrienne Rich Essay

The protagonist of the poem is Rosa Parks, a seamstress and an active member in the local NAACP, who refused to give up her seat for a white man. Parks was arrested, which led to a boycott against Montgomery bus system. As a result of more than one year of boycott, the segregation law was announced unconstitutional.

He believes that black men and white men will be brothers and they will be equal. Obviously, race is an issue discussed in both of the poems but in different ways.

The children are unnoticed by others and the mother is the only one that is protecting them. This poem shows the hard times that the mother must face because her children have died. However the mother is coping with them while still protecting her children after they have died, This is the mother's way of coping because she is not yet ready to let go of her children and still wants to care for them. This poem shows this through nature by portraying the mother as a bird who is protecting her nest. Also the poem uses nature by describing the harsh times as a winter wind that has caused harm to the mother and her children.

In this poem there is a lot of figurative language. One of the biggest types of figurative language used in this poem is irony. The irony in this poem is how the mother wouldn't let her child go to march because she feared her child would get hurt. Instead she sent her child to church because she believed it was a safe and sacred place but ironically the church ended up being bombed. Another piece of figurative language that is very effective in this poem is imagery. The way the poem is written helps me create images in my head for example, "She raced through the streets of Birmingham." I can imagine her running around desperately, looking for her child. The metaphors and hyperboles in this poem also help with the imagery, for example, "...night dark hair," and "…rose-petal sweet." These metaphors make me think of the girls smoothly combed black hair and her fresh and beautiful rosy smell. A hyperbole that had a huge effect on the tone was, "But that smile was the last smile to ever come upon her face." This hyperbole really helps me understand the effect of a tragic moment like this and how it can completely ruin

Secondly, the speaker of the poem can be described as underprivileged, and this is shown throughout the entire poem. For example, line 1 of the poem it states "some are teethed on a silver spoon” and line 5 it states "some are swaddled in silk and down”. This shows that the speaker is not the same as the person who is teethed on a silver spoon or cared for very carefully. This inclusion also shows that the speaker was not born into a wealthy family and so the speaker must fight for what they need pertaining to themselves and the family.

Poems are built with tradition, but in his case, the speaker wants to end tradition just as he wants to end racism. In line two and three, they both end with the same word which is called symploce. Symploce is a combination of anaphora and epistrophe which implies that these two lines are an important point of the figure of speech. The poem was written by stating a cause and effect. The line beginng with by is the cause and I being the effect. Its an explination of how he will fight social injustice. It also helps readers to use and understand the most effective way to fight social

It is clear that there is a resistant and rebellious theme of the poem, that tells the truth about human problems. This is made clear by the writer saying, “but who do you see in the mirror when there’s only yourself and you. Who really knows the truth of the fascist, that lives inside of you.” So, majority, if not all of the poem does not relate to the traditional stereotype and forces the readers to look beyond the

     "Snapshots of a Daughter-in-Law" was written when Rich was experiencing herself as a woman. During this time, society believed that women were put on this earth to make a family and take care of them. During this time in Rich's life, she was very occupied with being a wife and a mother; because of this she did not have time to think or write. She wrote this poem in fragments of time, while her children were taking naps.

The story set place during the Civil Right movement in a black household of a little girl and her mother. The poem signal that African Americans are not gifted with their freedom when the girl asked her mother to join the Freedom March “to make our country free” (Randall). Getting their freedom taken away, many African American children march the street of Birmingham to regain their natural rights. Taking a stand to fight for one’s right is the responsibilities of everyone. Another example is the mother’s reason for refusing to let her daughter go march because of her fear of the danger behold there. The mother then direct her daughter to “go to church instead” (Randall). Ironically, the girl meet her fate at the place thought to be the most sacred place. This ironic situation revealed that ignoring the violation of the rules upon civil rights is as dangerous as challenging it.

Rich believes the male dominated society categorizes women as a lower class. She declares “this drive to self-knowledge, for women, is more than a search for identity: it is part of our refusal of the self-destructiveness of male-dominated society” (Rich 7). Rich reasons that women searching for individuality is the start of escaping male supremacy and becoming equal to males. Because Rich believes women are treated differently, it indicates that there is going to be a change in the concept of sexual identity towards the stereotypical gender roles. When women started to hear about Rich they began to explore their own potential that the male civilization ignored.

In the first stanza, irony is used in order to make reading the poem more interesting. The situation in this stanza is very important. The young child is in a dire situation due to wanting to help better the lives of African Americans. Randall focuses on a specific event that affected African Americans.

Main Idea: The poet, born in Jamaica and moved to America, has to go through the day to day struggles in order to tolerate the hate he receives only because of his race. The people do not see him for who he really is, however, he can see them for who they really are. Ultimately, he sees himself as better than his haters because he never gives into his rage like the people do.

The main observation readers could take from this poem is that the “lower” individual has to take care of and pick up after the white man. It is even hinted at that the poems the mother chant rival the alleged master of poetry’s own works.

Rich, a writer extremely interested in Emily Dickinson’s life and poetry, was also deeply influenced by her. Rich composed poems, essays, and criticism about Dickinson, borrowed lines from her poetry, and even drew parallels between her own life and Dickinson’s. Similarities between the two poets also extended to style within their writing, as well as modernist themes that both advocate, especially feminism.

Therefore, the black boy can talk with the white boy which he cant do in reality. Also, in the I guess new life, there will not be any barriers separating them as he said, “I will stand and stroke his hair, and be like him, and he will them love me” (Blake). This creative scene backs the idea of giving him a voice to say what he feels, and allowing him to feel equal with the white boy. Moreover, Blake focuses on the divine theme of love through two different kinds of love. The first kind of love is the love of the mother to her son, the black boy. This poem starts with the words, “my mother” showing that the only shelter in the world for a person to find safety, tenderness and peace. The mom deeply want her son to believe and have faith that they the black culture is equal with the white culture. She persuaded him of her thoughts through her love. For instance, she had put her son in her lap and kissed her son twice as the boy said, “she took me in her lap and kissed me” (Blake). Such sentiment acts let her son feel the care, peace, love and provision, and made him feel accepted and he also accepted what she was saying. The second kind of love is the love of God. It is the marvelous and never ending love that will evaporate all the anguish of race discrimination or any other thing in the world. Therefore, all the worldly evils such as discrimination and slavery shall be like nothing is