Analysis Of Northrop Frye's 'Wake Me Up When September Ends'

Analysis of 7 O'Clock News/Silent Night by Simon and Garfunkel In expressive arts we are studing the topics the 60’s. We listened to the song “7 O'clock News/Silent Night” Simon and Garfunkel. In 1956, Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel were juniors at Forest Hills High School in New York City. They began playing together as a group called Tom and Jerry, with Simon as Jerry Landis and Garfunkel as Tom Graph, so called because he always liked to track hits on the pop charts.

In literature, themes shape and characterize an author’s writing making each work unique as different points of view are expressed within a writing’s words and sentences. This is the case, for example, of Edgar Allan Poe’s poem “Annabel Lee” and Emily Dickinson’s poem “Because I could not stop for Death.” Both poems focus on the same theme of death, but while Poe’s poem reflects that death is an atrocious event because of the suffering and struggle that it provokes, Dickinson’s poem reflects that death is humane and that it should not be feared as it is inevitable. The two poems have both similarities and differences, and the themes and characteristics of each poem can be explained by the author’s influences and lives.

In the short story, “Along the Frontage Road” by Michael Chabon, a father and son visit a pumpkin patch off a frontage road to escape from their home and problems. While at the pumpkin patch, the father reflects on how many situations in life are uncontrollable. The family had suffered the loss of their unborn daughter, and the father and son use their experience at the pumpkin patch to move on in life. Michael Chabon uses figurative language in the form of metaphors and similes, a depressing mood, flashbacks, and pumpkin symbolism in “Along the Frontage Road” to comment on hardships in life that people have no control over.

Mary Oliver’s book of poems, titled American Primitive, follows several themes and contains just under 50 poems. The most prominent theme is the grief cycle, following the seasonal cycle. This cycle follows the pattern where the situation gets worse before it gets better. There is a duration where the situation declines until things are very bad, as if there is no hope - as in fall to winter. This ultimately leads to the darkest point, the dead of winter. There seems to be no light, but then hope slowly appears, blossoming into full resurrection and restoration, parallelling spring and summer. Nature and sexuality are also essential aspects of the poems. I will discuss three of my favorite poems, “Lightning”, “University Hospital,

As a child you are born Innocent knowing nothing about life but the more menacing situations you are in your innocence is slowly being chipped away at. If you look around right after winter the leaves

In Citizen: An American Lyric written by Claudia Rankine, there is a passage where a man is stopped because he fits the description of a “criminal”. The speaker faces immense trauma just trying to relay to the officer that he is not the perpetrator they are looking for. In fact he is just another person trying to get home from a long day at the office. The officers refuse to listen which angers the victim and causes him to curse at the officer saying, “Go ahead hit me motherfucker.” (Rankine 107) While the victim could not have been held for the original reason, he was now charged with speeding. The victim was then taken down to the station on new charges. After being wrongfully targeted, held, fingerprinted, and stripped, he was finally let

In the beginning of the short story, as Brother reflects on Doodle’s life, the author uses personification and foreshadowing to create a mood of remorse. As he gazes out of the window into his backyard, Brother states that “the graveyard flowers were blooming. ...speaking softly the names of our dead” (Hurst 1). The flowers provide flashbacks of the past, and foreshadow a loss of life. The loneliness felt by Brother causes readers to consider how they would feel if their loved one was gone. As Brother observes the seasons, it is noted that “summer was dead but autumn had not yet been born” (Hurst 1). The personifications of the seasons as stages in the cycle of life and death creates an unsure and uncertain mood. The shift between seasons creates an idea of change and uncertainty of events to come. Hurst creates a mood of remorse through

An Hour Before Daylight, a memoir written by Jimmy Carter, the 39th President of the United States, was a brief recounting of his childhood experience of rural Georgia. Throughout the book that read like a diary, Carter provided interconnecting stories detailing the world he grew up in and how the rural society changed. He was born in Plains, Georgia as the oldest of 4 siblings. Carter lived there for the first four years until 1928 when his family moved to Archery, a town just beyond Plains. Unlike Archery which withered away after the arrival of cars and tractors, Plains was home to productive farms and devoted people. Carter detailed how important it was to learn the tools of the trade when it came to farming as a way to support the family. He talked about how he and his family interacted with those they employed. Carter’s memoir provided a first-hand view of race relations in rural Georgia through the explanation of what occurred during rural segregation, his recountings of his childhood relationships, the relationships between his family and the townspeople.

The Dalai Lama once said, “I hope in the darkest of days, and focus in the brightest” (BrainyQuotes.com). Hope is a subject that is heavily present in “Accident” by Todd Davis. Typically, spring is a symbol for hope. It often brings people brighter thoughts after cold, dark winters. Support can also affect how optimistic a person is. The purpose of a person’s life is a large source of hope. In the poem, the narrator is thinking about a recent event in which a man killed himself. The son of the suicidal man and the child of the narrator were friends, and the narrator is contemplating why the man shot himself. The narrator does not understand why the man could not find hope. In “Accident”, Todd Davis proposes that through seasonal metaphors, family support, and a person’s purpose, hope can always be found.

April Morning by Howard Fast is a story about the Battle of Lexington, and the day to day struggles of Adam Cooper. The story takes place in Adam's hometown of Lexington, Massachusetts. The novel opens with a glimpse into the daily life of the Cooper family. As Adam comments on the harsh perfectionist that is his father, his only escape from his father's high expectations is his Granny Cooper and his next door neighbor Ruth Simmons. Adam confuses his father's constant criticism with the feeling that his father hates him. On top of the situation at home with his father he overhears word that the British army has landed and the local militia were up and ready to fight for the battle was inevitable.

This poem Spring Sorrow by Rupert Brooke might have connected with Ireland because of his somewhat lonely childhood. He lost both his parents by the age of 15, and lived both world wars. This seems like a sorrowful lifetime. The subtle dissonance in the piano part illustrates the meaning, but it goes a step farther to highlight specific words in the text, like “pain,” “heart” and “spring.” This dissonance also often comes at the end of lines, showing that the sorrow will never truly end, but will be dreaded until it inevitably comes back next spring.

In the words of Anne Bradstreet, “If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant: if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome.” As writers of the modern era expressed their hardships through poetry, one can only hope that they kept such advice in mind. Through captivating works, poets such as Langston Hughes, Edwin Arlington Robinson, Robert Frost, and E.E. Cummings expressed the struggles of life during the modern era. By examining what these poets have to say about dissatisfaction with life, feelings of inadequacy, and loneliness, it becomes clear that life during the modern era was full of hardships.

Mitchell Kimbrough’s “Sky” shows how life will pass one by. People oftentimes fail to make decisions or pursue dreams, but life does not wait for them nor run in reverse. The words and images of the poem, combined with the lyrics of Norah Jones’s “Don’t Know Why,” somberly explore the regret of missed opportunities as time passes.

Poems are like snowflakes. While no two are the same, they all have common structures and themes. One prevalent theme in poetry is that of death, which is present in both “Because I Could Not Stop for Death” by Emily Dickinson and “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” by Robert Frost. Dickinson perceives death as a gentleman, while Frost perceives death as loneliness, which provides insight on how the time periods of the poems, the genders of the authors, and the authors’ personal experiences influence literature.

Both, the poem “Reluctance” by Robert Frost and “Time Does Not Bring Relief” by Edna St. Vincent Millay, revolved around the theme of lost love. Each poet used a similar array of poetic devices to express this theme. Visual imagery was one of the illustrative poetic devices used in the compositions. Another poetic device incorporated by both poets in order to convey the mood of the poems was personification. And by the same token, metaphors were also used to help express the gist of both poems. Ergo, similar poetic devices were used in both poems to communicate the theme of grieving the loss of a loved one.