Analysis Of Patricia Smith 's Poem The Undertaker

Bruce Dawe’s poems “Katrina”,” A Victorian Hangman Tells His Love”, “Homo Suburbiensis “ and “Enter Without So Much As Knocking” depict life and death through the use of similar poetic techniques such as metaphors, imagery, onomatopoeia, tone and similes, although, with different circumstances. The events in these four poems evoke emotions within the reader, the most common being sadness and frustration. These emotions are explored, in all four poems, through the tone of melancholy.

In Natasha Trethewey’s poetry collection Native Guard, the reader is exposed to the story of Trethewey’s growing up in the southern United States and the tragedy which she encountered during her younger years, in addition to her experiences with prejudice and to issues surrounding prejudice within the society she is living in. Throughout this work, Trethewey often refers to graves and provides compelling imagery regarding the burial of the dead. Within Trethewey’s work, the recurring imagery surrounding graves evolves from the graves simply serving as a personal reminder of the past, to a statement on the collective memory of society and comments on how Trethewey is troubled with what society has forgotten as it signifies a willingness to overlook the dehumanization of a large group of people.

The last line in the poem “and since they were not the ones dead, turned to their own affairs” lacks the emotions the reader would expect a person to feel after a death of a close family member. But instead, it carries a neutral tone which implies that death doesn’t even matter anymore because it happened too often that the value of life became really low, these people are too poor so in order to survive, they must move on so that their lives can continue. A horrible sensory image was presented in the poem when the “saw leaped out at the boy’s hand” and is continued throughout the poem when “the boy’s first outcry was a rueful laugh…the hand was gone already…and that ended it”, this shows emphasis to the numbness the child felt. The poem continues with the same cold tone without any expression of emotion or feelings included except for pain, which emphasizes the lack of sympathy given. Not only did the death of this child placed no effect on anyone in the society but he was also immediately forgotten as he has left nothing special enough behind for people to remember him, so “since they were not the one dead, turned to their affairs”. This proves that life still carries on the same way whether he is present or not, as he is insignificant and that his death

Death is a topic that unites all of humanity. While it can be uncomfortable to think about, confronting death in unavoidable. “Dying” addresses that discomfort and universal unwillingness to consider the inevitability of death. Pinsky’s use of imagery, symbolism, and tone create a poetic experience that is like death, something every reader can relate to. In “Dying,” Pinsky describes how people are oblivious and almost uncaring when it comes to the thought of death. Pinsky is trying to convince the reader that they shouldn’t ignore the concept of death because life is shorter than it seems.

Sharon Olds, in her poem “Leningrad Cemetery, Winter of 1941”, portrays the dreary and dire effects of war. As one of the most destructive and longest sieges of history had just begun, the countless bodies scarred the citizens of Leningrad. In order to convey horror, hopelessness, and death, Olds utilizes simile extensively, corrupting images with typically hopeful connotation.

Imagery techniques in this poem consist of key words, an example is “They’re rolling them out of the deep-freeze locker on the tarmac” this gives the readers an image of dead bodies being rolled out of an aeroplane onto the runway. By using a visual approach in the poem, the poet can better express his feelings on war to the reader(s).

Patricia talks about going to a Christian Endeavours Friday nights, and having a pretty normal school life (minus symptoms of her DID; blurry memory, confusions of learning subject or meeting people.) She was a Brownie and participate in the Girls Brigade, similar things that normal girls did growing up then and now (Nobles,2006,43-44). She had friends and played with kids in her neighborhood she was sometimes a ‘normal’ girl. Another thing that rubbed me the wrong way was the part about the vacation to Jersey (Nobles, 2011, 47), the girls knew that their father wasn’t going, but when they get to the station Kim finds out she isn’t going either. I found myself saying the questions she was saying to her self, “why was she not going, what had she done?” Some one that Patricia expresses her love for her is her ‘friend’ Lillian in Chapter 8 who she attended Warlingham, she shares how much she appreciated her later for her patience. Kim was constantly questioning her about school, why she was there, why she couldn’t go home, why her dad brought her back after being sent home for just a few hours (Nobles,2011,132). Her mother had a huge drinking problem and while Patricia also though she had one, I think she was just simply trying to just justify why she was blacking out. She was always asking her self “why don’t I remember anything, why am I always feeling like time is just flying by”. Her mother heavily drank through her entire childhood and into her adult hood it was a big

Burial Rites, a novel written by Hannah Kent is heavily based on story telling and the effect it has. Through the course of the novel, readers observe the significance story telling has for both the individual and the community. For an individual story telling can make the speaker feel empowered whereas for the community story telling’s main significance is the entertainment it provides. Since Kent’s purpose of Burial Rites is to tell the life journey of Agnes Magnusdottir in an ambiguous light, story telling also becomes important for the reader.

The circle of life is an ongoing loop of everything in the world. Just like a wheel, the circle of life goes round and round. The circle of life never stops, and even though someone might try to, it will not stop. Life and death is the circle of life. In Edgar Allan Poe’s “Spirits of the Dead”, Poe introduces the reader to life and death. This is a very sorrow filled poem, with death and forgiveness. The way Poe uses Life and Death is part of what brings this poem to life. The use of life and death is exactly what Poe chooses to address as he uses imagery and personification of the life he once had and the love he once possessed. The literary techniques in “Spirits of the dead”, are the mood and tone of this poem. It shows what Poe really feels behind his words.

The poem “Hhomecoming” written by Bruce Dawe in 1968 is about the dead and their neglectful treatment by their living comrades. The poem effects its audience deeply by giving them a view into how the dead soldiers were treated like objects, which comes out through the poem in lines such as ‘...rolling them out of the deep freeze lockers…’ and ‘they’re tagging them…’. The poetic techniques used throughout the poem was repartition by using these poetic technique it gave the reader a deep understanding into how the poem portrays war as terrible, harsh and depressing and the mistreatment of the dead by repeating. By using the simple word ‘they’re’ it gives the audience the understanding that it wasn’t just one person it was many. ‘they’re zipping

“Grave of the Lizard Queen” [introduces] the reader with the home page consisting of the title, a corpse, and six surrounding objects including the [headpiece] on the corpse [seen in figure 1]. Each object including the corpse’s body making it a total of seven has its own links that lead to short episodes. The short episodes are “displayed” in six uniformed frames aligned in three rows and two columns seen in figure 2 (Carroll /song.html). When the reader clicks a link that directs [him or her] to a new page, there is a similar image of the link above the frames suggesting a connection between the image and the short episode (as) in figure 2 (Carroll /song.html). Although the short episodes of the objects do not contain any narrations or descriptions,

The poem, “Undertaking” describes the loss of a women’s husband. The wife cleans and treats her loved one’s body as if it is still alive. But she realizes the death, until his body is taken away and not treated with the love she gave him. Even though her husband has passed away, the speaker seems to still have a relationship with him through the description of her delicate treatment towards him.

“Ancestral lines” by John Barker is a book about the anthropologist’s experience in the Uiaku village located in Papua New Guinea. In the first chapter, Barker tells his readers briefly about him and his education, his and his wife’s experience with the Maisin community, and talks in great detail about the Maisin and their culture in the Uiaku village.

The poet uses different techniques to bring the out the impacts of slavery on the affected individuals (the slaves). The “grave/slave(s)” rhymed couplet recurs at

The Trojan War and, more specifically, the Iliad have been engrained into western culture over the last several millennia. There have been multiple retellings and adaptations to Homer’s work, and each re-creator has put his or her own voice into their recreation. England’s John Masefield put his spin on Homer’s epic with his poem “The Spearman” in 1946 which occurs immediately after the World War Two. In this poem, Masefield depicts the events of the Trojan War through the eyes of a Greek soldier. Masefield follows the general plot established by the Iliad; however, Masefield deviates from the epic in a number of ways which could be due to the message the poet is trying to convey about war and connection with people, and the occurrence of the First and Second World Wars during Masefield’s lifetime could be a major influence in the poets reasoning for some of these changes.