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Analysis Of The Poem ' Boat Of Cypress '

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“Boat of Cypress” Explication Throughout history, authors have used poetry as a way to express themselves and how they think or feel in an artistic way. There have been poems written about almost every feeling a person has ever had which is why poetry is so popular, because it describes feelings in a way many people cannot. In present day, people from all around the world look back at old poetry and try to define the true meanings behind poems using literally elements and context clues to aid them, this is known as explication. The writing named “Boat of Cypress” is a famous poem written long ago by an unknown author, and composed about a woman full of misery and despair from her personal point of view. Throughout this poem, the readers…show more content…
The theme of obligation really stood out while during the last stanza of the poem. The speaker voices her obligation when she by saying, “I think on it in quiet, /I cannot spread wings to fly away,” (29,30). These lines show that the speaker has many thoughts that she does not verbalize, and that she cannot get those thoughts out of her head. The speaker feels obligated to keep all these things in so she does not upset her family, and be “met only with their rage.”. Secondly, the author uses word choice to show the speakers overall sorrow. Throughout the whole poem there are word scattered everywhere that describe the general emotion of sorrow, some of those word being “restless” (19), “torment”, and “troubled” (4). These words instantly give the connotation of feelings like despair and sadness. The speaker also uses literary elements such as simile to express sorrow, like when she says “These troubles of the heart/ are like unwashed clothes” (27, 28). Everyday people usually do not pay much mind to unwashed clothes, and usually look at it as something unimportant or irrelevant. When the speaker compares her internal troubles to something that holds little importance to everyday life and is also seen as unpleasant, the readers really get a look into the sorrow and sadness that the speaker is truly feeling. The speaker also uses word choice to help show the readers the true intensity of what she is going through.
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