Analysis Of Transfiguration By Annie Dillard

Annie Dillard’s “This is the Life”, an addition to the publication of “A Journal of Art and Religion”, Dillard persuades the readers to ponder the purpose of their lives. Dillard provokes self-contemplation through asking and repeating rhetorical questions and phrases, illusions that support her point, and an inspirational didactic tone.

The purpose of the plant's mention in the poem is to be the ironic stage for what is soon to occur. To complete the image, the speaker declares that this white spider on a white plant "hold[s] up a moth / [l]ike a white piece of rigid satin cloth" (2-3). White again, the moth also represents innocence, just as the spider and heal-all do. This model is ironic: an innocent spider on an innocent heal-all holds up an innocent dead moth. The simile in which the speaker describes the moth, "[l]ike a white piece of satin cloth" (3), refers to a piece of a torn wedding dress, symbolizing the vulnerability of things considered to be holy, such as holy matrimony. Frost designates the spider, heal-all, and moth as "[a]ssorted characters of death and blight" (4), suggesting that all three had a part in the moth's fatality. Ironically, Frost uses the word "blight" inferring the heal-all's backward influence, such as if aloe were to cause an infection. Frost again uses irony proclaiming that these characters are "[m]ixed ready to begin the morning right" (5), as though they are ‘part of a balanced breakfast,' a ritualistic practice which ensues good health. In this line, the poet implies that the death scene and others like it must occur in order for life to continue on each morning for particular creatures; this spider's breakfast is an occurrence of Darwinist natural selection. The poet then conveys this breakfast

A shift in focus from the students to himself creates an interesting structure in the poem. Collins began discussing his disinterest of his students and their laughable yet pathetic lifestyle. Then toward the end, the author shifts to speak about himself. He expresses the impact of being a long time teacher and the loneliness that comes along with it. Collins creates the detailed image of his colonial house, the deflated car, and vines growing on the porch swing, revealing his depression and sense of being trapped. Therefore, the author connects how past students have driven him to insanity and caused him to create a false reality in his head.

Imagery is what makes stories come to life. Often times, our favorite stories are the ones full of powerful language that perfectly describes a setting, character, or situation. Virginia Woolf’s “The Death of the Moth” is no exception. This essay contains several important analogies that help the reader picture what’s happening. This imagery adds to the meaning of the work as a whole by converting the seemingly pleasant descriptions to realizations about the nature of death.

A person’s perception of anything is always influenced by their experiences. Alice Walker, the writer of “Beauty: When the Other Dancer is the Self”, is no different in regards to her perception of beauty. Walker uses various stylistic elements throughout her writing to convey her shifting outlook toward her own beauty. She also employs various rhetorical strategies in order to deliver a clear and luring story that keeps the reader engaged as she describes her life as a flashback. Walker uses the accident that happens during her childhood to prove that one’s mindset can be altered because of a profound experience and how her attitude completely transforms from a conceited and arrogant child into a newly reborn woman who sees a new kind of

The author of “The School” grabs the reader’s attention at the beginning of the short story by using the narrator's story, about the time when the children planted trees to teach them about growth, nature and responsibility. All the kids had to plant their own little tree, but all the little trees ended dying, and as a result they ended with little brown sticks instead. By using the word little when expressing the trees and later the sticks the author is trying to convey a mood of depression and sensitivity. Barthelme is trying to portray the image of a lot of small kids sad for the death of their small trees. The narrator then proceeds to explain how before all the trees died all the snakes had died too due to a strike which resulted on the boiler being off for days. The kids understood

This was the best entomological lesson I ever had-a lesson whose influence has extended to the details of every subsequent study; a legacy the professor has left to me, as he has left it to many others, of inestimable value, which we could not buy, with which we cannot

This language illustrates the common innocence and blissful ignorance commonly present in a child's point of view. Moreover, the tone is light-hearted and suggests that the author experiences a nostalgic pleasure in the reflection of her childhood, but there is also a sudden shift in tone as Clair very directly and suddenly exclaims "It was the summer that the Bible's plague of locusts came" which alludes to a dangerous foreshadowing, in this case the consequences of the cherry bomb, a type of firework. Furthermore, the subject of the Hairy Man surfaces, who appears to be a frightening monster to the young girls because the thought of him is enough to deter Bea, Clair's younger cousin, from reading Clair's diary in the closet. We learn through Clair's imagery, however, that the Hairy Man is merely "shell-shocked", or a mentally ill solider who suffers from PTSD, and is cared for by a nurse, thus further illustrating that young children do not understand complex and otherwise troublesome issues in life and casually

This was the first essay I wrote, therefore, I am enthusiastic to re-visit it with a fresh set of eyes, apply the learning’s from the last couple of weeks to enhance the essay.

If you lost your eyes, would your view on everything else become clearer? In “We Grow Accustomed to the Dark” and “Before I Got My Eye Put Out,” Emily Dickinson allows the reader to distinctly view a life where everything is blurry. It is the unknown we fear when we look upon death and darkness, nothing more. Life is never clear and it is never a walk in the park but a little push forward can change a lot.    

Imagine this: you are walking across a field, your feet feel the damp soil beneath you, the gentle breeze moves the grass beads in unison raising your spirits as you stare at the endless horizon which is out of reach. Looking at Andrew Wyeth’s “Christina’s World” invokes similar emotions in us. Paintings have always had the effect of appealing to senses beyond just sight: they appeal to our emotions and all our other senses. We wish to share this “sublime” natural world and depart from our own. We wish we in habited this space and shared in its beauty alongside this woman.

Almost everyone has a moment in their life when the world ceases to turn, when the clouds still and the very breath of the soul stands frozen. Revelation, realization and inspiration all collide in an epiphany of tumultuous truth. A split second when one’s life is displayed, not as the guise so artfully rendered day in and day out, but in brutal, Technicolor honesty. The lies that bind so tightly unravel and leave you bare, at least to yourself. Some call it insight, I just call it ugly. Because that is all I saw when the mirror shattered my soul, leaving me metaphorically bleeding and bereft. There was no warm person asleep inside of me waiting to wake up, no golden intent I could draw on for comfort, or even a spirit guide caught beneath

I barely trace my fingers along the raw and frigid curves of the bust. They instinctively follow the harsh edges that define the woman’s décolleté, inside the concavities of the collarbone. My fingers retract into a tight fist, as I kneeled down to admire the sculpture’s subtle details - the subdued simplicity of her fine curls and how they accented her defined features, and the protruding brow bone harmonizing with the lacklustre eyes. Footsteps bounce off the carven mahogany walls, adding undertones of life to the otherwise transfixed woman. The shadows I cast upon her fall in flawless, practiced unison - a gradient and geometric pattern resting upon the ivory marble, creating a juxtaposition between the softness of her expression to the

One thing that I find interesting about Transfiguration is that over many years wizards and witches have been performing and teaching it for many generations. I'm mostly intrigued by conjuration because I believe it's amazing to create something out of thin air just using magic. I also think that transformation is another amazing subject in Transfiguration. In the future I plan on working in Hogwarts teaching either Herbology to teach children like Neville Longbottom persevere or teach Defense Against the Dark Arts to help future generations win a battle against someone like you-know-who, if someone like that were to come along. I find it interesting that you can change something's form, but not it's purpose. Transfiguration is altering the

This is supported in the poem by the description of the moth as a "rigid satin cloth." The satin cloth can be seen like a bridal dress, suggestions of good, but the negativity of "rigid" implies perhaps on the lining of a coffin where a rigid body would lie. In the second part of the octave the speaker describes the scene again. He compares the scene and the assorted characters to "a witch's broth" (line 6), and Carter claims that this part introduces ironies regarding the observer's feelings towards the scene he saw. The speaker views those characters as "assorted characters of death and blight" (line 4). But they are there to "begin the morning right" (line 5) - a positive saying which you wouldn't exact to hear associated with death and blight. This juxtaposing of "blight" and "right" emphasizes the irony. How can the morning be "right" if the scene culminate in death?