Analysis: When I Consider How My Light Is Spent by John Milton

Firstly, the speaker’s attitude or the tone demonstrates how a person can be the cause of their own misery. From the very start of the poem the speaker has a depressing tone. Any little event that occurs the speaker reads it as a negative occurrence that adds to his ever growing misery. For Example, when the speaker says “Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing, Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before.” The speaker hears a knock on the door and opens it to see that there is no one there. Instead of going back to sleep he demonstrates his negative attitude by

In a photographer’s booth, we see the symbol of light where parents are able to look on themselves from the side and they have a possibility to understand that they are intolerable to each other. “The place is shadowed in the mauve light which is apparently necessary”. Unfortunately, they know it from the beginning but they don not want to accept it because it will disturb already chosen path. “…and finally, shocked by their indifference”. The only son, who is going to start an adult life, able to summarize the parents mistakes and to build his future in the light of love, hope and faith. “…into the cold light, I woke up”. No matter what and when we are always know where is the light but sometimes it is easier to wander in a gloom then to find strength to look at the sun.

Carver is well known for his short stories and poetries. Among his works, “Cathedral” is considered one of the best, favorite, and most optimistic and the most developed. Carver’s story revolves around the theme of seeing and looking. Most people believed they could not live without cathedrals which brought them closer to their God. Similarly, people place so much importance to the physical eyesight and tend to think they can hardly live without it. Robert, a blind man, is invited to the narrator’s home and the narrator is shown troubled by Roberts’s disability. Later on, the narrator is amazed to see the blind smoking despite having even thought of helping him with his drink earlier on (Carver 516- 524). The latter brought to attention that as much as natural looking is essential, more essential is the ability to see or to visualize things. The writer explains that it might be tougher to be without eyesight; however, it is possible to live without it and make the best of what else one has, more so the brain. Visualizing brings out a better view of the significance of life and things surrounding us.

People who are blind face many different problems in accomplishing everyday activities and becoming an independent individual. Some are able to overcome this issue while others struggle through it in their lives. In “Helen Keller’s Address before the New York Association for the Blind, January 15, 1907” she makes an appeal to the audience that the blind should be helped and made independent so that they can stand up and support themselves. She uses pathos or emotionally packed words, examples and anecdotes and cites from a prominent source to convince her audience that the blind are not helpless, but they are in need of guidance from people who can see in order to live and thrive independently.

Unfortunately, human nature only lends itself to the assumption of certain abstract concepts such as `natural law', an assumption Milton develops in Paradise Lost. Throughout Paradise Lost, Milton expands upon the teaching that human actions affect human freedom and that this is a consequence of the assumption of the natural law that the Creator owns the created. Moreover, the

BibliographyMilton, John. The Complete Poetry of John Milton. New York; Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc. , 1971.

The story “Cathedral” demonstrates that lack of sight does not necessarily prevent one from perceiving things as they are, or live their life to the fullest. In the story, a middle-age blind man, who is a friend to the narrator’s wife, and used to be her boss at one point, visits the narrator and his wife. The narrator has never interacted with blind people before, and all he knew about blind people was what he had seen on television. Blind people are stereotypically portrayed on television as slow moving, dull people, who never laugh. Based on this perception, the narrator was reluctant to meet the blind man and doubted whether they were going to connect. This is evident when the narrator states, “I wasn’t enthusiastic about his visit. He was no one I knew. And his being blind bothered me” (Carver 1).

Select a novel, play, or epic in which a character experiences such a rift and becomes cut off from “home,” whether that home is the character’s birthplace, family, homeland, or other special place. Then write an essay in which you analyze how the character’s experience with exile is both alienating and enriching, and how this experience illuminates the meaning of the work as a whole. You may choose a work from the list below or one of comparable literary merit. Do not merely summarize the plot. (2010 AP Literature and Composition)

Starting off with a reflection of “how [his] light is spent” (Milton 1), the speaker reminisces over the time before when he had his sight. Now he spends his days in a “dark world and wide” (Milton 2) as it is always night for him. This leads into the primary struggle in the poem as he asks himself, “Doth God exact day-labour, light denied” (Milton 7). The speaker is conflicted whether he must continue his service to God, even though he is blind. As a consolation mechanism for his impairment, Patience appears to answer the speaker’s question. It reminds him that God doesn’t require all his followers to work, but only hopes that they should “bear his mild yoke” (Milton 11). Enduring through suffering and pain is a sign of strength and satisfies God. As Patience could be the speaker’s subconscious, his free will is apparent as he chooses to “stand and wait” (Milton 14). Thus, “Sonnet 19…” portrays stronger self-control than “The World…”

The author uses allusion as a subtle way to compare himself to one of the characters that are depicted in a parable in the bible, in order to display how unsure he is for his purpose in life. As a demonstration, allusion is created to compare himself to one of the characters that are shown in a parable. To emphasize the reference to the parable he compares his blindness to,“that one Talent which is death to hide”(Line 3). It’s easy to assume that the speaker is referring to the psychical abilities a person can possess but it’s actually a reference to a Greek/Roman currency. The parable that Milton may specifically refer too is known as “The Parable of the Bags of Gold”. Found in Matthew 25:14-30 in the Bible, the parable is of a master who

The most important characters in the epic poem, “Paradise Lost”, are Satan and Eve. These two characters are most responsible for the development and progression of events within the poem. Satan is the main figure throughout the vast majority of the plot. “Paradise Lost” follows Satan’s ultimately successful attempt to destroy God’s perfect creation, humanity, by forcing Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden. In creating humanity, God set expectations and put in place boundaries for Adam and Eve, yet they were not particularly restrictive.

In his epic poem titled Paradise Lost, John Milton describes his work as a process to justify “the ways of God to men”. In terms of the personal and individual, Milton’s main concern was between a man’s relationship and God. With this, comes the very idea of free will itself. One can define free will as the ability and freedom to choose between different possible courses of action. Not only is free will portrayed in Adam and Eve, but is also associated with God, Christ, Satan and the fallen angels. Milton enables these characters to make their own choices and have their own consequences based on their own decisions and free will. Throughout the poem, John Milton supports this concept of acting freely under God, he shows the reader that choosing ones own actions freely and independently is way more substantial and becomes more meaningful to ones self. Each characters free will in this poem helps explain why having this freedom of choice is so important and crucial in expressing and becoming ones self.

John Milton was a great poet during the English Civil War. He was not really discovered until Charles II was in charge and called to restore and rule in France. Milton lost his eyesight in 1651. He had been married a few times, his first wife passed away in 1652, and his second wife passed away in 1658 shortly after child birth. Most people believe his poem, “Methought I Saw My Late Espoused Saint” was for his beloved second wife, due to the fact that he was blind and never saw her face and her passing after childbirth.

Perhaps, within one line, Milton describes the nature of all emitted light; that it must, if we are to call it light, be considered in relation to darkness and that darkness must be considered in relation to light; that a thing cannot be without its opposite, since any one member of an antithesis cannot exist without a counter member, or an anti-member; as a white horse cannot be compared to a black one without the black one being present; A cannot be compared to B unless B is present; by extension, an antithesis works by expressing two extremities of any one quality, the antithesis of white is black, since, if we were to evaluate colour, white suggests the prescience of white and the absence of black, and vice versa. But, to what degree is blackness said to exist in whiteness? Are they two separate qualities? Is one merely the absence of the other? Is so, the true nature of the antithesis is of one existent thing to a non-existent thing. Suppose we are to compare lightness to darkness: if light is said to exist, as an emission which illuminates darkness, then light can only be considered as something which illuminates darkness, and thus can only be considered in relation to darkness; likewise, if we are to call darkness that thing which covers light, it must be considered in relation to its opposite, which supposes that both exist; but, if we suppose that both exist, than darkness cannot be the absence of light but must rather be covering of it. We run into problems,

The main character is an elderly man by the name of Milton. Milton owns a quiet, secluded country home and equipped garden, near the shore. He lives a simple yet solemn life, spending a lot of time tending to his plants and being with nature. Travellers have stopped coming to visit and Milton is often alone.