In the poem �Spring� by Edna St. Vincent Millay, the speaker questions the return of the month April. They are dissatisfied with the renewal of life and question the reason for this renewal�s occurrence. As well, the speaker contemplates reason of life and states that it is not enough that life merely occurs. In addition to that, I believe that the poet also is trying to convey that it is not enough to let one�s life merely move one day to day, one must be motivated is make their life theirs by taking control and filling their life with what they want. As well, while reading this poem, I felt enlightened. It put me in a philosophical mood. However, the poet�s tone was quite critical and full of discontent, as if something was irking them. In …show more content…
The �redness� symbolized life because red is associated with life. The next usage of symbolism was in the seventh line. �The spikes of the crocus� referred to a flower called the crocus. The crocus was often the first of the spring flowers to bloom so it is a symbol of the return or rebirth of life in spring. �The spikes� (of the crocus) represent the pains of rebirth. This would be especially fitting since the line before said �The sun is hot on my neck as I observe�. With both lines combined, this could be interpreted as the poet observing the pains of life. Later in the poem, in line eleven, �under ground are the brains of men� symbolizes the downfall of human knowledge since the brain is associated with intelligence and underground can be taken literally as �lower that dirt�. Hence, this can be translated into the statement: �Not only is man�s intelligence lower than dirt�. The poet, in my opinion, is stating that today, men are no longer knowledgeable. And then the line after that, the twelfth line, �Eaten by maggots.� further emphasizes this. Finally, at the end of the poem in lines thirteen to
The Civil War was a disastrous time period. Many people faced struggles and sacrifices. Irene Hunt portrays the common struggle of a family in her exceptional novel Across Five Aprils. Hunt uses allusions, mood, and personification to help enrich her beautiful novel; that follows the hardships of a nine year old boy, Jethro.
In each of the poems, “Thanatopsis”, “Dust in the Wind” and “Don’t Fear the Reaper” they are mostly meaning death. The main point each poem is making is to live life to it’s fullest and not to fear death.
In stanza six, we see the end of visiting hour, and the persona’s loss of control as he is overran with emotion. The phrase, “black figure in her white cave” creates an image of an intruder in her sanctuary. The black and white contrast suggests he is a shadow of his former self and also that he is trying to detach himself. The phrase, “clumsily rises” gives connotations of his state as he is physically affected by his feeling of loss. Furthermore, “swimming waves of a bell” is a metaphor which has connotations of water. This is used to illustrate that he is drowning in the realisation that she is dying. Finally, “fruitless fruits” is an oxymoron used to reinforce that there is no hope or going back, for her.
In the first part of the poem the writer shows the difficulty he is having with taking a human life. In the second stanza he says “Making night work for us the starlight scope bringing men into killing range. This dark tone helps to emphasize the struggle the author is feeling as a soldier in war. Also he shows his emotions directly. In stanza 3 he says “The river under Vi Bridge takes the heart away”. This quote shows the feeling that the author gets
Geraldine Brooks provides a well-written novel. She achieves her goal to deliver an entertaining and informative story by incorporating accurate historical events and personal experiences with the fictional character March. This helps drives the story to create a convincing novel. The element regarding Grace and March enhances the story by creating an ulterior relationship that the reader may create strong feelings towards. Brooks also enhanced the book by including the character Marmee. She represents the women of the period, but unlike most women, Marmee is outspoken and strongly opinionated about the subject of slavery. Overall, the novel is historically based but
At this point the poet uses symbolism substituting a flower for his mother. This is an appropriate symbol as, like his mother, a flower is feminine, delicate and
Imagery was also used in the poem. I found that the yellow in the first line represented that the future the writer was facing was bright and warm regardless of his choice. The undergrowth was, as undergrowth in any forest, damp and dank smelling, but not necessarily unpleasant, just something that the writer would have to face. The image of traveling through a forest also brings to mind thoughts of birds in flight, chirping and singing. Squirrels dashing through trees, rustling leaves and dropping the occasional acorn or nut also create an image of sight and sound. The sun reflecting through the trees, casting shadows and creating pockets of warm and cool air and the occasional breeze stirring through the trees are also brought to mind by this poem. The end of the poem brings to me
April Morning, is a novel written by Howard Fast. It is a young adult story that is about the American Revolutionary War. The novel is narrated through the perspective of Adam Cooper and is about the horrors of war. This novel takes place in twenty-four hours before the battle of Lexington and Concord. This book is about how the characters of this story figure out that all their dreams of independence from the British are about to begin. But they also realized that their dream has a high price and most colonist refuses to pay that. Most of the men were ordinary like Moses Cooper and Simmons who were not trained in the art of battle. Another
In this poem, we see the tone light and free, also much imagery. We see this immediately with the first line saying, the “afternoon was the colour of water falling through sunlight” (1). We immediately get a sense of a beautiful day, maybe even fall with the trees descriptions in the following line, “trees glittered with the tumbling of leaves” (2). Lowell shows such beautiful imagery throughout her poem especially in her first two stanzas, that when we read that they are in the middle of war in the third stanza, that it is slightly shocking. That there are “two little boys, lying flat on their faces” (7) and that they are, “carefully gathering red berries” (8). Here Lowell shows that it is still a beautiful day but the darker reality is that they are currently in a war. Then we start to see the poem more in a melancholy light. That these two little boys are picking berries to save for later, instead of enjoying it right now. However one day the boys wish that “there will be no more war” (10), and that then, they could in fact enjoy their berries, their afternoon and “turn it in my fingers”. In this poem, we clearly see the different tones throughout. Lowell shows us the light tone, then a more melancholy tone and then finally a hopeful tone.
. . should burn and rave at the close of day”(2). This means that old men should fight when they are dying and their age should not prevent them from resisting death. Another example of personification in the poem is “Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay”(8). This line personifies the men’s frail deeds by saying that they could have danced. This means that the potential actions of the men could have flourished and contributed greatly to their lives. The metaphor “. . . words had forked no lightning. . .”(5) is about how the men had done nothing significant with their lives. They had not achieved anything great or caused a major change. The simile “Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay” is about how even grave and serious men will fight against death for as long as they can. Another notable example of figurative language within the poem is “. . . blinding sight”(13). This oxymoron details how the men can see very well and it is very obvious to them that they will die soon, but they know that they can control how they will leave this world. There is an abundance of imagery within this poem, a few examples of which are “. . . danced in a green bay”(8), and “. . . caught and sang the sun in flight”(10) . These examples of imagery are both appealing to the sense of sight by using descriptive words such as “Green” and “danced” in the first example and words such as “caught” and “flight” among others. The second example also appeals to the sense of sound by
The use of symbolism by each poet conveys a powerful representation of different ways throughout each poem. While going through their checklist, Snodgrass reminds himself to put an aspirin in the flowers to keep them preserved. These flowers symbolize the love and affection the couple shares hoping to keep their love preserved as well when they return to their normal lives. This symbolism connection is the only sort emotion Snodgrass uses in his poem to show these two were intimate.
Often at times there are many voices in one poem. These voices represent the different views that come from the same material that are portrayed by the buzz that the bee elicit in the hive. The proposal that Collins is trying to exude is that there is never one way to read a poem. The type of approach will vary with reader and who they are, but by having a radical approach it will help to enhance our understanding of what the poem means. Collins wants the reader to feel free when analyzing a poem: “I want them to waterski across the surface of the poem waving at the author’s name on the shore.” As a teacher you try to pummel depth into your students’ minds and push them into the direction of understanding. The speaker declares that the grapple to illuminating meaning and the amount of time where the reader does not understand adds to the worth of the poem. The parallel to the surface of water, where you have not attained the depth even though you know it’s there is important to how much it takes to find the true meaning of a poem. While reading this poem it have the outlook on how poetry places more of aln emphasis on us to be able to pick apart the undisclosed meaning and essentially to be able to pull apart the poem without a fixed structure. By doing it this way it is able to help the audience to build upon skills to help interpret and understand, which substantially is important throughout any source of literature. We
This is significant because it emphasizes the melancholy and mournfulness that he depicts with imagery in the first stanza. Later on in the second stanza, he author describes the tree the narrator would have planted as a “green sapling rising among the twisted apple boughs”. The author uses visual color imagery of the color green to describe the sapling in order to emphasize just how young the newborn was when he died. Later on in the poem, the narrator speaks of himself and his brothers kneeling in front of the newly plated tree. The fact that they are kneeling represents respect for the deceased. When the narrator mentions that the weather is cold it is a reference back to the first stanza when he says “of an old year coming to an end”. Later on in the third stanza the author writes “all that remains above earth of a first born son” which means that the deceased child has been buried. They also compare the child to the size of “a few stray atoms” to emphasize that he was an infant. All of these symbols and comparisons to are significant because they are tied to the central assertion of remembrance and honoring of the dead with the family and rebirth.
Figuratively, in stanza three, the poem symbolizes the three stages of life: childhood represented by “Children strove” (l. 9), youth represented by “the Fields of Gazing Grains” (l. 11) and the end of the life represented by “the Setting Sun” (l. 12). On the way of her journey, the speaker views children struggling to win in the race in School. She also sees cereal grasses collectively in the field, and at last the speaker perceives with her eyes that the sun is setting on the way of her journey. This stanza gives us a clue of her passing by this world; however the speaker is not able to figure out that she is dead. She simply thinks the sun is setting on a regular basis.
Here is the interpretation and analysis of the poem based on the sections that respect the grammar and meaning of its sentences: