Backdrop Addresses Cowboy Analyses

"He had…split purple lips, lumped ears, welts above his yellow eyes, and one long scar that cut across his temple and plowed through a thick canopy of kinky hair…" Imagery is very effectively used by Knight in order to illustrate Hard Rock and incidents in the poem. Phrases such as "bored a hole in his head," "handcuffed and chained," "the jewel of a myth," and "barked in his face," paint vivid images in the readers mind. Knight's use of imagery keeps the reader interested in the poem while slowly drawing the reader into the story (emotionally). This element ultimately proves to be very useful to convey the motif of the poem.

Essentially a monologue set within a frame, this poem creates two personae. The anonymous author gives a brief introduction and conclusion. The Wanderer, an aging warrior, who roams the world seeking shelter and aid. The Wanderer’s monologue divides into two distinct parts, the first being a lament for his exile and the loss of kin, friends, home, and the generosity of his king. In nature, he finds absolutely no comfort, for he has set sail on the winter stricken sea. Poignantly, the speaker dreams that he is among his companions, and embracing his king, only to awaken facing the gray, winter sea, and snowfall mingled with hail.

Masculine’s definition is stereotypically twisted. The myth and reality of the cowboy shaped today’s definition of masculinity because they have this high and strong structure they need to uphold. Masculinity is having the traditional acts as a man, such as being strong and secure. In today’s world man and women have two different mindsets. Even though we are all humans, our gender defines the way we should act due to how society makes it. The myth has affected males physically, emotionally and mentally. The idea is that they are supposed to act accordingly. In reality, everyone wants to grow up differently, so why would they be forced to act/be a certain way?

The speaker is the voice of the poem, since “I” is used alot in this poem, it is in first person. I imagined the speaker’s

The literal meaning of the first stanza is not difficult to grasp as it introduces an actor portraying a cowboy against a western backdrop on a movie set. "Starspangled" suggests his costume is less than authentic and is worn more for commercial appeal than factual representation. "The almost-silly west" and "paper-mache cactus" perpetuate the artifice of the western movie by setting a scene which relies on props and phony imagery. Even the actor's "porcelain grin" is weak and easily broken. The implicit reality of this stanza is that the cowboy is a symbol of Americanism. he represents the triumph og man over nature, the "taming" of the west. the cowboy embodies imperialistic strength and he is idolized for his heroism by millions of people who are influenced by mass-media propaganda, namely, the western movie.

The speaker starts the poem by describing her mother, who was a white settler. Hogan worded this in a way that the reader could interpret as a negative connotation, which was later made clearer when Hogan pronounced the Grandmother’s hatred toward the white settlers.

Alliteration and metaphors are two major elements of this poem. The repetition of consonant sounds and alliteration occurs throughout the poem. All of the lines strongly use the repetition of consonants and alliteration except for lines two and seven. In addition to that, the controlling figure of speech in this poem is a metaphor. It is strongly articulated in the first line, and as the one continues to read, it is amplified and extended throughout the rest of the poem. The metaphor compares mask of Line 1 to the fabricated emotive facades that African-Americans had made use of in order to avert provoking their oppressors.

Poems are built with tradition, but in his case, the speaker wants to end tradition just as he wants to end racism. In line two and three, they both end with the same word which is called symploce. Symploce is a combination of anaphora and epistrophe which implies that these two lines are an important point of the figure of speech. The poem was written by stating a cause and effect. The line beginng with by is the cause and I being the effect. Its an explination of how he will fight social injustice. It also helps readers to use and understand the most effective way to fight social

The opening of the novel presents a prelude of how life for the 19th century cowboy was and how

In one scene of the memoir, Allison describes her uncles and their need to be depicted as masculine and to act “hard” to the world around them. She also remembers her cousins as young boys and how quickly they seemed to turn into men. The time came for them to act as the world expected them to. This action shows how gender may oppress some males when they feel the pressures of the world to act a certain way. Otherwise, they are at risk for being seen as different and abnormal. Men who do not portray masculinity well are often seen as feminine and weak. When Allison describes her uncles she states, “If you didn’t look close, you might miss the sharp glint of pain in their eyes, the restless angry way they gave themselves up to fate,” (Allison, 28). These men already had their futures planned for them though the society and gender norms. Acting against these norms was seen as unusual, radical, and

So in fact by rebelling against the schools moral stance about a cowboy it created a sense of greater masculinity for the boys at my school. It wasn’t until after reading this book that I realized how much the word fag was tossed around in high school.

In the first stanza(,) rhyme is used to point out the emotional state of the speakers outlook,

The second half of the first stanza introduces an extended metaphor describing the motivating factor of human nature, saying, “To conquer every mountain shown” (Keenan). While the word “conquer,” conjures up images of imperialistic warfare, within the context of this song the word has a broader meaning and may be more clearly understood as the “will to power and the will to meaning.” That is, the driving forces of human nature are achievement, which is motivated by personal ambition to reach the highest possible position we may accomplish, and the drive to understand the meaning of our lives. The word mountain represents every type of obstacle that might get in the way of that goal, while the word “I” directly refers to the singer and metaphorically refers to humanity as a collective of individuals motivated by personal self-interest. Taken together with the first half of this stanza, we see the idea that the defining characteristic of human nature is to overcome, or conquer, every obstacle that obstructs the will to power or prevents us from discovering truth. The singer then introduces the controlling metaphor (or main theme) of the song, which is transcendence saying, “But I’ve

In the third stanza, a lot of imagery is used. The significant ones are present in the seventh and eleventh lines. In the first line, the poet writes, "A

The main observation readers could take from this poem is that the “lower” individual has to take care of and pick up after the white man. It is even hinted at that the poems the mother chant rival the alleged master of poetry’s own works.