Beach Burial Slessor Analysis

Bruce Dawe’s poems “Katrina”,” A Victorian Hangman Tells His Love”, “Homo Suburbiensis “ and “Enter Without So Much As Knocking” depict life and death through the use of similar poetic techniques such as metaphors, imagery, onomatopoeia, tone and similes, although, with different circumstances. The events in these four poems evoke emotions within the reader, the most common being sadness and frustration. These emotions are explored, in all four poems, through the tone of melancholy.

Kenneth Slessor’s poignant poem, ‘Beach Burial’ contemplates on the improper and unfair burial that the Australian soldiers, who were at war with the Germans during World War 2, receive as a result of the fact that they could not get back home. The main idea that the poet was trying to get across was that as a result of the soldiers not being able to get a proper burial, they are not able to be recognized and are considered to be just another casualty of war: without honor or recognition. The poem emphasizes sadness on the completely useless waste of life; they are simply left how they had died and are now cared by only nature. In the poem, it appears as if these men are soldiers fighting a war at

Mourning and mortality is a constant concern that transcends time. Slessor’s poetic treatment of these ideas continue to engage readers as it evokes a sense of awareness. This is evident in Kenneth Slessor 's poem Five Bells as the persona 's grief for his deceased friend, Joe Lynch causes him to realise the significance of time and the strength of spiritual attachments. This further leads him to question the purpose of human life.

As one of the most frequently used themes, death has been portrayed and understood differently throughout modern history as well as by poets Christina Rossetti and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in “Remember” and the “Cross of Snow.” It appears in literature as the preeminent dilemma, one that is often met by emotions such as grief, hopefulness, depression, and one that can encompass the entire essence of any writing piece. However, despite Rossetti’s “Remember” and Longfellow’s “Cross of Snow” employing death as a universal similarity, the tones, narratives, and syntaxes of the poems help create two entire different images of what the works are about in the readers’ minds.

The distinctive experience of power and survival is shown in Kenneth Slessor’s poem, ‘Beach Burial’ The use of colour imagery and similes of the men’s inscription being ‘as blue as drowned men’s lips’ and “vast number of dead sailors” “the blue lips of the drowned bodies” is disturbing as it vividly paints a picture of their lifelessness in the audiences mind. Colour and death is used in the line “the breath of the wet season has washed their inscriptions”

A little pondering suggests that the poem has a keen focus on the Australian environment. The poet is successful to grab our attention with descriptive explanation in the line in the

The truth behind the poem “Poverty and Wealth” is bone-chilling, almost as if it was meant for a character like Ponyboy Curtis. On the east side of town, there lives

The African Burial Ground National Monument in New York recognizes the free and enslaved Africans buried in a 6.6-acre burial ground from the 1690s to 1794 (NPS, 2015). Over time, as the population and modern development proceeded, the cemetery became forgotten. A landfill created over the top of the site, sealed it off from the public’s knowledge. In 1991, contractors were prepping the land for a 34-story, 276-million dollar federal office building (GSA, n.d.). To go forth with construction, contractors worked in compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 and the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 (GSA, n.d.). Together, these acts require publicly funded projects to be surveyed by archaeological field-testing methods,

With every journey comes a destination which is dependent on the degree of the individual and their will to potentially better themselves. A journey offers travelers the opportunity to extend themselves physically, intellectually and emotionally as they respond to challenges. Ruby Moon by Matt Cameron is a contemporary fractured fairytale in the form of a play that explores the grim, Australian legend of the missing child. This text portrays real issues in an absurd representation which forces the reader on an imaginative journey as well as the characters in an inner journey to establish an identity. Beach Burial by Kenneth Slessor is a distressing elegy about loss of life through war. Slessor’s sophisticated language, allows the responder to empathise and mourn the wastefulness of life in war while also to appreciate the commonality of human existence. This text highlights the concept of journeying of the soul from both the reader and the responder. Through the use of a variety of visual and written techniques, these texts portray the concept of an existential journey, the indefinite search for true self and true personal meaning in life. Deep loss of an individual or one others’ individuality triggers an existential crisis and without journeying imaginatively, the chance to create one’s purpose becomes absent.

It was surely a proud day when your child went off to college. One can only imagine the concern and disappointment you felt when you discovered they were dealing with an addiction. Many people will immediately point to and place the blame on the party environment typically found on college campuses. The reality is your child may be dealing with some deep-rooted personal problems that often leads to excessive drinking and using. At this point, you might be coming to the realization that alcohol rehab in Florida is something you need to start considering.

It can be difficult for a persona to understand a different perspective. The 1914 blank verse poem, Home Burial, by Robert Frost explores the death of a child and the consequences of this disturbing event on a mother and father. The poem is set at the burgeoning of WWI in pre-war western society. At its core this text explores the gender stereotypes of its time. The mother and father embody the two differing representations of grief over their child’s death. After a brief introduction, the text consists of mostly dialogue which gives the audience an insight into the emotional rift between two personas and their different experiences in dealing with the emotional consequences of death. The husband questions the emotional response of his wife using a demanding tone, desperate to try and understand the reasons for her longing actions “What is it you see From up there always- for

George Orwell, an experienced Assistant Superintendent in the British Imperial Police, composed “A Hanging” after his resignation in 1927. The narrative is a personal testimony set in the 1920’s in Burma. Orwell uses the classical techniques of formal argument to depict the death of an unknown prisoner, while taking a position against the death penalty. George Orwell’s Abolitionist message in “A Hanging” is conveyed through the prisoner, dog, functionaries, and their actions, words, and body language.

In the top story of one the buildings fortunate to still be standing, is a man who has hung himself from the rafters. Willaim Hogarth used all these startling scenes to grab the attention of the viewer and give them an insight on London at its lowest. Through “Gin Lane,” Hogarth expressed the ravenous effects gin had on the people of London and how it affected the living environment as well.

The poet uses different techniques to bring the out the impacts of slavery on the affected individuals (the slaves). The “grave/slave(s)” rhymed couplet recurs at

Starting off his poem with an excerpt from “Urn Burial” by Sir Thomas Browne (a treatise on the funeral rites of ancient nations), Walcott immediately conveys to the reader a sense of death, misery and destruction. The extinguishing of the light in the excerpt acts as a visual metaphor to death. Just like an urn holds the remains of a person, what is left of the “Great House” holds the ruins and atrocities of British colonialism.