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Carl Sanburg Grass Analysis

Decent Essays

“Most times, it's just a lot easier not to let the world know what's wrong.” says Chuck Palahniuk, and American Author. Covering things up is one thing that humanity has officially mastered. Humanity constantly fights, kills, and commits horrid acts; sometimes even for no good reason at all. But who is the one that will always be there to cover it up? Well, in Carl Sanburg’s poem “Grass”, that ‘who’ is the grass itself. It becomes clear that no human can cover up his or her own mistakes, so the grass has to be the one to do the dirty work. Carl Sanburg, in his poem “Grass”, uses proper nouns, syntax, and imperative tense to prove that humanity will repeatedly try to destroy itself, and the grass will always hold the power to cover it up. Bunker Hill, Yorktown, and Normandy are all great battles in American history, and they are also distinguished choices for proper nouns when trying to prove the point of human destruction. However, Sanburg didn’t use these proper nouns. He wrote about “Austerlitz”, “Waterloo”, “Gettysburg”, “Ypres”, and “Verdun”. (1, 3, 4, 5) While Gettysburg was a pivotal point in American history, it was not chosen in this text for the size of the battle, but rather for the number of casualties and for the amount of blood spilled on the battlefield. In fact, all of these battles were chosen for this same reason. But why would an author choose battles with more casualties over battles that are better known for a massive victory, or even a massive loss? This

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