Confessional Mode in Poetry of Kamala Das

and Mrs. Das bickered about who should take Tina to the toilet” (335). These parents do not seem to have fun with their kids and being parents. Mr. and Mrs. Das perceive their children’ needs as a burden. Moreover, each of them knows when and what they did for their children. Continuing with the theme of family relationships, Mrs. Das appears constantly dissatisfied. At one point on the trip, where the whole family had been traveling in a car without air conditioning, Mrs. Das says “I told you to get a car with air-conditioning” (339), it shows, that Mr. and Mrs. Das do not listen to each other. The relationship between husband and wife seems very strained. Mr. Das works in a school and teaches science, and he is not interested in what his does when he is not home, “…After marrying so young she was overwhelmed by it all, having a child so quickly, and nursing, and warming up bottles of milk and testing their temperature against her wrist while Raj was at work, dressed in sweaters and corduroy pants, teaching his students about rocks and dinosaurs.” (349). The couple is not interested in each other as individuals, and this is clearly eating away at their

Lack of communication is a main reason Mr. and Mrs. Das are suffering from a loveless marriage. The importance of communication and marriage go hand-in-hand.

Throughout Jimmy’s prison life, he had become inspired on writing about his past. He would express himself in his writing from dream journeys he would take into his past. He used this travels to escape the inclined contributor to hostility in prison. As his writing got better Jimmy engaged in writing poetry. To his

Ross Gay’s book Against Which, portrays his poetry to readers allowing them to gain understanding of the cruel world that one lives in. Moreover, the unusual brutalities that people are inevitable confronted with in life. The common denominators within Gay’s poems such as violence, love, fear, and loss allows the reader to visualize characters’ transformation within his poems. In a world of calamity, Gay has created poems that portray the corporal conforming to gender and sex but also human development. Using a reader-response criticism lens, I will be demonstrating my interpretation of Ross Gay’s poems and the meaning that I believe to be a common interpretation of his work. Within, Gay’s poems, “It Starts at Birth” and Angels Out of Reach” one is able to see a pattern of human transformation. By experiencing pain, love, loss, fear, and wisdom one is able to see Gay’s characters evolve through the narrators and readers gaze. In doing so, one is able to reflect on Gay’s poems and gain wisdom themselves.

Poetry is used by writers such as Zora Neale Hurston and Kate Chopin to express ideas and words through a sense of writing and rhythm that is felt by the poet who is writing it. Years ago, poets would use poetry as a record of history where they told life events that was happening or how modern societies were expected to be. “The Poetry of this period forms the immediate background and matrix of their own work, so much so that unless one keeps the later nineteenth century.” (Venuti, The translator's invisibility, 2017.) Each author made poetry different by changing the tradition and outlook on poetry which is also known as the dead poet’s society. Authors from the past heavily influenced everything that was created in a poem. “Sweat” written by Zora Neale Hurston was written during a time period women didn’t have an opinion and it was frowned upon to disagree or go against your husband. This woman in the story over comes the current times cultural norms. The “Awakening” written by Kate Chopin, speaks out against societies gender roles and says women are evolving to hold more than the titles “mother” and “housewife.” It was the time of shifting order and woman gaining more rights than was handed to them. Kate Chopin used her poetry to give an insight of what limitations she might have encountered in her life as a woman and it explained her choices she chose to help the reader understand what she may have felt towards the subject during this

In the analysis of the language used by the speaker, the nature of the poem is written from a professional standpoint using medical terminology, such as parts of the anatomy. Based on the speaker, it suggests that the poem could be written in support of gay pride due to the lack of shame that he described in the patient. The patient is projected as calm and collected throughout the poem and does not seem

“Confession” is a poem which opens with an artist contemplating the morality of drawing his subjects with all their “defects” in great detail. He continues on by describing the loving attention he gives to each flaw, “I pamper each pimple,hump,massage,each incrustation,” (lines 5-6). Most of the poem consists of Dinh taking the time to account each particularly flawed feature he has unashamedly depicted in his art. These “flaws” on his models do not simply include rashes and other visual defects, but awkward poses and age, “Impossibly old, extremely young - onto appalling heaps,” (lines 11-12). While the narrator in the beginning of the poem seems uncertain if these actions are just, by the end he seems more certain that nevertheless it simply came from a place of doting accuracy or as he claims, “just so I could render the human condition most accurately and movingly,” (lines 14-15).

The poem Suicide Note, written by Janice Mirikitani (1987), talks about a young lady, who has studied in an Asian-American female college. The lady, unfortunately, committed suicide by jumping through her dormitory’s window. She left behind a note, citing reasons that led to her actions. After a critical analysis of the note, her parents were held responsible for her actions; they were pressurizing her to perform better in her exams. The poem, thus, describes the real feelings and the emotions of this young lady, who believes that committing suicide is the only option left to please her parents and to escape the enormous pressure placed on her. The persona uses voice in the poem to bring our attention to the sufferings she was going through, and that led to the devastating event. Voice in poetry is the strong words of a line, stanza or a page that creates a relationship between the audience and the persona. Voice can, therefore, be categorized as imagery, patterns of sounds created, rhythm, tone, and diction (Gahern 166). The following is a description of how the voice in Mirikitani’s suicide note helps the reader understand the persona’s reasoning.

Even though with the improvement of women social status after World War I, she could make her rounds with other men, leaving Dexter feel powerless to her, playing in such spheres as sports, clubs, just as men, Jody is still, just like a plenty of other women, forced to get married by their parents, especially in upper class. Even Judy wants to pursue personal happiness with the refusal to be contained as average and live in an ordinary life. “‘I'm more beautiful than anybody else,’ she said brokenly,’ why can't I be happy?’” She still devotes all her life into her new family after the marriage, becoming an ordinary wife, and ironically, under the torturing of her abusive husband, her beauty faded away. In the traditional marriage, man is always the conqueror. After Lud Simms’s possession of Judy, he suddenly turns himself to the second target, younger women. On the contrast, Judy, who used only care about her own desire, now has to give up herself and play the role of “wife”. As a matter of fact, Judy’s failure to master self-control after marriage is exactly the characteristic of the patriarchal society. Even the “new women” as Judy, after the marriage, would become the possession of her husband. The patriarchal society marriage for so long has been seen as man’s possession of woman

Often, it is difficult to read a relationship and predict its trajectory. In “Sexy” and “Shiloh” the short stories’ protagonists are the subjects of infatuation by their significant others. “Sexy” is the story of a Bostonian woman named Miranda who has an unlikely affair with an Indian- American man named Dev. While the affair is the most daring thing that Miranda has ever done, Dev seems to not think much of the relationship, as he treats their time together as though it's part of a weekly routine. Soon, Miranda mistakes Dev’s physical attraction towards her as feelings of love as she buys a cocktail dress in an attempt to impress Dev. Over time, Miranda figures out that Dev’s feelings for her are purely physical, and she leaves him, heartbroken

body”, it can be said that their relationship is, from the offset, based on lust, rather than love. Social

When it comes to marriage and what it stands for, the short story “The Hand” written by Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette is a complete mockery. It symbolizes anything but what love and marriage should reflect. The young wife, clearly the protagonist, seemed to have found disgust with the antagonist, “the hand” of her husband. The young woman and older man with more power and experience seemed to set a stage of disaster. Marriage should be between two people bound by love with all of their mind and heart. In this case it is all open for questioning.

But this thought did not last long. When only two of them were sitting together in the car, after Mr. Das and the kids left for trekking, at the hills at Udayagiri and khandagiri they had some private conversations. This conversation, all of a sudden changed the thoughts of Mr. Kapasi towards Mrs. Das. His thoughts changed from deserving her so much to doubting her behavior. When talking about Bobby Mrs. Das said, “he is not his.” This quotation brought abrupt change in him. He felt prickle on his skin. He reached into his shirt pocket for the small tin of lotus-oil balm he carried with him at all times, and applied it to three spots on his forehead. He was shocked by this news, totally shocked. She did not even hesitate to tell how she made silent love with one of the friend of Mr. Das and as a result of which Bobby was born. This was totally unacceptable to Mr. Kapasi. He had not expected a woman to disclose this

In this literary analysis it is essential to compare and contrast Cathy Song’s poem “Heaven” and Bryan Thao Worra’s poem “Pen/Sword” to give the reader a better understanding of what the authors’ are conveying to their readers. The similarities in the style, word choice, and theme will be compared, along with the differences of style, word choice, and theme reflected throughout each poem. Furthermore, I will determine the meaning behind the broken up and/or the way the lines of each poem while describing why the lines are strategically placed throughout the pieces. This will allow me to identify the meaning that the authors’ are explaining to the reader. Each poet specifically writes to give the reader(s) a picture of what they are feeling and defining their emotion through their writing.

Love is a powerful feeling; it makes you do crazy thing. Many people spend years trying to find it, others give up thinking they’ll never find it. Love has been defined as an intensive feeling of a deep romantic or sexual attachment to someone. Of course, Love doesn 't have to romantic and/or sexual. People who are ace, as in asexual, aromantic and agender, can still be in relationships that are satisfying for them without the needs of a romantic relationship. Familial love is also non-romantic-sexual. However, in this paper, we will be talking about romantic-sexual love, what it is, and why I believe it’s so important to understand and experience.