Coucklebur By David Cocklebur

Eggs by Jerry Spinelli is about a nine year old boy named David Limpert, who is a loner. His mother died in an accident when a janitor didn’t put up a wet floor sign. She fell down the stairs head first, and never woke up. Before the accident, David and his mother had made plans to watch the sunrise the next morning, but they never got to do that. David swore that he would never look at the sunrise again. He also swore to never break a rule again.

The poet also evokes sympathy and compassion in us through her powerful descriptions of the girl 's fragile state of mind. Her perceptions of how she looks and what is important have been warped by anorexia. We might conclude that perhaps her husband has left her as she used to wear a 'gold band ' and the final lines tell us that 'it 'll be worth it to see his face. ' This causes us to consider that perhaps she wants the man in her life who has left her to see her now that she has controlled her weight. Her mental condition does not allow her to see that she is not attractive. She strives to have some kind of control over her life and thinks that controlling her eating is doing this, whereas the opposite is true. This idea is further developed by her use of personification in 'going where the wind dictates. ' This image emphasise just how powerless she is- she has no control over where she goes as she is so

In "A Sorrowful Woman" the wife is depressed with her life, so much so, "The sight of them made her so sad and sick she did not want to see them ever again"(p.1). This wife and mother has come to detest her life, the sight of her family,

In her undertaking of a novel with an unusual topic, Mary Roach balances her book, Stiff, with the perfect amount of sarcasm and sincerity. Due to the overall themes of the book being death and cadavers, it would be hard to consider completely digesting the book without a little bit of satirical dialogue. After all, the entire book would seem kind of morbid without it. Her tongue-in-cheek writing style kept me constantly engaged in the reading and wanting more. She was blunt at times and also knew when it was necessary to be subtle. It is a fairly informal and easy-going style of writing.

independent that led to her suicide (SparkNotes). Along with the theme of solitude as the

Miss Brill remarks how the woman’s hair, face and “even her eyes, [are] the same colour as the shabby ermine” and that the “ermine toque was alone.” The reader can recognize the way Miss Brill and the woman are mirror images: Miss Brill’s fur and the woman’s toque, the woman being rejected and Miss Brill’s loneliness. Even though she notices the specifics of the woman, Miss Brill does not display any awareness regarding the similarities between them. Through indirect characterization, the reader may discern that Miss Brill is preventing herself from consciously empathizing with the woman. She has a world in her mind where she is happy with observing the lives of others. When a truthful image threatens to tarnish her creation, she rejects that notion. She does not want to acknowledge the real world, a world where she is lonely and

The theme of emptiness is seen throughout Thomas’ poems. The wartime poet writes of his memory of livelihood and activity in villages, such as the one described in ‘Aspens’, and then how it begins to disappear as a result of war. This is shown as the village is left with a ‘lightless pane and footless road’ causing the village to appear as ‘empty as sky’ and this simile gives a sense of vastness of the effects of the war, emphasising on the emptiness in the poem. Further, the mention of the ‘cross-roads to a ghostly room’ explicates that the village is so empty that it is leading nowhere. This metaphor is ironic as cross-roads are suggestively open gateways and a sense of choice in direction. However this connotation is altered as Thomas uses the metaphor ‘ghostly room’, to portray the vacant village and this is supported by the cross-roads as they lead to emptiness and isolation. This is also seen in ‘Old Man’ as the paradox ‘only an avenue, dark, nameless, without end’ gives a sense of no lead despite the fact that an avenue should lead somewhere. It is clear here that Thomas’ state of depression is

The description of the tree and the birds is a metaphor for her and her ex-lovers, respectively, that reveals her feelings of helpless in the process of aging. The personification of the tree as it “stands” and “knows” confirms that the tree metaphor for the speaker’s experiences (9, 10). Just as a tree cannot control the seasons that it goes through, the speaker cannot control the process of aging and the subsequent loss of beauty she experiences with it. The poem’s use of the adjective “lonely” to describe the tree further contributes to its gloomy tone (9). The metaphor continues by emphasizing the point that the speaker never got to truly know her lovers.

TS Eliot’s poems, ‘’Preludes’’ and ‘’The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’’, present the idea of isolation as a direct result of their character's struggles that they have experienced in their lives. In ‘’Preludes’’, the author creates many unpleasant images to reveal that everybody, rich or poor, can be afflicted by loneliness. The poor, who are only able to ‘’[curl] the papers from from [their] hair], have to suffer every day and find ways just to get by in their lives, revealing the horrendous effects of poverty in people’s lives and the difficulty of battling it alone. On the other hand, the working class also experience loneliness but in a different context. The ‘’muddy feet that press to early coffee stands’’ are the feet of the working

Adeline often feels left out of things with her siblings and, instead of attaining their approval for her school effort, she receives their scorn. Her friendship with her pet duck, PLT, best illustrates Adeline’s feelings of isolation and loneliness. “I took the duckling to heart… it comforted me to know I was needed.” This quote reflects her feelings of being loved and safe for once in her early life and is good to know that someone will remember her and listen to her feelings and ideas. Subsequently, Father was most important in Adeline’s childhood but he always would find some way, without knowing, to make Adeline feel unworthy. “One by one they were greeted and led away by anxious mothers. Nobody came for me” Hence the cruel account of when father forgot to pick up poor eight year old Adeline on her first day at her new school. To make it even worse he completely forgot his own daughter’s name straight after this horrible and terrifying situation! The author uses these events to present the abandonment and loneliness she felt within her

William notes how Laura’s father abandoned her family and the only contact they obtain with him is through a picture sitting over the mantel (William, 925). It is quite disappointing to envision the pain and suffering Laura and her family endured because of her father’s selflessness. I perceive that Laura has had a rather difficult time accepting reality and moving on with her life. She keeps herself occupied by maintaining her glass collection; yet, she fails to maintain herself by acquiring self-confidence and ignoring societal expectations of what a woman’s role should consist of. Thus, Laura seems confused in which she does not know whether to conform to society’s standards or remain in her own

Even when the “September rain falls” and in the “failing light”, the house should still be secure and warm place. But where is this sense of comfort in Sestina? It appears that even though both the grandmother and the child are in the “chilly” house, they are far apart from each other. She “busies herself” and tries to hide her emotions while it draws in the other end of the kitchen. The grandmother’s actions create a sense of secrecy and hint that she hides something. Despite the brief moments of contact when showing the picture the child drew, the two characters are mentally immersed in their own worlds. In contrast to “Sestina”, the home in “Filling Station” keeps and engages people in their life together. The poem reveals the intimate connection between the members of a family and their ability to call a dark and dirty place home. In “Filling Station”, Bishop establishes the emblematic feelings of comfort and security. In a greasy gas station, the people are close together and love each other. In “Sestina", contrary to the archetypal notion, the people in the home are distanced from each other. There is brief moment of interaction when the child show its picture which includes an unknown man. He, or his absence, might be the grandmother’s source of

“The Flea” by John Donne when looked at briefly is simply a poem about a man trying to seduce a woman into participating in pre-material sexual relationship with him. However, “The Flea” constructs many more important arguments than simply that one. The poem touches on religion, love, and sex in a non-romanticized way, contrasting the normal glamorized stance seen in most of poetry. Most of John Donne’s poems have either romantic themes or religious themes; “The Flea” has both. It is important to recognize that Donne was a 17th century preacher who converted from Catholicism to Protestantism (“John Donne.” Poetry Foundation). The struggle between lust and dedication to Christianity is not unfamiliar to Donne and is most

For the terrible feeling of loneliness to affect you, you must experience what happened in the beginning of the story. The first stanza play a continuous role with the literary devices imagery and symbolism. The “dream” (1) stands for the writers unknown desire or state that will later be revealed. The “Queen” (2) is control and power of land and her virginity; however, the “Angel” (3) is seen as selfless love that is desired differently for everyone. The Queen is wanting to feel better about herself; however, she only learns how about how to get someone else to be there for her. In the second stanza, a repetition of “And” (8-12) is seen in the beginning. Also, “wept” (5) is connotation of not always meaning crying, but growing up has many struggles in which can causes someone to be sad or hurt. These two stanzas begin with the writer dreaming that he was a queen, but she (the writer) was upset with herself. The queen cried and cried when an angel came to her. The angel wasn’t the most hilarious or witful, but he made her happy and the queen hid those feelings from him. This second stanza starts all the drama because the angel was there to help while she was sad, but she kept pretending to be sad so the angel may be there to protect her.

“Every way ends, every road, every foot-path leads at last to the hill-crest—.” As for stanza three, H.D. continues to clarify her argument by using imageries that contain elements which signify women; as in the colour pink which was mentioned twice in this stanza, “border-pinks, clove-pinks, wax-lilies, herbs, sweet-cress.” To illustrate more stanza three, these flowers and herbs are mostly seen in trimmed and sheltered gardens which it can be sensed that those sheltered flowers are imageries of either the lack of freedom with women or even the lack of freedom with the plants