Critical Analysis Of Here And Away By Neil Hilborn

The visual’s background is formed by a dark and starry night sky; stretching across the image and transitioning into a sunny day sky. This is a representation of the passage of time, life, death, and the power of memories. The nighttime depicts ageing and adulthood, whereas the daytime represents youth and life. In the poem, the narrator describes the sky, ‘Ambiguous night, ambiguous sky,’ which is symbolic for the transience between adulthood and childhood. An ambiguous sky is a sky which is unclear or undecided. The faded transition from the night sky to the day sky reflects this notion and the uncertainty of memories; displaying how the poem

Once I was able to associate these words to emotions and issues present in everyday life, the poem started to make me feel sad. I began thinking about all of the emotions and feelings that everyone hides as they go about life. For example, how the waitress I see once a week may have an eating disorder, or how the singer I look up to just lost her son, or the businessman who got laid off today. Everyone has their own personal battle that they carry everywhere, at any given moment. This explains why the setting is so plain, since the internal struggles people face affect them even at a bus stop. While each person waits, the waitress may be thinking about how much skinnier the person next to her is. The singer could be remembering when she held her baby. And the business man could be planning how to break the news to his wife. No matter how small, everyone experiences a type of trauma or bad experience, and this poem seemed to show what happens when these emotions become bottled up. No one can help each other because they are so stuck within their own issues. The difficulty helping others reminded me of the idea of having to take care of yourself before being able to take care of others.

Anne’s complex symbolism helps to construct the composite and secretive nature behind mental illness. Each stanza opens with a repetition of the words “I have” (Sexton 1,8,15). Its singular form introduces and reintroduces the author's sense of loneliness and hopelessness. Her first line reads, “I have gone out, a possessed witch” (Sexton 1). Witches are known for their dark and vile spirit, which is a direct metaphor for her depression. In most modern literature, witches are also considered social outcasts who live life on their own. The beginning of the second stanza reads,”I have found the warm caves in the woods” (Sexton 8). As if to say the solitude is warm and inviting. The woods stand for a tangled front protecting the solitude she stays in from being hurt. The final introduction reads, “I have ridden in your cart, driver” (Sexton 15). The driver is Anne’s depression. It feels like it is running her life, and she is just there for the ride.

Jim Stevens left this poem up to interpretation. The title “Schizophrenia” sticks out because it is a mental disorder that affects how a person feels thinks and acts; thus, it leads the reader to believe this poem has a dark undertone. Each line gives a story of how a family deals with the issues of two people in a relationship. For instance, in the last line of the poem, "It was the House that suffered the most" (Stevens line 1), Stevens indicates the relationship was not a happy one and the house suffered for it. He sets up the image with this opening line and repeats it in the close of the poem. Throughout the poem the house transforms in to a person.

Instead of having people tell readers the story through spoken words, the objects abandoned in the house do. Through lines such as, “Bible with a broken back” (5), and “rags in the window frames”(15), they allow the readers to visualize the torn apart house. The lonely rundown nature of the house mirrors how the man feels running from the house. Through the choice of imagery, the poet implies that feelings of pain and hurt are still left behind. Although the man runs from his problems, he cannot escape his feelings, just as how the house is forever scarred with the items left behind. Through imagery such as “toys strewn in the yard” (21), and “...branches after a storm” (22), the readers get to visualize the aftermath of the man’s rage. These choices of imagery tell a story long after they’ve happened. Although the house is abandoned, the emotions of pain and despair are forever embedded into

metaphors are used to symbolize the turbulence in the house and how rapidly it spreads throughout the house. In line 4, “greasy stains spreading on the cloth”, the ‘greasy stains’ refer to schizophrenia and how it spreads through the family. In lines (4-6) “Certain doors were locked at night, feet stood for hours outside them…” this is a metaphor for paranoia. It could also show how family members would shut themselves off from the rest of the world. The use of diction sets up the tone of anger throughout the poem by using words such as: slammed, shouting, threats, cracking, broken and madhouse. (2) “It had begun with slamming doors..” the use of slamming shows how infuriated the family was and how they took their anger out of the house. (11) “...reconciliations, the sobbing that followed.” Reconciliations

I think these key images all tie in together. All of these memories and past experiences say that he has previously been a very emotional person because of the things he has gone through. In the beginning I was feeling it was dark and mysterious, but as I continued to read it, it became clear of what he was trying to say and express parts of his life. These lines are what define the real meaning of the poem. These lines have real meanings and memories behind them and you can tell that just by simply reading it a few times, and thinking about the thoughts he had expressed in the poem.

The other section where symbolism is evident is “Small Porch in the Woods.” It is divided into several poems. In the first one, there is the mention of “unshifting star” which represents a change that is undisturbed. It is the turning point of the society. Despite the challenges communities face in their life, their ambition leads them towards achieving their objectives in life. The second poem under this section is about a heavy rain that fell in the month of April. Heavy rain is the representation of unhappy moments. The description presented by the narrator shows that it is a sad moment where everything is carried away. Throughout the poem, the rain is seen, as a lesson

The poem begins with a somewhat trivial inventory of a rich family's home and lifestyle. However, the tone changes abruptly with the mention of "a pistol on the cushion beside him." There is not an abundance of symbolism in the prose, but the symbols that are included are quite powerful. Along with the pistol on the cushion, there is the image of the broken bottles "embedded in the walls around the house to scoop the kneecaps from a man's legs or cut his hands to lace." Also, the moon swinging bare "on its black cord over the house" appears to be a reference to a light

The poem dramatizes details using imagery regarding how the colonel suffers from severe post traumatic stress disorder. As a former colonel he has past events bothering him mentally. These events take on a life of their own through the speakers use of personification “The moon swung bare on its black cord over the house”(5-6). This statement shows how the speaker feels towards what’s inside the house and a sense of despair and loneliness in the colonel persona. There could also be a double meaning, explaining how the colonel interrogated somebody and then hung him with a black cord from the top of the house. The poem shows horrific imagery towards the reader “the broken bottles embedded in the walls around the house to scoop

. . should burn and rave at the close of day”(2). This means that old men should fight when they are dying and their age should not prevent them from resisting death. Another example of personification in the poem is “Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay”(8). This line personifies the men’s frail deeds by saying that they could have danced. This means that the potential actions of the men could have flourished and contributed greatly to their lives. The metaphor “. . . words had forked no lightning. . .”(5) is about how the men had done nothing significant with their lives. They had not achieved anything great or caused a major change. The simile “Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay” is about how even grave and serious men will fight against death for as long as they can. Another notable example of figurative language within the poem is “. . . blinding sight”(13). This oxymoron details how the men can see very well and it is very obvious to them that they will die soon, but they know that they can control how they will leave this world. There is an abundance of imagery within this poem, a few examples of which are “. . . danced in a green bay”(8), and “. . . caught and sang the sun in flight”(10) . These examples of imagery are both appealing to the sense of sight by using descriptive words such as “Green” and “danced” in the first example and words such as “caught” and “flight” among others. The second example also appeals to the sense of sound by

The speaker refers to the night as his acquaintance. This implies that the speaker has a lot of experience with the night, but has not become friends with it. Thus, because even the night, which has been alongside the speaker in comparison to anything or anyone else, is not a companion to the speaker, the idea of loneliness is enhanced. In addition, “rain” (2) is used to symbolize the speaker’s feelings of gloom and grief, because there is continuous pouring of the rain, which is unlikely to stop. In line 3, “city light” is used to convey the emotional distance between the speaker and society. Although the speaker has walked extensively, he has not yet interacted with anyone – thus distancing himself even further from society. Moreover, the moon, in lines 11 to 12, is used as a metaphor of the speaker’s feelings. The speaker feels extremely distant from society that he feels “unearthly.” The idea of isolation and loneliness in this poem is used as the theme of the poem; and the use of the setting and metaphors underscores the idea that the speaker feels abandoned from society.

The poem, "The Night House" by Billy Collins, is very symbolic and meaningful, and most people can relate to because everyone has something they are not content with in life. Collins is a great, straightforward writer that people can depict with in his poems because he is practical and uses simple things or everyday experiences in an easy way. This poem in particular is very symbolic and effortless to analyze because it is the everyday life--- going to work, coming home, and then going to sleep--- the cycle then repeats over and over. He talks about "the body works" at the beginning (which sets the tone for the rest of the poem), which symbolizes that our hearts and minds are not always into what we are doing. He talks and illustrates figurative parts of the body: the heart, mind, conscience, and soul. When he talks about the woman sleeping, all these figurative body parts are restless and come out at night to do what they really want to do.

To start off the analysis, the setting of the entire poem is significant. Though the poem takes place in a house, the atmosphere the house is set in is also important. The month is September which is a month of fall which can be seen as a symbol for decline. It definitely insinuates that the poem is leading towards death. Line 1 has “September rain falls on the house” which gives the feeling of a dark and cold night with a storm on top of that. To further develop that, Bishop gives us the failing light in line 2 to also give us an idea of the grandmother’s struggle. Bishop uses the cyclical theme of changing seasons to show the unending nature of what is transpiring within the

My journey the day I left my home country in search of a better life was not as pleasurable or exciting as I expected. Although it was not a long flight, the accumulation of unexpected vicissitudes during the trip made my dream of traveling an absolute nightmare. Not only my sadness to be leaving my family behind, the uncertainty to fly alone and for the first time, or my inexperience with the procedures at the airport contributed to this calamity, but even my neighbor on the plane added his bit of sand in the affair. All this situation was such traumatic to me that I even considered never daring to fly again.