The Pennycandystore Beyond The El

The third stanza is the inevitable ?fall from grace? as our speaker has finally ?taken off the gloves? and resorts to the vengeance of cold steel. The speaker utters one last phrase of motivation as he/she eerily takes pleasure in holding the tool of his nemesis? destruction. ?The food from our mouths, I said, righteously thrilling to the feel of the .22, the bullets? neat noses.? The killer now takes a moment to lament on his/her course of action, acknowledging that her pacifism is a thing of the past; that he/she was once comparable to Darwin and his pension for non-violence. However, this does little to dissuade he/she from swiftly taking the life of the pests. ?I, a lapsed pacifist fallen from grace puffed with Darwinian pieties for killing, now drew a bead on the little woodchuck?s face. He died down in the everbearing roses.? This stanza marked the turning point of the narrative as our speaker has been pushed beyond their boundaries into an unfamiliar realm of pleasure. A side of them has been exposed that has remained dormant for what appears to be the duration of their life. It is now a newfound sensation that has thrilled them beyond

|Spend about 1 hour on this section. Think carefully about the poems before you write your answer. |

In his poem “The Great Scarf of Birds”, John Updike uses a flock of birds to show that man can be uplifted by observing nature. Updike’s conclusion is lead up to with the beauty of autumn and what a binding spell it has on the two men playing golf. In Updike’s conclusion and throughout the poem, he uses metaphors, similes, and diction to show how nature mesmerizes humans.

John Updike arranges structure in the poem to create the specific feeling of having one’s heart change from seeing something beautiful. The beginning of the poem starts with a couplet that describes the setting; a man-made golf course “on Cape Ann in October” (1). Enjambment is integrated throughout the poem to surprise the reader and create anticipation. For example, in lines 8-9, enjambment adds tension as the narrator describes what he sees in the sky. The entire poem is free verse, this emphasizes the flight of the birds and how nature has no true rhythm. By using free verse, the reader is unable to predict what will happen next and uncertainty is added. Without the free verse, the poem would feel unrelaxed and harsh. In lines 50-1, Updike changes the word order to startle the reader and conclude the poem in an interesting and memorable way. The poet manipulates the structure to provide a suspenseful mood and make the reader feel interested in the storyline.

In the first stanza, the writer uses many techniques to convey the feeling of loss, when he says,

without warning”. Then in the third stanza, where he illuminates the allure of letting go of

The last line of stanza is sung as “So watch my back and keep the blade i think it got you laid.” This means instead of their family hurting them they should watch their back and by doing so it will be good overall which means the laid part.

Reflections Within is a non-traditional stanzaic poem made up of five stanzas containing thirty-four lines that do not form a specific metrical pattern. Rather it is supported by its thematic structure. Each of the five stanzas vary in the amount of lines that each contain. The first stanza is a sestet containing six lines. The same can be observed of the second stanza. The third stanza contains eight lines or an octave. Stanzas four and five are oddly in that their number of lines which are five and nine.

The second half of the first stanza introduces an extended metaphor describing the motivating factor of human nature, saying, “To conquer every mountain shown” (Keenan). While the word “conquer,” conjures up images of imperialistic warfare, within the context of this song the word has a broader meaning and may be more clearly understood as the “will to power and the will to meaning.” That is, the driving forces of human nature are achievement, which is motivated by personal ambition to reach the highest possible position we may accomplish, and the drive to understand the meaning of our lives. The word mountain represents every type of obstacle that might get in the way of that goal, while the word “I” directly refers to the singer and metaphorically refers to humanity as a collective of individuals motivated by personal self-interest. Taken together with the first half of this stanza, we see the idea that the defining characteristic of human nature is to overcome, or conquer, every obstacle that obstructs the will to power or prevents us from discovering truth. The singer then introduces the controlling metaphor (or main theme) of the song, which is transcendence saying, “But I’ve

The first stanza is addressed to ‘old men’ and how they should not simply slip away and die quietly, they should fight death until the end. Poetic techniques

The last two lines act as a slap in the face. Every element works toward death, and the speaker almost slips into eternal rest. One can see him, putting the

The man goes into talking to the so called visitor outside by explaining why he hasn’t came to the door yet. He tells that he wasn’t sure if the knocking was actually a knock, or if he was hearing things in his sleepy condition.

Because the poem is long, it won’t be quoted extensively here, but it is attached at the end of the paper for ease of reference. Instead, the paper will analyze the poetic elements in the work, stanza by stanza. First, because the poem is being read on-line, it’s not possible to say for certain that each stanza is a particular number of lines long. Each of several versions looks different on the screen; that is, there is no pattern to the number of lines in each stanza. However, the stanzas are more like paragraphs in a letter than

The birds flew, flapping "their useless wings" as they hit the ground, dead. Wild beasts are becoming timid, from fright, and poisonous snakes were becoming "stingless". These animals are becoming food for the men, who are now, desperately, becoming savage scavengers. However, the animal food supply doesn't last long, and the men start turning on themselves. Humans were now capable of cannibalism, as survival becomes the only consistent goal: "men dies"…"their bones were tombless as their flesh". This is exaggerated even more as once faithful dogs have turned on their masters, devouring their flesh and sparing nothing. All except one dog, who "kept the birds and beasts and famish'd men at bay" from his master's corpse, not letting any scavengers touch them, until the dog succumbs to starvation and dies. This symbolises the demise of any last moral emotion that the world had left.

The man describes an identical situation at the end of the poem, saying, “Thoughts of a dry brain in a dry season” (76). The concept of nature as a source of order is based on its function as a cycle. The old man waits for the cycle to deliver him from his spiritually dry state to a place of fulfillment. But nature brings no change to the man and leaves him in the same arid condition in which he began. The failure of nature to provide a cycle is supported by the natural, stationary images in the poem, such as, “Rocks, moss, stonecrop, iron, merds” (12), and the “Gull against the wind, in the windy straits” (70), which shows nature forcefully impeding the progress of the bird, just as its lack of cycle reinforces the stagnation of the old man’s mind, body, and spirit.