Figurative Language In Jabberwocky

In “A Barred Owl”, Wilbur uses certain words and phrases to convey a dark, then humorous tone in the first stanza, then transitions back in the second stanza. The poem begins with a

In “A Barred Owl,” Wilbur adopts a playful tone through rhyming: “We tell the wakened child that all she heard/ Was an odd question from a forest bird” (3, 4). The rhyme imitates the style of nursery rhymes, creating a joking tone. The playful tone avoids seriousness and weakens the horror of the owl, which contributes to the poem’s style like a nursery rhyme. Wilbur also euphemizes the owl to help create a nursery style. He does not represent the horrible creature of an owl as a carnivore with sharp claws that hunts during the night, but euphemizes it as a “forest bird” (Wilbur 4). The owl’s representation as a safe forest bird refers its figure to the enthusiastic birds with heavenly sounds in cartoons and story books, which often help the protagonist to overcome difficulties and dangers. Referring to nursery imageries of birds, the euphemism contributes to the poem’s style as a nursery rhyme. Creating a playful tone and a nursery style, Wilbur uses rhymes and euphemism to “domesticate fear” (Wilbur

Repeated onomatopoeic terms again set the scene. We are told that a hunt is in progress, and it is described in descriptive detail. Anderson does not romanticise the scene as the duckling cowers from a ‘fearfully big dog’.

Throughout the poem, the author creates different tones using different types of figurative language and diction. The poet starts off the poem with the metaphor, “Although she feeds me

The author uses imagery in the poem to enable the reader to see what the speaker sees. For example, in lines 4-11 the speaker describes to us the

Lastly, Wilbur and Collins use contrasting rhyme schemes to imply that children must be kept uninfluenced and pure in order to flourish in their childhood. In “A Barred Owl”, Wilbur uses a very consistent end rhyme scheme in which he rhymes every two lines, AABBCC to create a playful, childish feeling. The reader can then connect more with

Tone- Jabberwocky appears to have a somewhat humorous tone, considering the nonsensical words used, the brevity of the story, and lack of moral. There is no issue or theme addressed that can be applied as an allegory, unlike The Lorax. However, the entire story of the Lorax is rather darker and more applicable in real life, and the tone is both a call to action for the readers and also rather accusatory towards large factories and companies. However, the Jabberwocky appears to have no clear accusations or calls to action and is a vivid contrast to the dark tone of The Lorax. The Jabberwocky poem’s tone is rather ironic, because it presents a usually serious topic (Defeating a vicious beast) with nonsensical baby words, which makes the author’s intent rather humorous. The quote below showcases an action scene with these nonsense words, which changes the tone from serious too rather humorous.

In this poem, we see the tone light and free, also much imagery. We see this immediately with the first line saying, the “afternoon was the colour of water falling through sunlight” (1). We immediately get a sense of a beautiful day, maybe even fall with the trees descriptions in the following line, “trees glittered with the tumbling of leaves” (2). Lowell shows such beautiful imagery throughout her poem especially in her first two stanzas, that when we read that they are in the middle of war in the third stanza, that it is slightly shocking. That there are “two little boys, lying flat on their faces” (7) and that they are, “carefully gathering red berries” (8). Here Lowell shows that it is still a beautiful day but the darker reality is that they are currently in a war. Then we start to see the poem more in a melancholy light. That these two little boys are picking berries to save for later, instead of enjoying it right now. However one day the boys wish that “there will be no more war” (10), and that then, they could in fact enjoy their berries, their afternoon and “turn it in my fingers”. In this poem, we clearly see the different tones throughout. Lowell shows us the light tone, then a more melancholy tone and then finally a hopeful tone.

In the third stanza, a lot of imagery is used. The significant ones are present in the seventh and eleventh lines. In the first line, the poet writes, "A

Joyce uses diction to support the overall tone of “Araby,” through his use of words and phrases such as “had grown somber. . .” (Joyce 400) and “musty. . .” (Joyce 400). The verbiage he uses constructs a dull and increasingly gloomy image as if darkness is enclosing the town being depicted. Word choices like “waste. . .” (Joyce 400) and “useless. . .” (Joyce 400) convey the stagnant environment that encases the lifeless neighborhood the boy lives in. Joyce communicates the dreariness that cloaks Dublin by using dreadful adjectives to describe the setting. The young boy’s short lived “confused adoration” (Joyce 401) for his friend’s sister, is depicted using feminine words in association with her, such as “petticoat. . .” (Joyce 401) and “soft. . .” (Joyce 400). When the speaker is professing Mangan’s sister’s control over him, he proclaims, “[m]y body [is] like a harp and her words and gestures [are] like fingers running upon the wires” (Joyce 401). The boy reveals his ignorance by incorrectly calling harp strings, “wires. . .” (Joyce 401). This simple error portrays his confusion about his own feelings and the reasoning behind them. The author uses diction to support the tone of the short story, “Araby,” through his choice of words that reveal both the glum atmosphere of the setting and the naive affection being displayed by the speaker.

4. The whole poem has an apostrophe. The Jabberwock is a metaphor for the despair of having to continually count meters and create rhyme. Since the despair cannot do that itself, Carroll created a personification by turning despair into the Jabberwock.

Within stanzas one and two the poet uses imagery and word choice to convey that the narrator is thinking about new life, pregnancy and babies.

"Wn a bby fst ts 2 kmnikt the wrds snd gibberish. " No one knows what the baby is trying to say. The poem, "Jabberwocky," written by Lewis Carroll, uses meaningless speech to either frustrate or amuse the reader. When trying to pronounce the nonsense words in the poem, the sounds of the words come out as gibberish. The sounds are the important element of the poem. Often, people like to hear poets read in languages they cannot understand. A woman leaving a reading by the Polish poet Czeslaw Milosz said she was glad he'd read some of his work in Polish because the language sounded exciting, like horse hooves over cobblestones.

The speaker furthermore conveys the idea that nature is a grandeur that should be recognized by including the element of imagery. The poet utilizes imagery as a technique to appeal to reader’s sense of sight . It is “the darkest evening of the year” (line 8) and a traveller and his horse stop “between the woods and frozen lake” (line 7). By writing with details such as these, readers are capable of effortlessly envisioning the peaceful scenery that lies before the speaker. The persona then draws on reader’s sense of sound. “The only other sound’s the sweep / Of easy wind and downy flake.” The illustration allows readers to not only see,

In this research, the researcher discusses the figurative language based on Perrine’s perception. According to Perrine (1977:61-109), figurative language consists of 12 kinds, they are: simile, metaphor, personification, apostrophe, synecdoche, metonymy, symbol, allegory, paradox, hyperbole/overstatement, understatement, and irony.