Figurative Language In The Hollow Men

Paul Bogard is is an author who published "Let There Be Dark". In this text, he goes on to speak about the importance that darkness has in the world. Throughout many crowded, busy places in the world that keep lights on have an effect of damaging the darkness. The author's purpose for this piece of writing is to address the problems with having the lights on while it is dark out. The way he gets through with this purpose is by using figurative language and very sophisticated diction.

Another famous and influential work from T.S. Eliot is The Hollow Men. Likely influenced by World War I, T. S. Eliot portrays a disconnect from humanity and a disillusionment with typical beliefs as a source of human despair in The Hollow Men. The “hollow men” that the work is centered around are depicted devoid of any human qualities that might provide them a relief from despair, such as hope or faith. As is written in “T. S. Eliot's Indigenous Critical Concepts and 'The Hollow Men'” by Muhammad Khan Sangi and others, “In this poem the human beings have been shown devoid of the qualities of faith, moral strength, of personality, determination and that of humanity; they are like empty bodies, lacking all human virtues” (Sangi et al para 4). No matter how these qualities were lost to the individuals, the result is constant and predictable: the individuals feel an inescapable despair. When one has nothing to anticipate in life, no expectations or hopes, then life loses its meaning. This is the world that the hollow men live in perpetually. The entire work, as Sangi describes, “is a cry of despair unrelieved by hope. The peculiarity of the poem is that it is an inner drama with the utmost economy of words. The images echo the deadness of sensibility and the emptiness of hollow men who, like the effigies, are fit only for burning” (Sangi et al para 5). Again, the hollow men are depicted as worthless, insofar as they are compared to effigies, the only purpose of which is to be

Introduction The book, The Unwanteds, by Lisa McMann, is an adventurous story about a creative boy named Alex, and his very bland and boring twin brother Aaron. Alex and Aaron are split apart because Alex took the blame for something that Aaron did, and at the Purge, when they were both thirteen years old, Alex was sent to his death, and Aaron was sent to the university of Quill, where he would become a governor. Alex, however lived because of a man named Mr Today, and the secret world of Unwanteds. Aritme was full of talking statues, magical creatures, and lots and lots of colors.

In the story The Book Thief, the author Markus Zusak does and amazing job of using literary devices in his story. From metaphors, to similes, to personification and even onomonopeias. It puts images in your mind that in other looks you could not even imagine. It shows and tells what the person is doing and how they are doing it. These literary devices bring excitement and engagement to the writing. It makes you want to keep reading the book. His forms of figurative language come easy to zusak.

In the middle of the poem, the speaker arrives at the number of casualties from the war. When he reads this number he can’t believe that he is still alive. As he reads down the names he uses the visual imagery and simile to describe how he expected to find his own name in “letters like smoke” (line 16). This helps the reader understand how lucky the speaker felt about somehow escaping the war still alive. As he goes

Have you ever wanted to read about the evanescence of life? In Erik Larson’s educating 2003 nonfiction novel Devil in the White City, set in the City of Chicago during the 1893 World’s Fair, also known as the World’s Columbian Exposition, he tells the side-by-side story of a striving architect and a twisted serial killer. In his work, Larson uses figurative language, imagery, and juxtaposition to capture the serial killer’s, H.H. Holmes, psychotic nature, and explain how those around him find him to be so enticing.

There is a conflict between practicality and sentimentality conveyed through the use of both literal and figurative language by poet Mary Oliver in “The Black Walnut Tree.” There is an alternation from a debate between mother and daughter rationalizing reasons of selling the black walnut tree- that sits in the family’s backyard- in order to pay off their mortgage, to the symbolic viewing and characterization of the tree as a reflection of the family’s history and what value it holds to further generations. Despite the “whip-crack of the mortgage” experienced every month, cutting down the black walnut tree would be a heinous deception on the family’s heritage.

The famous philosopher Plato once said, “You can discover more about a person with an hour of play than in a year of conversation.” But dialogue and figurative language can help the reader understand people, and their surroundings. An hour of play can’t tell their deepest secrets and their emotions to bring your fate's together. In The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer, the dialogue of her characters and the descriptive language she uses helps show the mood and helps inference more about the novel.

Poetry can sometimes allow one to explore the unknown. However, in some works of poetry, one can realise that some known ideas or values remain relevant to current society. This is certainly applicable to T.S. Eliot’s poems, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and Rhapsody on a Windy Night. Eliot’s manipulation of poetic techniques in both these poems allows the responder to realise that some ideas prevail in both modern and post-modern society. These poems explore the unknown phenomena of the obscurity regarding the purpose and meaning of life. This unknown phenomena causes the persona in both texts to resort to a sense of isolation or alienation. Eliot uses poetic techniques such as metaphors and personification to convey his ideas.

The Weary Blues, written by Langston Hughes and published in 1926, won Hughes his first poetry prize. Hughes is a well-known African American poet who often wrote about the struggles for African Americans during the Harlem Renaissance, he uses figurative language in the poem to describe loneliness and despair, and the relationship between the speaker and performer, in order to make the reader better understand the blues.

Have you ever known a psychopath who finds pleasure of going around and murdering thousands of people? In Erik Larson’s nonfiction novel, A Devil in the White City, published in 2003, he sets the scene around the World’s Fair in Chicago. During this time, the city preoccupies themselves with the new construction and excitement of the fair that it draws away attention from the rather secretive, sly, serial killer, H.H. Holmes. Larson uses figurative language, imagery, and juxtaposition throughout the entire novel to develop just how sinister natured Holmes truly is.

In “September, 1918”, Amy Lowell shows her readers an interesting and illuminating poem. That war can be an ugly time and the people that experience it often seems to live in a “broken world” (19). To fight an evil, sometimes war is needed, nonetheless it is still costly to the people living through the war. Some in a literal sense, like soldiers fighting in a war, while some in a physical sense by the world that they now see and live in. I find the poem truly interesting though, in how the author shows that even in war we can still hold onto hope for more promising days. Lowell portrays a melancholy mood throughout her poem that makes her readers thinking about war but also the hope of it being over.

T.S Eliot’s poem, “The winter evening settles down” is a short, simple to read poem with several different examples of imagery. Eliot uses descriptive words, for instance, “withered leaves”, “broken blinds”, and “lonely cab-horse” (lines 7-10). He paints an extremely bleak image of a town that seems to be deserted of people. The tone of the poem plays hand-in-hand with the imagery used. This town is an unpleasant place where it has seemed to be neglected for some years now. Eliot’s use of imagery takes the reader to this deserted, torpid place; however, at the same time, his goal is to bring the life back into this grim town.

The poet then presents a scene of patriotic relevance as he describes a scene of a regiment marching into battle with their “flag” and “Eagle with crest of red and gold” (17-18). When people think of flags, they think of patriotism and representing their country. Eagles also symbolize freedom but as readers can witness in the work, the poet makes it seem as if these men were created not to enjoy the gift of life for one moment by him saying “These men were born to drill and die” (19). This comes across to the reader as almost inhumane. Then by illustrating an image of a field of thousands of dead corpses makes any reader wonder why people even go to war. The whole fourth stanza paints a picture of living human being going into a battle with most, if not any, making it out alive. Like stated before, the speaker in the poem builds a case for those people that opposed to war even though the title of the poem might

This establishes the theme and thus the tone of the poem. Towards the end of the poem the reader gains a sense of irony and sarcasm that is expressed within the tone: "Till human voices wake us, and we drown" (778). "Human voices" is supposed to represent a helping hand in which any person in trouble can be helped by humanity. However, these human voices only cause the person in need to "drown" in their words. This is ironic because, as indicated above, humanity is the coexistence of a fellow human with the help (if necessary and available) of another fellow human when he/she is in need of it. However, metaphorically speaking, the person in need in the poem (Alfred) only receives negativity and hostility from society and his fellow men, thus causing him/her to drown in the words of the human voices. This is the most important set back of society conveyed by Eliot in his poem. It is the last line in the poem and is the key to the poem.