Joy Harjo's The Woman Hanging From The Thirteenth Floor Window

Literature work always has some lesson for the people that could even leave a thought-provoking effect on their lives and compel them to understand the reality of the world. However, there are some people, who just read literature as a source of entertainment, but the real meaning, of the reading or encountering any literature work, is realized when a reader understands a message. Which writer intends to give to a reader. It is because the literature work has a connection, in addition, influence on the character building process.

In the first three lines of the poem, Harjo talks about opening oneself up to nature where you feel yourself. She does this by connecting the human body to the sky, earth, sun, and moon.

Having a persona in a poem, allows the writer to relay what they want to say through a characters actions or thoughts. The use of a persona is quite strong in each of the three texts. In Australia the persona,

To conclude, author’s inspire their audience through evoking empathy and compassion in them. This is important because it helps people understand more about the world and know when changes

Recently the class and I read a short story called Blue Against White, which focuses on the importance of memories during childhood and how it affects one's life. Jeannette C. Armstrong the author, uses writing techniques like symbolism through common motifs to aid the reader to have a better understanding of the the hidden morals within the story.  Literary elements that were applied in the story includes plot and character which also had immense connections towards the author itself. This can be shown through the word choice and the placement of the setting, which displayed a large significance in assisting the reader through imagery. The fact that Jeannette C. Armstrong developed such a self-discovery story helps bring attention

The poem “The White Porch” by Cathy Song is an illustration of maturity and coming of age. There is an innocent tone to the beginning of the poem with sensual undertones as the writing progress’s. In the poem, a woman is reminiscing about her young womanhood as she sits on her porch awaiting her presumed lover. Song creates the character of the woman to be of a homemaker, describing her duties taking care of laundry, having a cake in the oven and snapping beans in her lap. Through the visualization that Song creates it is assumed that the woman is pregnant, and as she is waiting for her husband she thinks back to the things she herself used to do when she was younger with her own mother. She is reflecting on the way her mother raised her thinking about how she wants to raise her own child. The speaker admits to sneaking in her lover late at night behind her mother’s back, but does not seem to feel remorseful because all her decisions led to where she is in her life now. Cathy Songs poem “The White Porch” portrays the transition of a girl into a woman using symbolism, imagery and simile.

In the short story Eleven by Sandra Cisneros, the author uses literary techniques to characterize Rachel. Sandra uses literary techniques; imagery, point-of-view, and repetition to characterize Rachel. Imagery was used to describe how Rachel feels in the text. The author explained how she felt in a way that people could imagine it. For example, when Rachel says “my whole head hurts like when you drink milk too fast.”

“She hangs from the 13th floor window in east Chicago (140). The Native America woman is hanging from the thirteenth window ledge by her fingertips. She is unsure if she should commit suicide or climb back up and regain her life. The 13th floor symbolism here is that the number thirteen is an unlucky number in our society. The number represents bad luck and it coincides with the woman who is hanging because her life is so unlucky. Many hotels and other building across our country go from twelve to fourteen to avoid the number thirteen. The woman is broken because she is isolated in a city of crime, faces racial discrimination, former wife of two husbands and lives in poverty. The east side of Chicago is a very poor area and the crime rate is higher, which matches up with the woman being trapped in the environment. She has three children, “The baby Carlos, Margaret and Jimmy, who is the oldest” (141). Joy Harjo’s line about the birds over her head, “They could be a halo, or a storm of glass waiting to crush her” is a key line because it implies the woman is trapped between two decisions. The halo could mean that she will make a good decision to reclaim her life or if the glass crushes her it represents her

The world is a massive place full of endless literature, beginning from ancient scrolls to daily news articles, filled with many secrets, perspectives and surroundings that help connect literature to an individual’s daily life. Some writers use the skills of literary elements to express and discuss an event that has happened to them or what has happened to others. This helps others to comprehend the perspectives of the author’s understanding toward an incident that one might experience. For instance in Flannery O’Connor’s short story, she uses many literary elements to express her views over most of her stories. O’Connor expresses her views in her short story, “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” by using the literary elements of point of view, irony, and setting.

The poem Suicide Note, written by Janice Mirikitani (1987), talks about a young lady, who has studied in an Asian-American female college. The lady, unfortunately, committed suicide by jumping through her dormitory’s window. She left behind a note, citing reasons that led to her actions. After a critical analysis of the note, her parents were held responsible for her actions; they were pressurizing her to perform better in her exams. The poem, thus, describes the real feelings and the emotions of this young lady, who believes that committing suicide is the only option left to please her parents and to escape the enormous pressure placed on her. The persona uses voice in the poem to bring our attention to the sufferings she was going through, and that led to the devastating event. Voice in poetry is the strong words of a line, stanza or a page that creates a relationship between the audience and the persona. Voice can, therefore, be categorized as imagery, patterns of sounds created, rhythm, tone, and diction (Gahern 166). The following is a description of how the voice in Mirikitani’s suicide note helps the reader understand the persona’s reasoning.

The main character possesses the characteristics of most young women, a full plate of responsibility and the lack of freedom that can wither away a person’s soul.  My response to this poem is that I strongly respect the author for bringing up such a controversial issue such as discontentment with being a stay-at-home mother, since this is usually to be expected of women.  Dove explains the poem delicately and leaves the underlying sense that she may have possibly been through the situation herself.  This being said, her imagery is wonderfully used and the metaphor of the doll being slumped over is a brilliant way to reflect upon the main character’s feelings and actions.  The irony comes into play, in my opinion,

Edgar Allan Poe was a popular American author during the Romantic Era. During this era, authors wrote with emphasis on emotion and imagination, and Poe fits this stereotype perfectly. John Chua describes his reasons for writing by saying, “Poe’s writing aims at a concentrated affection or emotional response from the reader.” In many of his poems, Poe uses characters and plots that touch both the reader’s heart and imagination. These characters were often modeled after actual people in his life, such as his mother and many lovers. His poetry became even more famous after his death because of the “evil” persona that was adopted to his name (Meyers 263). In fact, two of Poe’s most famous poems, “Annabel Lee” and “The Bells,” were published after his death in 1849 (Poetry of Edgar Allan Poe). He achieved this reaction by using many different literary devices. Edgar Allan Poe’s biographical background contributed to the theme of death, role of women, and the use of doppelgänger to produce an emotional response from the reader.

Character development within novels with complex plot structures proves to be a difficult task necessitating the author to add their own inner thoughts and experiences to weave a more realistic story. The historical background of a writer helps glean on information about that person’s unconscious and subconscious processes that become apparent within an author’s literature. As the author develops their thoughts throughout a novel attempting to paint a clearer picture of their purpose, their own persona becomes a part of the literature. Psychoanalytic theory attempts to further this claim by taking information from one’s childhood, inner taboo thoughts and hidden motivations, and synthesizing them for a better picture of the author’s

Storytelling helps other people to emotionally connect themselves to the author so that they know they are not the only ones who are experiencing a painful or exciting experience, and are able to share the same emotions. It often helps other people to know what they should do in order to get over it when it comes to a painful experience. Maya Angelou’s I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings explores the life of Maya Angelou and the struggles she has been throughout her childhood to her adulthood. Richard Wagemese’s Indian Horse explores the life of Saul Indian Horse and the struggles he has been through after departing from his family. The power of storytelling can unfold questions which ask the audience of how and why are the events are unfold the

The next stanza begins with possibly the most wonderful line in the poem, which speaks to personal survival, joy, and the continuation of life: “You laughed with the spirit of your husband who would toss stars!” (Harjo). Here Harjo uses the metaphor again, this time to compare the widow’s tears to a butterfly, which is both beautiful and fragile. But here, because of the Butterfly Dance, it takes on a special meaning, bringing their daughter into the circle of death and rebirth.