Literary Analysis Of Humor In Elizabeth Bishop's 'One Art'

As Wendy Martin says “the poem leaves the reader with painful impression of a woman in her mid-fifties, who having lost her domestic comforts is left to struggle with despair. Although her loss is mitigated by the promise of the greater rewards of heaven, the experience is deeply tragic.” (75)

“One Art” is a villanelle filled with sad sentiments of encouragement towards accepting loss. Elizabeth Bishop uses her tone to pull emotions from the reader that could be confusion and disagreement. Her tone deeply impacts the reader in such a way that it causes him/her to seriously think of accepting her opinion and advice. The capturing way she uses her tone in her word choice shows the reader her natural inflexion when she speaks. The tone of her work even affects her characterization. In “One Art,” Elizabeth Bishop uses tone to convey a character of false casualty, while also using it to emphasize the very heavy impact of her diction.

Elizabeth is a true woman that would do anything to protect her husband. She knows that if she talked of his sin, he would be hanged. Since she doesn’t know that her husband has confessed, she saves him and lies to the court.

Everyone holds onto things in order to comfort them through their life. Have you ever realized later on that it's not actually what it was in your memories? In The Things They Carried Chapter 2, “Love” by Tim O’Brien shifts form a more casual but sad tone to a hopeful tone, uses conflicting narrative, symbolism, and an unclear message to reveal that the things people hold onto aren't always what they are thought to be.

Small details are instrumental in seeing the bigger picture. This is apparent when reading “The Fish” by Elizabeth Bishop. Most often the reader experiences visual imagery in poetry. In this poem the reader encounters visual, auditory, and sensory imagery. “The Fish” is filled with minute details that paint a picture for the reader. With each new element that is introduced, it becomes easier to visualize the fish. The speaker is able to show the reader the beauty as well as the ugliness of this creature with her vivid imagery. The imagery used is so distinct that the reader can envisage being the fisherman and catching this fish. Another important element involved in this poem is irony.

In the final stanza, he makes the reader sad as he assumes the inevitable will happen and she will die. He expresses this through metaphors such as a “black figure in her white cave”, which is a reference to the bright white hospital rooms and although he is the black figure he thinks she just sees a shadow which could be the grim reaper or even death himself, coming to end her journey. No one wants to deal with the sorrow of losing a loved one for good, as

The word sadness immediately stands out in the title indicating opposite feelings normally associated with wedding dresses. To continue, the words “sad story” are repeated in lines 27 and 28 (Galvin). Galvin also repeats the word closet in line 4, 11, 14, 20, and 29; alone and forgotten in the darkness of a closet emphasizes the unique perspective of abandonment as opposed to a treasured item. From there, Galvin repetitively makes additional word choices that emphasize the sad, lonely, and abandoned feelings used wedding dresses experience. Galvin makes word choices such as starless, hopeless, darkness, hollow, dump, gone, and disappear. These words all connotate a dark, lonely, and abandoned feeling. Moreover, Galvin incorporates the words yellow, smoke, and flames. Packed away wedding dresses turn an ugly yellow while the lucky wedding dresses go up in smoke and flames; neither scenario are connected to the traditional view of a keepsake. To further the unique tone Galvin associates with wedding dresses, he integrates words such as weeping, longing, and waiting. The connotation of Galvin’s word choices elicit a deep yearning for a better outcome that will unfortunately never come for his abandoned wedding

Loss can mean something very different, depending on who you ask to define it and what their history is with it. However difficult the obstacle may be, Tim O’Brien’s words can help alleviate someone’s conscious, because he points out the importance of all those stories lived with that certain person or thing that was lost. Even with my personal losses, I can relate to O’Brien’s views of loss and the importance of all the memories of the lost thing. Loss would not be so impactful if it weren’t for all those sentimental memories and emotions that come with it. It’s necessary to sometimes remember the happy times lived before the loss, to slowly fill up the hole that it created in the heart. It’s true, losing something is rarely anything to be happy about, but if anyone has something that makes saying goodbye hard, they would be considered

At this point in the poem, the speaker’s attitude toward loss is rather blasé due to the fact that the items she has misplaced holds no emotional attachment and can be replaced.

One event in a person’s life can greatly impact their way of living and instances of this in “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien and this includes experiences of loss of a loved one, forgiveness and unrequited love. It’s universal that our experiences as people affect us and shape who we are.

Everyone experiences death, loss and grief throughout their lives, it isn’t an easy process by any means and everyone handles it in their own individual way. When it comes to going through once loved belongings owned by someone you lost, it can help the process while reminding us of the person they once were, the things they loved and things they wore. In the poem “Shell”, written by author Cathy Bobb, she makes us feel her sadness and grieving as she cleans out the drawer of her daughter’s dresser who was murdered eleven years ago. The speaker sets a very lethargic tone to this poem with her use of emotional depth through her imagery. The first stanza of this poem opens us into her grieving process as she starts to ponder through her

My experience with loss with comes from p.56 when the author talks about when we first come into life. “We enjoy being held, and then we’re suddenly put down.As we get older,we lose our friends when we or they move away, we lose our toys when they break or get lost, and we lose the softball championship. We have our first loves only to lose them. And the series of losses has just begun.”(pg.56) I think everything the author said spoke out to me especially “And the series of losses has just begun.”(pg.56) I even remember at a young age playing little league and wanting to win every game to end up either losing or winning sometimes. As a kid you think everything is perfect that your parents always have your back. I’ve seen it first hand my nieces and nephews just like any other 4 and 5 year old and maybe even older kids still believe this that their mom and dad are invincible can't die that they are forever living. However when you get older your youth is robbed from you, you slowing start to realize that everyone has their time even your own parents. Growing up for me loss was everywhere I lost two of my best friends because I had to move. Come to find out one

“Without thinking at all/I was my foolish aunt.”(48-49) , In “One Art” Elizabeth compares herself to her aunt. When her aunt cried out from the dentist office she felt her as a fullish women, but because she is reacting In a similar way to the magazine, she compares her aunts foolishness to her own. It was an unexpected realization that her reactions connected her to her aunt in a way she never felt before in her six years. “Lose something everyday. Accept the fluster/of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.”(48-49), The speaker wants to show us that theres nothing you can do but to accept you will lose things and to not let it get to you. In the poem her losses begin as insignificant objects that can be replaced but then she escalates her poem by significant losses like people, places, and homes. Its as if shes telling you to accept it, but she implicitly is showing us that shes not over her losses. She wants everyone to believe shes fine but we as the readers are not buying it.

I focused on the symbolic element of the poem, because I liked the presentation and how it flowed. It made me think about how far we’ve come in this country. I believe that Elizabeth draws the reader into the poem just I was drawn, by suggesting that we as a nation that was literally built off the labor of

In the poems you have studied a recurring theme is that of ‘loss’. This can take many forms: death; identity; hope or loss of innocence