Margaret Atwood's You Begin

Natasha Tretheway’s first two poems, leading introductions give an image of having false expectations and leads with another device of foreshadowing. “Theories of Time and Space,” and “The Southern Crescent” both show how the same situation happens to the mother, and then it happens again to her when she is with her mother. The train personifies as the mother’s life. She leaves at sixteen years old, “She is leaving behind, the dirt roads of Mississippi…” However she doesn’t ascertain for what she would find at the end of her journey. This ride involves another disappointment, just like the first trip. The speaker and her mother derail on their train ride and never reach their final destination. Both trips, the reader can imagine and feel the hope of visiting important man in their lives that let them down in the end. “Each small town pass before her window/ until light goes, and the reflection/ of mothers face appears clear now/ as evening comes on, dark and

At Mornington is variant in structure; it is linear, circular and episodic, containing recurring motifs. The lack of a rhyme scheme displays the ‘train-of-thought’ nature of the poem, presenting the poem as a reflective journey for the persona. Experiences with family and friends are tied with the poem, starting with a first witnessing of the sea and then introspectively reflecting on water, memory and death. The episodic recollection of the sea displays the personas reliance on memories to convey changes in perspective. Thoughts of mortality are developed during a meeting “among avenues of the dead” with

Furthermore, Mary Oliver’s use of first-person point of view allows her to show how poetry writing is personal to her, and how it serves a specific type of challenge. Mary Oliver starts off

A restructuring of religious doctrine, beliefs, and social practices during the 17th and 18th centuries in England, and in North America, infused with Calvinistic religious doctrine initiated the beginning of The Great Awakening. Following this further, according to Christine Leigh Heyrman, The First Great Awakening: Divining America,” a New Age of faith rose to counter the currents of the Age of Enlightenment. Ultimately reaffirming the view that being truly religious meant trusting the heart rather than the head, prizing feeling more than thinking, and relying on biblical revelation rather than human reason. After a while, several religious revivals sprung forth appeasing the colonists in America desire for a deep and significant personal relationship with God. Thus, this dogma spread to other denominations throughout the colonies in America (Heyrman).” As a result, The Great Awakening spread throughout the middle colonies in America by notable revivalist preachers instituting moderate Calvinistic doctrinal theology especially for the Presbyterians and the Congregationalists, and opened the door to unprecedented world societal changes.

To begin with, the use of color in both the poem and the novel has a deeper meaning than just what colors turn into other colors. In the poem, the colors are more than just the different color cycle plants go through. The changing of colors during season changing also means the passing of life and how everyone's growing up through the different stages of winter, spring, summer, and autumn. In autumn one is a baby, in the winter one is six or seven in the spring one is twelve or thirteen, in the summer one is seventeen or eighteen, and by the fall comes around one is now an adult ready to live on their own. For example, “Nature's first green is gold” (Frost 1); When one is

The poem, “Death of a Young Son by Drowning” written by Margaret Atwood was awfully sad and tragic as it described the death of her son and its lasting effect on her. The speaker begins the poem by describing how her son was brave, adventurous and led with success. However, the mood of the poem quickly changes as the young boy slipped off the bank and into the water. From there, the boy struggles in the water before eventually drowning. As he is pulled out of the water the mother realizes that all the plans that she had for the future are over and that a part of her has died alongside her son. Atwood uses multiple types of figurative language that gives this poem a sense of realism and really shows the reader the devastation and heartache that occurs after the loss of a child.

The imagery used in this verse appeals to the sense sight. This helps the reader visualise what the writer is taking about. It also allows the reader to relate and connect more to the poem.

In the article “The End of Men,” Hanna Rosin offers several examples of women overpowering men. The inequality between men and women has become a critical issue in today’s society. According to Rosin, women are slowly surging ahead in the workforce and family life while men are left behind struggling to meet expectations. Rosin argues that this role reversal is taking place because women are simply better suited for postindustrial society.

One can suggest that Atwood has demonstrated a light and informal tone. The poem is more informal in its writing, leaning more towards intimate entertainment. In her writing, the author is able to capture the attention of her readers by giving real-life situations that one may relate to.

“Belief is nearly the whole of the universe whether based on truth of not.” by Kurt Vonnegut. People live day by day on what they believe whether it is their morals or values, and what people say. We choose to believe what we want to like in all of the Bluebeard variances. Bluebeard is a not as well known fairytales that tell you the grim consequences of disobedience and curiosity that women deal with during marriage. Although, marriages have many secrets, every wife and husband deserves the truth when it comes to dishonestly, disloyalty, and sometimes murder.

The tone of the poem changes as the poem progresses. The poem begins with energetic language like “full of heroic tales” and “by a mere swing to his shoulder”. The composer also uses hyperboles like “My father began as a god” and “lifted me to heaven”. The use of this positive language indicates to the responder that the composer is longing for those days – he is nostalgic. It also highlights the perspective of a typical child. The language used in the middle of the poem is highly critical of his father: “A foolish small old man”. This highlights the perspective of a typical teenager and signifies that they have generally conflicting views. The language used in the last section of the poem is more loving and emotional than the rest: “...revealing virtues such as honesty, generosity, integrity”. This draws attention to a mature adult’s perspective.

Billy Collins uses dark rooms, oceans, hives, color slides and mouse mazes to describe his poem “Introduction to Poetry”, but also a way to analyze poetry in general. Growing up, students are advised by teachers how to analyze poetry. The speaker of Introduction to Poetry, Billy Collins, attempts to guide the readers by teaching them a unique and appropriate way to analyze poetry. The use of personification and imagery, by the author, gives the readers a new perspective to interpret and find the significance in poetry. In this particular poem, the speaker does not want the reader to listen to the teachers of the reader’s past, “tie the poem to a chair with rope and torture a

The poem begins with the poet noticing the beauty around her, the fall colors as the sun sets “Their leaves and fruits seemed painted, but was true, / Of green, of red, of yellow, mixed hue;” (5-6). The poet immediately relates the effects of nature’s beauty to her own spiritual beliefs. She wonders that if nature here on Earth is so magnificent, then Heaven must be more wonderful than ever imagined. She then views a stately oak tree and

The Poem “Introduction to Poetry” is by Billy Collins, an English poet, and it is about how teachers often force students to over-analyze poetry and to try decipher every possible meaning portrayed throughout the poem rather than allowing the students to form their own interpretation of the poem based on their own experiences.

Atwood’s “Death of a Young Son by Drowning” perfectly grasps the life-altering heartbreak that occurs after the loss of a child by utilizing literary devices such as imagery, personification, simile, and metaphor. In the poem, an image of a voyage is used to characterize a child’s journey from life to death. “The dangerous river”, is used as a metaphor to describe the birth canal which the child victoriously navigates, but after embarking upon the outside world, the child goes into a “voyage of discovery” (4) that results in his death in the river. “On a landscape stranger than Uranus” (14) emphasizes the estrangement felt by the mother without having any knowledge of the environment. Comparing it to Uranus she describes it to be just as strange as a another planet. In the ninth stanza, the mother reminisces the death of her child as she says, “My foot hit rock” (26) which is a representation that she has hit rock bottom and her life will now never be the same. The final simile of the poem, “I planted him in his country / like a flag” (28-29) identifies the relationship between the dead child and the land. It ties the mother to the land in a way that had not been thought of, a way that is fraught with grief. An extended metaphor is developed throughout the poem, comparing the experience of giving birth that the character had, to a river and its contents. It helps to understand the different stages of birth by expressing the hurricane of emotions, and incidents that occurred with the use of waves expressing times of difficulty and pain.