"The Race" by Sharon Olds is an uneasy poem about the situations a daughter has to pass in order to reach her father. The poem is broken into what seems fear and retribution. In the beginning of the poem the author addresses the characters situation, " . . . When I got to the airport I rushed up to the desk, bought a ticket . . . said my father would not live through the night . . . flight was cancelled." Through these five lines the poem repeatedly states 'flight cancelled' accompanied with her father not living through the night creates a sense of urgency and soon-to-be-tragedy. As the poem continues a small ounce of hope appears through a character who informs her of a flight, therefore becoming anxious to depart with the flight. The daughter
In the poem, “35/10” by Sharon Olds, the speaker uses wistful and jealous tones to convey her feeling about her daughter’s coming of age. The speaker, a thirty-five year old woman, realizes that as the door to womanhood is opening for her ten year old daughter, it is starting to close for her. A wistful tone is used when the speaker calls herself, “the silver-haired servant” (4) behind her daughter, indicating that she wishes she was not the servant, but the served. Referring to herself as her daughter’s servant indicates a sense of self-awareness in the speaker. She senses her power is weakening and her daughter’s power is strengthening. It also shows wistfulness for her diminishing youth, and sadness for her advancing years. This
Sharon Olds’ poem, “The Race”, describes the journey that the speaker takes as they rush to catch a plane so that they can visit their father while he is still alive. Olds uses tools such; as syntax, diction, and similes; to help convey the speaker’s journey. The syntax in this poem helps to convey the speaker’s journey.
In the poem, “‘ Race’ Politics” by Luis J. Rodriguez, I have annotated several pieces of syntax, imagery, and connotation. This poem is about how two brothers, of the age six and nine, have a bad experience going over to a place called South Gate to buy groceries. I believe that the author uses these forms of elements to create emphasis and emotion on the story. These elements, I believe, helped the story have more of a connection with the reader and a first person view of what the characters in the poem had to go through.
To a large extent the notion of belonging is innately valued and fundamental to a person’s life. The concept of whether a person develops feelings of community or isolation is largely dependant on internal and external factors which collectively influence an individual’s physical space. This space can be composed of external factors such as a person’s physical environment, their outer relationships, society and internal factors such as cultural understanding and different states of being. The poetry anthology Immigrant Chronicle, composed by Peter Skryznecki, details different aspects of his experience of immigrating from post-war Poland to Australia. Specifically, the poems ‘Ancestors’ and ‘Feliks Skrzynecki’ explores how one’s understanding
In the poem “‘Race’ Politics” by Luis J. Rodriguez, connotation, imagery, and syntax was used to enhance the writing by helping us visualize and feel what the main character went through while dealing with racism in a neighborhood among whites and Mexicans.
It also shows a shift from the present situation to a future one then back to the present. In the beginning of the poem the son is currently waiting for his father to tell him a story and has a sense of eagerness to him while the father has a sense of tiredness to him. This scene is depicted as the father being “in a room full of books in a world of stories,” (6-7) yet the father has difficult trying to come up with a story to tell despite how many are around home. The room that they are in is described as having books of stories inside of it and outside of the room is the whole world that is full of stories to tell. At this point the problem is that the father cannot think of a story to tell his son who asked him to tell him a new story which, according to the father, seems to be the beginning of the end. The father believes that since he is not able to tell stories as quickly and easily as he could before then one day soon, “the boy will give up on his father,” (8-9). These thoughts help to prepare and give background to the glimpse into the future when the boy is getting ready to leave his father by packing his clothes and having his keys ready to go. Since the father saw the day he would lose his son to manhood, once the day actually came the father seemed very upset at the boy but not for leaving but more so for the reasons that he is. The father yells at the son, “Are you a god...that I sit mute before you? Am I a god that I should never disappoint,” (16-18). It seems that the father and son have had an argument or disagreement and the son did not want to deal with all the problems that had grown to be too much for him so he chooses to not say anything to his father at all as he is getting ready to leave. The father calls him out on this and claims that he is imperfect and will disappoint
Two distinct points of views can be seen in this poem, one is that of the father and then the son. The father's point of view is more common and used more than that of the son but both displays and add to the complexity of their relationship. From the father’s point of view, he shows his concern for disappointing his son by not coming up with great stories and losing his son as five years old matures which increases his anxiety as he sees the future approaching. The father fears of a fallout in the relationship with his son “...he thinks the boy will give up on his father”(9). The sons point of view
To start off the analysis, the setting of the entire poem is significant. Though the poem takes place in a house, the atmosphere the house is set in is also important. The month is September which is a month of fall which can be seen as a symbol for decline. It definitely insinuates that the poem is leading towards death. Line 1 has “September rain falls on the house” which gives the feeling of a dark and cold night with a storm on top of that. To further develop that, Bishop gives us the failing light in line 2 to also give us an idea of the grandmother’s struggle. Bishop uses the cyclical theme of changing seasons to show the unending nature of what is transpiring within the
The Minefield by Diana Thiel starts with a heartbreaking story of a young boy and his friend running between towns ends horribly when they took a short cut to find food. One of the young boys ran off ahead only to accidentally step on a landmine, taking the young boy’s life. The story was being told by a father at dinner to his family, but the father did not seem fazed by the horrific story of his friend. The narrator states throughout the poem, it seems as if the father is still living in the minefield by the anger busts and the bruises he leaves on his family. With the father’s violent outbursts and the way, the author talks about the abuse is both the father and the narrator suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. The structure the author used of the poem says a lot about what the author is trying to say. As well as the words themselves. The words and the structure may cause the reader to have mixed feeling about the father throughout the poem, do you feel bad for the father for what he has been through or anger for abusing his family?
W.E.B. Du Bois has contributed greatly to contemporary sociological thinking because he began a conversation of what it means to be “other” in this American Society. In his conversation of what it means to be other he constructed and included three major concepts that continue to resonate till this day. His concepts include “the color-line”, “the veil”, and the “double consciousness” (Appelrouth and Edles, 269). Together, these concepts not only described past experiences of blacks in American society (e.g., slavery) but also continue to remind us that the relation of whites and people of color remains complex. In Du Bois’s own words, “the Nation has not yet found peace from its sins” (273).
The speaker opens the poem by questioning, "What happens to a dream deferred?" (1). This single line instantly gives the reader an idea of what the poem is about. The first question produces curiosity in the reader--makes the reader want to find the answer to the question.
In the poem, I get a sense that there is no bond, like my father and I have which leads to confusion in the narrator's life. For instance, in line eight when he says, "I would slowly rise and dress,/ fearing the chronic angers of the house"(8-9), this gives me a strong sense of sadness, for him because I feel that he is greatly deprived of what every child should have a good role model as a father, and someone to look up to. “Speaking Indifferently to him, / who had driven out the cold”(10-11) is saying that they really did not know how to communicate with each other. I feel that the boy will regret not having and knowing what it is that makes you who you are, and may never get a chance to have and hold a special bond with his father and having a relationship with a person that can not be held with anyone else. This would bring an enormous amount of sadness to my life had I not had my Dad there to guide and protect me, when I could have used tremendous support and security.
In the poem The Race by Sharon Olds, we have a women who's father is about to die, and she has to overcome obstacles, such as time and her flight being canceled, in order to get to her father as soon as she can. The overall meaning of the poem is that when you have faith and are determined, no matter what obstacles get in your way, you will surpass them and do what you have to do. Parallelism, imagery and run on sentences help convey the meaning of the poem.
Poetry can follow your life all the way through, from the innocence of a child, to the end of your days. The comfort, seduction, education, occasion and hope found in poems are elaborated in Poetry Should Ride the Bus by Ruth Forman. As the poem reads on, you not only travel through the life of a person from adolescence to being elderly through vivid imagery, but also hit on specific genres of poems through the personification of poetry as the characters in the stages of life. This poem’s genres hit on what poetry should do and be, by connecting the life many of us live.
Throughout the poem, W.D. Auden did an exceptional job incorporating the several examples of figures of speech. By including these devices, Auden drew deeper connections to the overall themes of death and love with the readers. For example, “let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead/ scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead” is an illustration of personification (Auden, 5-6). Auden personifies an airplane to mourn over someone and scribble in the sky. Both human like characteristics suggest that the speaker wishes for everyone to know that his loved one has passed, so that everyone can mourn over the deceased, like the speaker. Another example of this is shown through a series of metaphors in lines 9-12 “…my North, my South, my East, my West,/ My working week and my Sunday rest,/ My noon, my