Poetry Explication

In the poem, “Paul Revere’s Ride,” the author, Henry Longfellow, uses figurative language, and sound devices to create suspense and tension within the poem. The way he uses the figurative language and sound devices makes readers want to keep reading to find out what will happen next. In Longfellow’s famous poem he uses devices such as rhyming, rhyme scheme, and repetition to allow the readers to feel fear and push them to the edge of their seats. Some figurative language the storyteller uses is personification, and similes to compare objects, and fearful moments to something more dramatic.

When telling a story, other elements like plot, setting, characterization, symbol, similes and metaphor also play a significant role. In this excerpt, the writer showed the plot and setting of painful condition of a dying soldier, who was injured in the civil war. She uses various similes and lyrical metaphors. For example, “Every breath he draws is like a stab.” Here by using metaphor “like a stab’, she succeeded to showed the real picture of a dying soldier to her readers. Once again, she uses another simile saying, “gathering the bent head in my arms as freely as if he had been a little child”. This example conveys the picture of John as a young child rests in his mother’s lap. Regarding characterization, by implementing analogies, she displays the altruistic mindset of the brave soldier, who joined the army for her mother and for his country. For instance, when she asked him. “Do you regret coming here”, he was positive at all and replied “I didn't want the glory or the pay; I wanted the right thing done, and people kept saying the men who were in earnest ought to fight. I was in earnest, the Lord knows! but I held off as long as I could, not knowing which was my duty; mother saw the case, gave me her ring to keep me steady”. Even when he is on

The poet uses many metaphors, repetition and morbid diction to illicit the response I had to this poem. Firstly, Butson compared the emotions and internal struggles of a

In his poem Auto Wreck (p. 1002), Karl Shapiro uses carefully constructed similes to cause the events he relates to become very vivid and also to create the mood for the poem. To describe the aftermath, especially in people's emotions, of an automobile accident, he uses almost exclusively medical or physiological imagery. This keeps the reader focused and allows the similes used to closely relate to the subject of the poem. Three main similes used are arterial blood, tourniquets and cancer. These images all follow the same idea, and thus add more to the poem than other rhetorical figures might.

Our eyes unconsciously record thousands upon thousands of bits of information every second. Our brain then acts as a filter to sort out what it thinks is useful and what is not. By doing this, the brain guides us into seeing only what is important. We never see the full picture; just what our brain guides us to see. Metaphors act in the same way in that they guide how people view certain topics and issues. A specific metaphor that becomes accepted by a large enough population of community will determine how most people in the community view that issue. In a way the metaphor skews the perception of those who hear it. This was the case for the metaphors of cancer in the late 20th century which we can see through Susan Sontag’s piece, “Illness as Metaphor”. We can also see this manifested in metaphors associated with people diagnosed with Morgellons’ disease in Leslie Johnson’s narrative, “The Devil’s Bait”. Both pieces deal with how metaphors have shaped the outlook of patients of their respective diseases. Metaphors obscure and shift our understanding of disease and pain away from the full truth into a smaller and less understanding perspective. The similarities between the metaphor of cancer as death and Morgellons as a farce prove that metaphors of disease isolate patients diagnosed with those diseases.

Prompt: Write a well-organized essay in which you analyze how the poem's organization, diction, and figurative language prepare the reader for the speaker's concluding response.

Reflections Within is a non-traditional stanzaic poem made up of five stanzas containing thirty-four lines that do not form a specific metrical pattern. Rather it is supported by its thematic structure. Each of the five stanzas vary in the amount of lines that each contain. The first stanza is a sestet containing six lines. The same can be observed of the second stanza. The third stanza contains eight lines or an octave. Stanzas four and five are oddly in that their number of lines which are five and nine.

In the excerpt of the Prologue from The Death Cure, the author James Dashner uses language to create mood, tone, and theme through imagery and the vocabulary he chooses. A way James Dashner uses imagery is when he describes how Teresa is feeling while look at Thomas laying on the operating table. The omniscient narrator describes how Thomas looks, what he is wearing. With the words, “He lay on the operating table, his eyes closed, chest rising and falling with soft, even breaths. Already dressed in the requisite shorts-are-T-shirt uniform of the Glade”, this creates a calm mood, but it also creates an anxious thought, making the reader wonder why he is on the operating table, and what the Glade is. The narrator then goes on to describe how

Imagine, he says, the urgency, the panic that causes a dying man to be ‘flung’ into a wagon, the ‘writing’ that denotes an especially virulent kind of pain. Hell seems close at hand with the curious smile ‘like a devils sick of sin’. Sick in what sense? Satiated? Physically? Then that ‘jolt’. No gentle stretcher-bearing here but agony intensified. Owens imaginary is enough to sear the heart and mind.

Another tool in developing the effectiveness of the poem is the use of compelling figurative language in the poem helps to reveal the reality of war. In the first line, the metaphor, ?Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,?(1) shows us that the troops are so tired that they can be compared to old beggars. Also, the simile "coughing like hags"(2) helps to depict the soldiers? poor health and depressed state of mind. Owen makes us picture the soldiers as ill, disturbed and utterly exhausted Another great use of simile, ?His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin,?(20) suggests that his face is probably covered with blood which is the color symbolizing the devil. A very powerful metaphor is the comparison of painful experiences of the troops to ??vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues.?(24) This metaphor emphasizes that the troops will never forget these horrific experiences. As you can see, Owen has used figurative language so effectively that the reader gets drawn into the poem.

For example, Owen conveys “ He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning” (line 16). This constructs an extremely horrific image in the reader’s mind that helps the reader better understand the horribleness of war by displaying a tragic event Owen experinced. Another representation of this is when the poet states “Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud” (lines 22 & 23). This additionally recreates the horrors Owen went through as a soldier in their mind. Furthermore, the horrific imagery present in “Dulce Et Decorum Est” by Wilfred Owen assists the poet in educating the readers that war should not be

Personification is utilised in‘ Under the bludgeonings of chance’ comparing the protagonists suffering to being beaten with a bat causing serious pain. Imagery of a hazardous fate and physical punishment in ‘My head is bloody’ is followed by ‘but unbowed’ displaying that the protagonist is in discomfort though is resilient to the pain. The gate in ‘It matters not how strait the gate’ is a metaphor for life. This is followed by the imagery ‘How charged with punishments the scroll’ which further emphasises that no matter how difficult life becomes as long as one is in control one shall be fine. Insert finishing

gone” (23-25). In these lines, a sense of helplessness can be felt due the doctor arriving once it is

Analyzing and interpreting poetry takes time and effort due to the variety of elements each poem may possess as well as understanding those elements chosen and used in the piece of work. In addition, one’s life experiences may influence how one perceives the poem. However, in the poem “Alzheimer’s” by Kelly Cherry, published in 1997 and written during a time of personal struggle for Cherry and her dad, a couple of poetic elements appear more prominent than any others. These are the tone and imagery. Cherry begins the poem with a feeling of insensitivity but by the end transforms the feeling in to one of pity or sadness. Through her careful choice of words and use of similes and metaphors Cherry establishes the tone and imagery throughout the poem in a realistic way regarding this disease and its tug on the emotions one feels when caring for someone with this illness.

The poet describes the soldier in such a disturbing and painful manner; Owen uses similes and metaphors to describe the condition. The poet opens stanza one with a powerful and strong metaphor: “Bent double” It shows