Symbolism In 'A Noiseless Patient Spider'?

In literature, themes shape and characterize an author’s writing making each work unique as different points of view are expressed within a writing’s words and sentences. This is the case, for example, of Edgar Allan Poe’s poem “Annabel Lee” and Emily Dickinson’s poem “Because I could not stop for Death.” Both poems focus on the same theme of death, but while Poe’s poem reflects that death is an atrocious event because of the suffering and struggle that it provokes, Dickinson’s poem reflects that death is humane and that it should not be feared as it is inevitable. The two poems have both similarities and differences, and the themes and characteristics of each poem can be explained by the author’s influences and lives.

Love and cruelty are two feelings that are so different, yet they are very similar. Cruelty can be changed and conquered by love, turning into a proud, and wonderful thing. Yet, love can still fall apart against the harshness of cruelty. James Hurst represents this idea through his characters, Doodle and Brother, in his work, “The Scarlet Ibis”. Doodle is born with a caul around his head and grows up crippled and physically limited. Brother is ashamed of Doodle’s limitations and teaches Doodle how to walk, run, climb, fight and swim. Hurst uses the symbols of the storm and the scarlet ibis to demonstrate the cruelty and the love in Doodle and Brother’s relationship, ultimately showing how even the strongest of relationships can end.

When it comes to literature, many students have difficulty trying to understand the main reason the author wrote it. This is very evident in poems. Poems are verbal compositions designed to convey experiences, ideas, or emotions in a specific and creative way. They are characterized by the use of the way they are formatted and use literary techniques such as metaphors, similes, rhyme, and personification. With the many rules and forms that poems can have, a lot of them are hard to interpret. In this essay, I want to breakdown two poems’ meaning by comparing their similar underlying message by the authors’ similar styles and experiences. The two poems are The Shoelace by Charles Bukowski and Walking in the Blue by Robert Lowell.

In the short story “The Scarlet Ibis”, James Hurst constantly uses symbolism and irony to foreshadow one major event. The narrator is reminiscing about his crippled brother Doodle and how he wanted him to be like everyone else. He spent the summer before school teaching him to walk and trying to teach him how to swim. Every lesson pushed Doodle more and more slowly making him weaker. One day a bad storm carried in a bird the Scarlet Ibis. The Scarlet Ibis symbolizes death, displacement, and is an example of foreshadowing Doodle’s death.

Walt Whitman’s A Noiseless Patient Spider was written with the comparison of a striving human soul to a spider. The way that he trying to make the comparison is by simply trying to connect the spider to the human soul as the human soul is connected to the world. Whitman uses figurative language throughout his piece, such as personification. The first stanza is focused on the spider making a web, whereas the second stanza is focused on the attempt to connect the spider to the human soul and the rest of the world.

The predicament that the spider and the speaker face is similar. They use their inner connections to search for meaningful bonds. Whitman's enactment in the first stanza of the spider reads as if the creature is somewhat isolated and "ever unreeling...ever tirelessly speeding" the web without the knowing of making any encroachment on his environment. However, the poem has an optimistic idea at the ending. Even though it is difficult to try and find connections, his soul will end up being successful and he will be able to rest, just like a spider when it completes it's web in

William Blake’s illuminated manuscripts were published in multiple editions; all of the editions were etched differently than its predecessor. In these illustrations, one finds meaning and value; an inextricable link between these artistic expressions and the text that Blake wrote exists. These works should not be viewed separately, but rather viewed together, as one single entity. While the text, at times, proves itself to be unstable and potentially confusing for readers, the etchings serve as a way to view the intention of Blake’s words, as well as expressing the underlying feeling attached to the text in a visual way. Understanding both pieces of art is crucial to the apprehension of the implied meaning of the works. Without having to read the words, the viewer already grasps the tone and perhaps even the content or context of the piece. The etchings force reader interaction with the poems, relying on the non-passivity of the audience. Blake intended for the illustrations and the texts to be viewed in correlation with one another, as it allows for a deeper understanding of the intended meaning.

Time gets in the way of enjoyment when humans have duties to fulfill such as work, school, and other daily activities. This busy lifestyle leads people to neglect living their daily routines to try new and pleasant adventures. Work, education, finances, relationships, and health care are all important, but consume time and energy resulting in not having an opportunity to enjoy simple and relaxing activities. A Noiseless Patient Spider by Walt Whitman and To a Butterfly by William Wordsworth use two small animals to convey the idea that even with limitations like time and money, it is important for humans to get out of their monotonous routine and create memories to reflect later on because life is all about exploring especially with time is flying so fast.

Trifles, written by Susan Glaspell, and A Noiseless Patient Spider, written by Walt Whitman, are two of my favorite works of literature that revolve a central theme: what is said is not always meant. The characters of Trifles include Sheriff Peters, Mrs. Peters, Farmer Hale, Mrs. Hale, County Attorney George Henderson, and the Wrights. John Wright has been strangled to death with a rope in his Midwestern farmhouse. Mrs. Wright was the main suspect of the crime. As the County Attorney, Sheriff Peters, and neighboring farmer, Mr. Hale, investigate the house for clues, the real sleuths turn out to be Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters. Though the menfolk constantly make fun of the women for worrying about female things, like Mrs. Wright's unfinished quilt,

To support that idea, Whitman states in the second line of the first stanza “A noiseless patient spider,I mark’d where on a little promontory it stood isolated” to establish the idea of humans isolated from his presence. In addition, Whitman also makes notice of humans making an effort to develop a connection when he wires in the fourth line “It launch’d forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself, Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them.” Finally Whitman closes out the poem by writing

Whitman tunnels one of the most important questions of humanity — its spiritual destination. The spider serves as the speaker’s soul, but its filament serves as the soul’s destination (Cummings). Each point of the spider’s “spherical filament” brings the reader back to a single point in the

As a matter of fact, in “A Noiseless Patient Spider,” by Walt Whitman, the spider and the human soul are unwinding and trying to seek attachment since the symbolism occurs as the spider repeatedly shoots his silk. In line 10, “Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul.” the author uses the gossamer thread to remind us of the spider by positioning the two ideas next to each other as if they were one. Walt Whitman does not directly announce that his soul is like a spider, but he describes his soul in Araneae terms and symbolically uses the shooting of silk and other Araneae actions. This symbolism emphasizes the overlooked actions of a meer spider and the small beginning that every human soul has to go though to find anything to legitimately be attached to. To further explain, Whitman writes his poem with descriptive imagery within the symbolism to build up the

In the poem “The Arrow and the Song,” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow uses the symbolism of an arrow and of a song to illustrate how actions and words have consequences. Longfellow uses literary devices through this poem, specifically symbolism, personification, and imagery to effectively portray his overall theme about the impact of our actions. Furthermore, symbolism is seen through the use of the arrow and the song representing the lasting effects of our actions. The arrow represents actions that are corrupt, while the song represent actions that are benevolent. Likewise, another literary device is seen in the quotation, “I breathed a song into the air, It fell to earth, I knew not where”(6). Here, personification is used because something impalpable like a song can not fall. In the

However, it is important to understand the description of each spider that the poets create as well as the setting, in order to understand how their poetics styles and creative methods differ. In the beginning of Whitman’s poem, “A Noiseless Patient Spider” (1868), the spider is characterized as being “noiseless” and “patient” (Belasco 1465). However, as the poem continues the spider becomes more adventurous, and the work of spinning webs seems to become more spontaneous. This can be seen as Whitman describes the spider working, “Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them” (Belasco 1465). Whitman’s spider can be contrasted to Dickenson’s spider, as her spider can be best described as diligent. This is shown when Dickenson records, “Supplants our Tapestries with His – In half the period –” (Belasco 1489). This extract describes how the hardworking spider covers or replaces the curtains with webs, in half the time it took to make the

Few poets can craft a piece of work that is as simplistic as it is complex. Walt Whitman does just this in his poem “A Noiseless Patient Spider”. Although only two stanzas for a total of ten lines, the amount of thought and intention put into this work is innumerable. A close read could provide countless hours of discussion for even the most highly intelligent of minds. This simple beauty is what makes a poem like “A Noiseless Patient Spider” great. In the piece, an observer watches a spider begin to weave a web, and then the observer begins to question his own existence, inspired by the spider. This poem is bursting with evidence to support this theme of a questioned existence. Walt Whitman uses succinct diction and an extended metaphor emphasized by the poem’s structure to show the similarities between the spiders life and the speaker’s own inquiring of his existence. Only with intricate usage of these things can such an acute analogy be made. That is what makes this seemingly insignificant joining of lines so significant.