The Flower By George Herbert

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)

     Frost?s poem delves deeper into the being and essence of life with his second set of lines. The first line states, ?Her early leaf?s a flower.? After the budding and sprouting, which is the birth of nature, is growth into a flower. This is the moment where noon turns to evening, where childhood turns into maturity, and where spring turns into summer. At this very moment is the ripe and prime age of things. The young flower stands straight up and basks in the sun, the now mature teenager runs playfully in the light, and the day and sunlight peak before descending ever so quickly into dusk. The second line of the second set states, ?But only so an hour,? which makes clear that yet again time is passing by and that a beginning will inevitably have an end.

The poem, "The Bells," by Edgar Allan Poe, reveals the theme of changing seasons through word choice, symbolism, and poetic elements, like onomatopoeia, alliteration, and metaphors. Each stanza represents a different season with different meanings. The first stanza represents spring; a jolly, happy season. This stanza includes multiple samples of onomatopoeia and words that indicate mood. Lines that indicate this include lines 1, 3, 8, 11, and 14. These lines say, "Hear the sledges with the bells... what a world of merriment their melody foretells... With a crystalline delight... To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells... From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells." The words, "sledges," "merriment," "crystalline delight," and "melody" all mean happiness. The calm and joyful sound of the bells that are "jingling and tinkling" indicates the joyfulness and calmness of the beginning. Spring is a joyful season, with blossoming flowers and being able to enjoy the sun after winter. Then, the second stanza mostly relates to summer, an also happy and enjoyable season. The second stanza represents an also jolly and harmonizing mood. Lines 15, 17, 19, and 35 show characteristics of onomatopoeia and symbolism. The lines show, "Hear the mellow wedding bells... what a world of happiness their harmony foretells... how they ring out their delight... to the rhyming and the chiming of the bells!" This indicates the "mellow wedding bells," an iconic example of symbolism. The wedding bells show a time of happiness, as it's usually a memorable and joyful event for many. Then, the "world of happiness their harmony foretells" and how they "ring out their delight" shows examples of onomatopoeia, which lets the reader realize that it's a harmonizing and peaceful sound. This stanza resembles the season of summer; a time to relax and have memories and fun. Then, as the poem progresses, it reaches a more dark state. The third stanza represents a sad and somewhat scary mood. Examples of alliteration and onomatopoeia are present throughout this stanza, like on paragraph 38, 40, 45, 58-59, and 69 have numerous examples of this. The lines indicate, "What a tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells... how they scream out

In the short story, “Marigolds,” by Eugenia Collier, the theme that is shown through the story is, “Beauty can be found even in the darkest times.” An example of this theme is represented through Lizabeth’s thoughts after she tears apart Miss Lottie’s marigolds. As Miss Lottie looms over Lizabeth, she thinks, “The witch was no longer a witch but only a broken old woman who had dared to create beauty in the midst of ugliness and sterility. She had been born in squalor and lived in it all her life” (Collier 223). This shows Lizabeth’s realization that the “witch” she had known for all her childhood years was simply a woman who wanted to create beauty through her wretched condition.

The next stanza gives the reader a value statement as H.D. says “more precious, than a wet rose, single on a stem—you are caught in the drift” (stanza 2). In doing so she gives the reader a sense of how she perceives this battered and sparse rose, not as something that has lost

This poem brought me back to my home town and the wonders and beauty that it brings around winter time, and made me nostalgic with memories of past winters with my family and slightly saddened for those who have never seen the magical ability snow has. This poem reminded me that there are people who live in states where their change in seasons is not as noticeable, as the ones that I grew up with and have come to miss. Similar to many of the romantics, natures true beauty can transform the mundane into a work of art that would never have existed

The seasons in the poem also can be seen as symbols of time passing in her life. Saying that in the height of her life she was much in love and knew what love was she says this all with four words “summer sang in me.” And as her life is in decline her lovers left her, this can be told by using “winter” as a symbol because it is the season of death and decline from life and the birds left the tree in winter. The “birds” can be seen as a literal symbol of the lovers that have left her or flown away or it can have the deeper meaning that in the last stages of our life all of our memories leave us tittering to our selves.

Similarly, the phrase ‘the next moment, you are no longer there’ is perhaps suggesting that he was shocked at seeing her go so suddenly. However, the fact that when she next reappears she is ‘perfectly framed shows us that the joy of seeing her after thinking she has gone for good is a surprise to him. ‘Fragrant survivors of last night’s frost’ shows us that the flowers are strong, which is a suggestion that their love is strong. In the fourth verse the phrase ‘my heart misses a beat at love for you’ shows us that the love was so intense that time seemed to stop too. ‘Knowing a time will come when you are no longer there’ shows us that he is not looking forward to that time and that he knows it is inevitable. ‘Meanwhile let us make sure we clasp each shared moment’ shows us that he wants to make sure they use their time together wisely, and ‘in cupped hands, like water we dare not spill’ shows us they know that their time together is precious.

In “A Rose for Emily”, Charles Faulkner used a series of flashbacks and foreshadowing to tell Miss Emily’s story. Miss Emily is an interesting character, to say the least. In such a short story of her life, as told from the prospective of a townsperson, who had been nearly eighty as Miss Emily had been, in order to tell the story from their own perspective. Faulkner set up the story in Mississippi, in a world he knew of in his own lifetime. Inspired by a southern outlook that had been touched by the Civil War memory, the touch of what we would now look at as racism, gives the southern aroma of the period. It sets up Miss Emily’s southern belle status and social standing she had been born into, loner or not.

In stanza six, we see the end of visiting hour, and the persona’s loss of control as he is overran with emotion. The phrase, “black figure in her white cave” creates an image of an intruder in her sanctuary. The black and white contrast suggests he is a shadow of his former self and also that he is trying to detach himself. The phrase, “clumsily rises” gives connotations of his state as he is physically affected by his feeling of loss. Furthermore, “swimming waves of a bell” is a metaphor which has connotations of water. This is used to illustrate that he is drowning in the realisation that she is dying. Finally, “fruitless fruits” is an oxymoron used to reinforce that there is no hope or going back, for her.

The image that is firstly drawn in the first stanza is that of a blade of grass amid a field and the

“The Flowers” by Alice Walker is a short story written in the 1970’s. The story focuses on Myop, a ten year old African American girl who loves to explore the land in which she lives. Carefree and naïve, Myop decides to travel further away from her ‘Sharecropper cabin’ and travels deep inside the woods to unfamiliar land where she discovers the decomposed body of an African American man. It is then Myop quickly grows up and suddenly becomes aware of the world in which she lives. The story relies on setting and symbolism to convey the theme of departing innocence.

The Flowers By Alice Walker Written in the 1970's The Flowers is set in the deep south of America and is about Myop, a small 10-year old African American girl who explores the grounds in which she lives. Walker explores how Myop reacts in different situations. She writes from a third person perspective of Myop's exploration. In the first two paragraph Walker clearly emphasises Myop's purity and young innocence.

“Sunshine seemed like gold,” (line 4) and “Whole damn world’s turned cold,” (line 5). The poet

Figuratively, in stanza three, the poem symbolizes the three stages of life: childhood represented by “Children strove” (l. 9), youth represented by “the Fields of Gazing Grains” (l. 11) and the end of the life represented by “the Setting Sun” (l. 12). On the way of her journey, the speaker views children struggling to win in the race in School. She also sees cereal grasses collectively in the field, and at last the speaker perceives with her eyes that the sun is setting on the way of her journey. This stanza gives us a clue of her passing by this world; however the speaker is not able to figure out that she is dead. She simply thinks the sun is setting on a regular basis.