“The Going” Essay example

If a bird represents hope, a broken winged bird represents the losing of hope. The imagery suggests that life is hopeless if dreams are lost forever. Also, Hughes’s use of a metaphor suggests that life is painful and restricted without dreams like that of a broken winged bird who is defenseless and vulnerable. The broken winged bird is linked directly to when a dream is lost forever, which again suggests the melancholic mood. (2) Perhaps, the broken winged bird is the consequence of losing the dream (3). This idea is continued when the use of personification points out that by losing hope, a person will not be able to fly (line 4). In essence, Hughes points that the dream will never shape if a person does not continue to chase the dream. The continuation of the metaphor stresses the loss conveyed in line 2 and how personal will is taken away when one can’t “fly.” Hughes purposely uses end rhyme such as in “fly (4)” being rhymed with “die. (2)” This serves to emphasize the effect of the conditional and the

The student states that “Tasks do not come easily” and continues by saying “So I have worked hard. Not good enough” (367). From what can be gathered from this poem, the student is a perfectionist, so this makes it understandable that nothing the student does, no matter how magnificent her work may be, will not be good enough in this student’s eyes. As a result of the student’s extremely strict standards she has placed upon herself, it is understandable, then, why her not achieving a perfect grade point average could cause a great disappointment to the student. As the student prepares herself to take the leap to her death, she makes a comparison between herself and a bird ready to fly. The student writes “It is snowing steadily surely not good weather for flying” and proceeds to further compare herself to a bird by saying “This sparrow sillied and dizzied by the wind on the edge” (367). The college student continues to juxtapose herself with this bird by saying “The air will not hold me, the snow burdens my crippled wings” (367) stating in a comparative way that when she jumps, the air will not hold her. Just as a crippled bird cannot glide through the air but instead falls to the ground, so will the student once she jumps. While still using the bird comparison, the student hopes that when she is found, the people who find her will “Bury my bird bones beneath a sturdy pine” and “Scatter my feathers like unspoken song over this...earth” (368). By making this analogy, the student proves that even in this time of great distress she is still a capable and intelligent

"I have no will to weep or sing...No least desire to pray or curse”: These two lines expresses how the author did not have any hope less and was feeling depressed. Furthermore, Emily Dickinson’s poem ‘What If I Say’, again the tone is extremely hopeless; her love has died but “yesterday” and without him “dungeons, nor guns do scare” her; without him there is nothing left for her. Donne, however, is hopeful that they will have many “years” together, but even if they don’t, the “second of (their)…reign” shall be in the afterlife; even death would not be the end of their love (“death be no divorce”). Jennings’ finds some comfort in her parent’s spiritual bond in the final stanza (“strangely close together”, even if it is as weak as a “thread”. She feels great tenderness for the parents who once passionately loved each other and her, the feather and thread images are gentle and soft, suggesting her love for her parents is also this way.

He uses personification in the quote “and clearing the sill of the world.” (30), this creates imagery to show the reader that the bird overcame its problem. The bird symbolizes the daughter and her life. The speaker says that the bird was frighten when it first entered the room, “and how for a helpless hour, through the crack of the door/ we watched the sleek, wild, dark” (20-21). Then when the bird calmed down and looked at its surrounding he was able to overcome his problem. His daughter has had some traumatic experiences and is still going through some. The bird represents the daughter and how she overcomes her obstacles. He uses a simile “form her shut door a commotion of typewriter keys/ like a chain hauled over a gunwale” (5-6). Richard Wilbur used this simile to compare the sounds of the typewriter to a chain over a

till the current ends and dips his wing in the orange sun rays and dares to claim the sky”. This shows that the free bird is brave and daring to claim the sky. When free bird dares to claim the sky shows that at first it was hesitant to go into the sky but then it stood up and became brave and soared. In stanza 5 it states “But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream his wings are clipped and his feet are tied so he opens his throat to sing”. This shows that the caged bird wants to be heard and be set free but to be free it has to untie its feet which most likely refers to how it

“The Going” by Thomas Hardy initially appears as a poem regarding the death of a woman that was close to the speaker. The speaker is evidently distraught throughout the poem as he tries to understand the death of the woman by continually asking the dead questions. When we examine the poem closer, specifically through the language and structure of the poem, it appears as if the speaker is searching for an explanation behind the woman’s death, and perhaps an answer for death as a whole. Ultimately, the poem serves as a way to question death’s significance and also acts as an analysis of the speaker’s relationship with death as he tries to accept the death of a close individual in his life; he eventually comes to the conclusion that there is no answer or explanation to death.

“It trembled for Mr. Rochester and his doom; it bemoaned him with bitter pity; it demanded him with ceaseless longing; and, impotent as a bird with both wings broken, is still quivered its shattered pinions in vain attempts to seek him.” (p.373) Jane feels broken in this instance and instead of gaining her freedom and ability to fly as an independ bird, a piece of her has been torn away; the wings that kept her free, that filled her with joy. Evoking birds in a time where Jane must decide between Passion and Reason demonstrates the …. Jane, being the strong woman she is, may be trying to conceal her emotions that she is too afraid to admit to feeling.

Several literary devices help contribute to the theme of the poem. One of those devices is personification. The speaker says on line two, “For if dreams die/ Life is a broken-winged bird”, The personification shows that the author is trying to tell the audience to

He needs to let go of the death of her but just like the raven, it is lingering around him causing him more sorrow. Nevertheless, the bird hangs around him just like his depression about his loss relating the raven to the death of Lenore, or death in general.

He flexed his ebony wings. They were large and the deep black of pitch, or so everybody told him. He wanted to fly, They told him he could not, that he would never soar effortlessly like them. Their wings were soft and white as freshly fallen snow. They were the angels that ruled all, sitting at their petty counsels. They were beautiful, with pale faces that looked as if they were carved from ivory. Sometimes he could believe that they were, for their faces, though lovely, showed no emotion. Their smiles were empty and their eyes were cold. His eyes were golden—or so he was told.

The mood of the poem is sad and the tone is dark. The bird, love, is in danger from others. The sparrow seems vulnerable and lost. It cannot help itself. The end of the poem describes love as hungry, as faceless and the sparrow singing, famished in the speaker's hand. These are gloomy images. The author of the poem’s husband died. Her poem shows yearning and longing.

Analysis #1 1st Paragraph- Introduction “The Bird Came Down” by Emily Dickinson is a short poem. The type of meter used in this poem is a trimeter. The type of feet used is poem is iamb. The stanzas is quatrain.

The poem has a dynamic tone. The free bird seems so uninhibited, and the caged bird so hopeless. The language in the first stanza captures the beauty of freedom in the natural world and sets the reader up to be devastated by the status of the caged bird. “the free bird leaps/ on the back of the wind/ and floats downstream/ till the

This is why the symbol of the bird is so important throughout the novel. Birds have the capability to go wherever they want, whenever they please, yet they often don’t use these benefits. This is because moving on to something new or experiencing a new challenge is not always easy and although it might not be what is best for a person it is often easiest to just stay in the same spot and accept the cards that have been dealt. “A bird with a broken wing

Thomas Hardy wrote ‘The Voice’ and ‘The Going’ shortly after the death of his first wife, Emma. She and Hardy became estranged during the later years of their marriage. As a result of their estrangement, Hardy and his secretary began an affair that lasted through Emma’s illness, one that later killed her. Each poem is an ode to Hardy’s complicated relationship with human mortality. The skill with which Hardy writes infers that once does not need to concern themselves with background in which they were written, but instead should focus on the ways in which the poems powerfully present complex emotions and reflections on mortality.