The Ruin And The Wife's Lament '

As she passes the ruins she recreates the pleasant things that had been there. Despite the reasonable arguments that her goods belonged to God and whatever God does is just, there is in the poem an undercurrent of regret that the loss is not fully compensated for by the hope of the treasure that lies above. (84)

The major reasoning to why the story is told like this is because of Ruth May, and what she symbolizes . In the beginning of the book, Orleanna sees an okapi in the forest, and at the end of the book she finds a wooden okapi at the market. Orleanna brings up the fact that some of her children are alive, and others are not. Ruth May is supposed to be the meaning behind the okapi, because she is no longer alive. The reason to why Orleanna finds the okapi is to show that Ruth May is still with her and her family, and always will be. The idea of the “ruin” is reworked throughout the novel in the beginning as a forest, which is described by Orleanna. Ruth May claims that she is the forest’s conscience, and that it eats itself and lives forever. It is now known that Ruth May takes over as the forest, and she may not be here in person, but will always be here in

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 tone of despair and loneliness is carried on to the proceeding stanzas, and is more evident in the last two. By saying that “Water limpid as the solitudes that flee

In The Wife’s Lament, the wife is forced to exile. The wife reveals the feelings of suffering, regret, and loneliness. The wife’s misery began when her Lord left her behind. The Wife set out to find him but her Lord’s Kinsmen didn’t want them together anymore, and this is when the forced exile takes actions. “My man’s kinsmen began to plot by darkened thought to divide us two so we most widely in the world’s kingdom lived wretchedly and I suffered longing.” (Lines 11-15). The wife believes she will one day be reunited with her Lord so she moves away to new land. The wife then finds out her Lord wants to commit a crime. “Hiding his mood thinking of murder” (Line 20). This scares the wife and forces her to move into the woods under an Oak Tree. This shows the wife as weak which is not an Anglo-Saxon belief. The wife also believes a man who is weak should never show it, should always pretend to be fine. She believes this because men have the upper hand, they hold more power. A man who shows he’s weak has no belief as Anglo-Saxons. Anglo-Saxons think nobody should ever be weak, they should always be brave. It shows how she’s scared of her lord, so scared she runs into the woods and stays under an oak tree. This exile shows women have no power.

Throughout “The Ruin” and “The Seafarer” the tone of desolation is made prominent by the two unknown authors through the use of diction, imagery and personification; these devices suggest the loss of innocence in both of the texts. In “The Ruin” the author writes, “death took away all the sword-valiant men; the places of war became deserted places, a decayed city (lines 26-28).” This evidence supports the tone of desolation by personifying death, which emphasizes the emptiness that the speaker feels now that his kinsmen are gone.

Throughout the seventeenth century, poets mourned the loss of a child publicly by writing elegies, or poems to lament the deceased. Katherine Philips and Ben Jonson were two poets who implemented the elegiac form in “Orinda Upon Little Hector Philips”, “On My First Son”, and “On My First Daughter” respectively. Although Philips and Jonson’s elegies contain obvious similarities regarding the nature of the works, the differences between the approaches taken to mourn their children are quite contrasting. These differences may be reduced to the emotions displayed in the elegies, which may be considered reflective of the sex of either of the poets and their religious beliefs. The autobiographical grief shown by a mother (Katherine Philips) and

The three poems show exile and keening, but the poems also show tactile imagery. The Wanderer show tactile imagery in line three, “wintery seas,” describes the setting is in this poem along with the tone. The Seafarer show’s tactile imagery as well, in line nine, “in icy bands, bound with frost,” the tactile imagery in this line describes the coldness of the thoughts in the lonely man’s head. In The Wife’s Lament the tactile imagery is shown in line forty seven, “That my beloved sits under a rocky cliff rimed with frost a lord dreary in spirit drenched with water in the ruined hall.” The wife in this tactile imagery is show how her husband is suffering just

and that he believes them. The poem also translates into how living in the city is toilsome and that the city is unrelenting. On the other hand it shows how the city can be prosperous and happy with the city’s disadvantages. in the second half of the poem it’s telling how nomatter what is wrong with the city, the people are still proud of who they are.

In the poem “The Wife’s Lament” there is a transfer to a female point of view which was rare during times of a patriarchal society. A theme seen is this poem is exile. The wife who faces exile from her lord later reaches a state of bitter unhappiness. The wife expresses her longing for her husband through use of ubi sunt:

There are some things that we do know about this poem. It is most often referred to as an elegy because of the mood of mourning and regret. Upon further reading I discovered that this poem is like others of its time period. Many

The speaker refers to the night as his acquaintance. This implies that the speaker has a lot of experience with the night, but has not become friends with it. Thus, because even the night, which has been alongside the speaker in comparison to anything or anyone else, is not a companion to the speaker, the idea of loneliness is enhanced. In addition, “rain” (2) is used to symbolize the speaker’s feelings of gloom and grief, because there is continuous pouring of the rain, which is unlikely to stop. In line 3, “city light” is used to convey the emotional distance between the speaker and society. Although the speaker has walked extensively, he has not yet interacted with anyone – thus distancing himself even further from society. Moreover, the moon, in lines 11 to 12, is used as a metaphor of the speaker’s feelings. The speaker feels extremely distant from society that he feels “unearthly.” The idea of isolation and loneliness in this poem is used as the theme of the poem; and the use of the setting and metaphors underscores the idea that the speaker feels abandoned from society.

The setting of “The Destructors can show image of destruction because of the war. Greene unlocks the story with the setting almost everything in this area is destroyed; although one house stands with slight damage. Greene uses the place to symbol the story “The Destructors” create in your mind the surrounding with the destruction from the war. The setting make the story an allegory, an object has additional significance in the “The Destructors”. As an example of Greene’s use of symbolism in The Destructor,” Kolin states “The barren landscape symbolizes the erosion of aesthetic

The author uses raw descriptive words such as “iron,” “tarry,” and “tin,” to display this city as superficial. The city is just made out of these substances that the people have made these buildings out of. These substances all conduct heat and present this madness and anger of the man in the poem. These materials present a manmade structure that displays the city as shallow.

The sections in this poem show similarities, they show the physical and emotional devastation caused by the war. Each sections draw’s to the reader’s attention about physiological and cultural crisis that came to affect the cultural identity after war had broken out and ended. The poem symbolizes the connections in the past to many popular places. The representation of the city in the waste land refers closely to mankind focusing closely to the unreal city. The cities that are transformed throughout the sections of the poems are broken down because of the harsh realities taking place. This leaves the outcome of the unreal city as modern society is being destroyed throughout.