When I was a little girl at early of my age, I spent a wonderful time with my grandma near a sea in my hometown during the last two months of her life. That was the first time we saw the smile back to her face since we got the news that she got intestine cancer. Back to that time I was deeply impressed by how being around the sea was capable to change people’s emotion in such a positive way. The poet, Pablo Neruda, in his poem “The Sea” illustrates how the sea teaches a trapped man a lesson on how to be released from struggling to find freedom and happiness. The three crucial poem-writing elements, sound, structure, and figurative language make the power of sea more vivid just like a picture we could see and have physical feelings about. And when we try to get a deeper understanding of the poem, it is the sound that we hear first.
From a perspective of sound, it is obvious that there is a pattern in the poem that could provide readers the same feel of the sea just by listening to it. The poet uses two techniques basically to create that effect in terms of internal rhythm and soft sounds. For example, in the line “I love the sea because it teaches me” and “what it taught me before, I keep”, a consonance syllable “ee” has been used by Neruda. Also, there are several words containing the syllables like “s”, “sh”, and “w” playing an essential role in creating the whole mood of the poem. For example, Neruda writes” If it’s a single wave or its vast existence, / or only its
Burroughs talks about how the sea is contradictory on its own, in its immensity. It mocks its victims “with the most horrible thirst”, and it smites everything like a hammer, while sometimes caressing like the hand of a lady. The breaking of its waves is violent, yet as it reaches the sands it reminds us of the rustle of a child's
African Americans have been discriminated and were not treated fairly from the beginning of the American colonies up to the 1960s. Their history included about 250 years of slavery followed by another 100 years of discrimination. However, many people state that throughout the 1800s, the whaling industry helped African Americans thrive as a race. In addition, they were treated as equals and could gain glory and wealth from it. In most cases, this is not true because negroes for three main reasons. Almost all African people did not receive high positions on their crew ships. Also, they experienced segregation on ships and were treated not equally. Finally, they were taken for their cheap and hard labor in a dangerous, unrewarding industry. Using internet sources and the novel, In The Heart of The Sea, by Nathaniel Philbrick, African Americans in the whaling industry had low status within crews and faced harsh working conditions as well as discrimination and racism.
Baca’s essay shows the reader how he grew as a person. Even though he had many obstacles his intention was to become a better person. The first steps he took towards growing as a person was by listening to someone read to him. Before long he was able to start reading books on his own. After succeeding in learning how to read, he accomplished his biggest goal yet, Baca was able to write. Thus, causing him to feel a sense of freedom and no longer anxious.
People don’t always obtain everything they want, they struggle to accomplish all their goals. In the story “The Eel” the river symbolizes the struggles. Eugenio Montale wrote the poem The Eel in 1916, and it is about the struggles during World War II. Montale was one of the utmost perceptive and varied Italian poets of the century,and he used symbolism of river. Symbolism of river created a sorrow atmosphere which was persistent throughout Eugenio Montale’s literature. The river symbolizes the division, struggles of life, and hope therefore creating a sorrow atmosphere.
Evocative and visceral, Irving Layton’s “The Swimmer” follows the impassioned swim of a man as a metaphor for man’s relation to nature. The poem begins with the titular swimmer breaking away from his vessel and into the sea. Layton elaborates upon the swimmer’s journey underwater, as a mystical intercourse between man and Earth. In the final stanza, the man is expelled by the sea and returned to land. In “The Swimmer”, through the description of an incestuous relationship communicated through erotic imagery, Layton expounds on the theme of the connected, yet ultimately detached, relationship between man and nature.
The book “The Captain’s Verses” by Pablo Neruda, there are many love poems. Poems that express different ways of loving someone. I decided to pick Neruda's body of work because of how smooth and elegant his poems sound. They express so much passion towards a person and also send a message. When reading his poems I would be able to understand the emotion the poem carried. This is the first thing that caught my attention from his poems. The emotions each and every one of them carried.
“Soldiering is 99% boredom and 1% of sheer terror”, a civil war soldier wrote this to his wife in a letter and since then the composition of war has not changed. So, what did the soldiers do in those periods of boredom? Well, especially for the men in the frontlines, who were far from any form of entertainment, writing letters, diaries and poems were some of the few available options. These were the forms of war literatures that soldiers used to express and share their feelings with their loved ones at home, as well as record the horrors of war in subjective portrayal of events. Military personnaels felt the most connected and close ot home, through readiging about it in letters. Today, many of these letters, poems and stories are shared
Pablo Neruda, in his poem, finds the beauty in the purity of a dead tuna fish in the market. He feels that this fish, being the only thing other than vegetables in the market, is such a magnificent subject because it experienced life, and strove to survive through a conscious life unlike the vegetables that lived with no cognizance. Neruda glorifies the life of this dead tuna fish, and displays the importance of living a life of taking charge and striving to survive rather than watching life fly by with no independent actions through his use of inciting concrete imagery, concrete and foreign diction, and influential figurative language.
In literature, many great authors have written poems and books about the ocean because is a fascinating part of nature, representing purity, danger and excitement. It is vast, sustaining many forms of life, but it also has the power to take life away: the ocean is symbolic of creation and destruction. In Kate Chopin’s novella, The Awakening, many important scenes are set the ocean. Edna Pontellier experiences and reflects the dual power of the ocean in the novella, through childlike activities such as, learning to swim and a rebirth, but also in more powerful experiences, like committing suicide in the final scene. Chopin uses imagery and diction to foreshadow the final scene as a suicide and a rebirth.
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, written by the best selling author Jules Verne, is an enthralling undersea adventure that begins when a mysterious oblong, occasionally phosphorescent “thing”, larger and infinitely faster than a whale, begins attacking boats. The famous oceanographer Professor Pierre Aronnax is invited aboard the Abraham Lincoln to hunt down what he believes to be a giant narwhal, but once they find it, even the superior war boat is no match for this strange creature. Professor Aronnax and his trusty servant Council are thrown overboard and end up on the deck of an oblong, occasionally phosphorescent submarine with their acquaintance Ned Land, a Canadian Harpooner. They are then hostilely brought aboard and told by Captain Nemo that they are never allowed to leave the Nautilus, the boat our three travelers happened upon. After this depressing news, they are offered the opportunity to travel the world underwater and experience wonders only the captain himself has ever seen, which they promptly accept.
The film The Sea Inside shares the heart warming real life story of a man named Ramon Sampedro. At the young age of twenty-six he suffered an accident while diving into shallow waters of the ocean that left him a quadriplegic. Now at the age of fifty-four, Ramon must depend on his family to survive. His older brother Jose, Jose’s wife, Manuela and their son Javi do their best to take care of Ramon and make him feel loved. Although Ramon is extremely grateful to his family and friends for their help all these years, he has come to see his life as aggravating and unsatisfying. He wishes to die with the little dignity he has left in his life. However, Ramon’s family is dead set against the thought of assisted suicide and the
"The sea is everything. It covers seven tenths of the terrestrial globe. It is an immense desert, where man is never lonely, for he feels life stirring on all sides. It is nothing but love and emotion; it is the Living Infinite". (Jules 199) This part of a Quote written by Jules Verne himself can be found in one of Verne's most famous book Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. it Gives a clue to his fascination with world travel adventures and the knowledge he was inspired by. Jules Verne is a globally known bestseller and is often referred as by many "the father of science fiction" (Derbyshire 1).
In Octavio Paz’s short story My Life with the Wave, he presents the tale of a man’s passionate turned abusive encounter with an ocean wave. An experience that the narrator claims changed his life quickly transforms into what he describes as a relationship of fear and hate. While the relationship between the narrator and the wave began happy, their actions and lack of an emotional connection foreshadow its eventual failure. By highlighting the characteristics of the relationship between the narrator and the wave, Paz suggests the overall meaning of his work is to illustrate the essence of an unhealthy relationship.
He shows how, at times, an individual seeking to find a better person inside of them, can be left in the dark. “I ceaselessly listen to the sea … I must feel the crash of the hard water,” shows how he tries to become a better person, but it backfires against him (Neruda 349). This quote represents his idea of the helplessness of hopes and dreams to become a better person, and further explains his idea of the topic as well. Finally, Neruda uses tactile imagery to help him represent the idea of a person’s silent suffering from self deprecation. “I arrive … feel the vibration, vague and insistent,” he tells how people can suffer from their own self deprecation (Neruda 349).
“Everything about him was old, except his eyes and they were the same color as the sea and were cheerful and undefeated.” (10) This quote describes the protagonist from Ernest Hemingway’s novel The Old Man and the Sea, Santiago. Santiago is an old man who can do anything he sets his mind to. Throughout the novel, Santiago is faced with many challenges, that become limitations to him. Consequently, Santiago creates a relationship with nature, including the ocean and the creatures of the sea. Santiago is a very kind and caring man who respects nature in a tremendous manner. In The Old Man and the Sea, Santiago has a relationship with the sea and its creatures, characterizes them, and during his time at sea, has limitations.