Theme Of The Whipping By Robert Hayden

I have became a stronger women over the years. My little Pearl is now seven years old. Time sure does go by fast. Nowadays the townspeople are now respecting me for what I do so I have respected my role in the community. When the disease struck through the town, no one was more dedicated to the sick than me. The scarlet letter became the symbol of my calling. I was so helpful to others with so much power to aid, that many people refused to recognize the letter ‘A’ for its original meaning. They said it stood for “able”. I feel like I should be able to do more things and my reputation shouldn’t stop me from doing things in my life. I told my Pearl to run down

The atmospheric conditions may represent the hardships that the couple had to go through in their relationship, and may also be used contrast the unpredictability of the outside world compared to the steady relationship that the couple have. ‘A Youth Mowing’ is also a poem about relationships, this time it is between a younger couple. The river ‘Isar’ is a symbol of freedom, it represents the way that the men’s lives are. However, this sense of liberty is broken by the ‘swish of the scythe-strokes’ as the girl takes ‘four sharp breaths.’ Sibilance is used to show that there is a sinister undertone to the freedom that the boy has which will be broken by the news that his girlfriend is bringing. She feels guilty for ‘what’s in store,’ as now the boy will have to be committed to spending the rest of his life with her, and paying the price for the fun that they had.

The poem begins with a painful memory from the speaker’s sixth grade classroom where he was slapped on the head and commanded to sit in the corner for not knowing the difference between

These shows an extreme emphasize on the weathers importance, he could never escape his father’s clutch, and he can never idealize his own independence. The weather also helps the reader understand the pressure that Stephen is faced with; both literally and physically “The world was a maelstrom of darkness and wind” (Nowlan Pg__). This further reinforces Stephens’s unclear confused mind, and the harshness of his father’s expectations. “The wind struck his back like an alder switch” (Nowlan Pg__). The shadowing of how Stephen feels the confusion and coldness he faces. “The wind howled until Stephen expected it to wrench the roof from the camp” (Nowlan Pg__). Basically Stephens world was collapsing on him and his father’s disappointment was overpowering. “The wind hurled pellets of frozen snow against his face” (Nowlan Pg__). The adversity he faces, weather to be submissive to his father or to pursue his dreams. Through repetition and imagery, Nowlan emphasizes the effect that the weather and his father has on Stephen. After the friendly talks that Leka has had with him, Stephen was mislead by the Polack into think he was finally man. “He was no little boy to be cowed into obedience” (Nowlan Pg__). He believes he is now a man, and won’t be cowed into obedience. He believes that he has finally satisfied his father. This is later juxtaposed again, as later Stephen only

The neighbour remembers that the mother informed her that her, “child smacks his cheeks on the floor” (15) yet he does not look clumsy. It is not possible for both cheeks to be hit on the floor at the same time while falling on the floor therefore the mother is lying. It represents her dishonest and how she would neglect her child to fabricate a suitable image of herself and family in front of others to protect her reputation. Not to mention, the mother veils her son’s burns by stating, “sparks burn starts in his skin” (22). Sparks cannot burn star shapes into skin and it shows the destruction of a vulnerable life. The abuse does not benefit anyone and will influence the child emotionally and physically yet she is not doing anything to support him. Moreover, things are not always the way they seem, which is proven through, “the cast that holds his small bones” (24-25). The injuries that the mother utilizes to conceal the abuse would not break his bones, but damage his skin. The mother does not give her child the proper care to heal from the abuse nor does she show concern. The description portrays his weakness and innocence because he does not deserve it yet other children are supported by their kinds mothers. His mother chooses to act as if there is everything is perfect and ignores her child and mistake of abusing

The author agrees with the idea of women as victims through the characterisation of women in the short story. The women are portrayed as helpless to the torment inflicted upon them by the boy in the story. This positions readers to feel sympathy for the women but also think of the world outside the text in which women are also seen as inferior to men. “Each season provided him new ways of frightening the little girls who sat in front of him or behind him”. This statement shows that the boy’s primary target were the girls who sat next to him. This supports the tradition idea of women as the victims and compels readers to see that the women in the text are treated more or less the same as the women in the outside world. Characterisation has been used by the author to reinforce the traditional idea of women as the helpless victims.

The play “Poof” by Lynn Nottage is a story that briefly but directly shows the emotions that abused women can go through during their lives. In the story, the main character feelings go from fear, to relief, to freedom, after “magically” making her husband disappear.

“It was only yesterday she had thought with a shudder, that life might be long.” (Chopin 17). “"Poof!"… gave a revealing look at the victims of domestic abuse and how they wrestle with overcoming their fear and their doubts after suffering years of abusive treatment.” (Toomer 5) Loureen unlike Mrs. Mallard, witnesses her husband’s death first hand during a marital argument. Loureen goes through denial questioning whether her husband’s death. She is happy her husband is dead but also feels guilty, because she knows how a mourning wife should react, but the joy of his demise is greater,” I should be praying, I should be thinking of the burial, but all that keeps popping into my mind is what will I wear on television when I share my horrible and wonderful story with a studio audience…”, Loureen’s husband, Samuel, was physically abusive, as revealed by Florence, Loureen’s best friend and neighbor. “Did that mother***** hit you again?” (Nottage 1563) This abuse, physical by Samuel and mental by Brently, is what allows Loureen in the drama “Poof!” and Mrs. Mallard in the short story “The Story of an Hour” to have the shared freedom they feel in the release from their respective abusive relationships.

The author uses imagery in the poem to enable the reader to see what the speaker sees. For example, in lines 4-11 the speaker describes to us the

“The rain this mourning pours from the gutters and everywhere else it is lost in the trees. You need your glasses what you know is there because doubt is inexorable; you put on your glasses. The trees, their bark, their leaves, even the dead ones, are more vibrant wet. Yes, and it’s raining. Each moment is like this—before it can be known, categorized as similar to another thing and dismissed, it has to be experienced, it has to be seen. What did he just say? Did she really just say that? Did I hear what I think I just heard? Did that just come out of my mouth, his mouth, your mouth? The moment sinks. Still you want to stop looking at the trees. You want to walk out and stand among them. And as light as the rain seems, it still rains down on you.” (page 9)

Hayden utilizes diction to set a dark and solemn tone throughout the poem. Like the various examples of imagery, there is also a strong use of underlying symbolism. In the first stanza, the words “cold” (1. 2) and “fires blaze” (1. 5) are used, which introduces a conflict. This is emphasized in the second stanza when the word “cold” (2. 1) is used again, later followed by the word “warm” (2. 2). In the last stanza, the father eventually “had driven out the cold” (3. 2). Yet the father had not ridden the house of the cold air until the end of the poem, which symbolizes how it took his son several years later to recognize the behaviors in which his father conveyed his love for him.

Hayden also uses figurative language, such as alliteration and personification, to further illustrate the father’s arduous work and the son’s indifference. For example, Hayden repeats “w” sounds in “weekday weather” to create a sense of long, tiring weekdays rather than short, refreshing weekends (4). Such emphasized phrase shows that the father is continuously hard-working, taking care of his family even on Sundays, as stated in line 1. Also, “labor” that precedes the “weekday weather” further accentuates the father’s strenuous work done for the family throughout the week. Soon after establishing persistent presence of the father’s sacrifice, “banked fires blaze” highlights the father’s perpetual effort to make a better environment for the family through the stressed constance sound of “b” (5). Such drum-like sounds make a physical demonstration of the flames’ beating through the repetitive consonant sound. While alliteration indicates the continual sacrifices that the father makes, personification reveals some tense, cold parts of the father-son relationship, possibly resulting from the family’s indifference and ingratitude. Some anger is present between the son and the father, as shown through “the chronic angers of the house” (9). By personifying the house as “chronic [and angry],” Hayden indicates the unwanted heat of the house created by the father. The son, unable

“Storm Warnings,” true to its literal subject matter, possesses flowy sweeping syntax created by the strategic use of commas and phrasing to draw parallels between the physical oncoming winds and the gales of life. The author crafts a long run-on sentence that spans the first stanza and carries on into the latter portion of the second to mirror the continuous flowing of windy weather and the forward motion of life. Once the speaker notices the brewing storm, they “walk from window to closed window, watching boughs strain against the sky.” In this portion of the affromented run-on sentence, alliteration, rhythm, and the repetition of words all contribute to the impression of movement. The various “w” sounds at the beginnings of words and the repetition of the word “window” create a sensation of continuously flowing forward, especially when read aloud; the comma adds a small swirling pause to the rhythm, which is then soon after resumed with the word “watching.” Just as the poem rhythmically moves forward with its long phrases connected with frequent commas, so must life carry on with each additional experience, whether it be misfortunes or joys. The elongated syntax allows all these elements to work together within sentences to highlight the similarities between physical storms and emotional struggle and to stress the inevitability of predicaments in life.

The child seems to experience a true emotion of what exact reality is all through the context of the poem “Still Life in Landscape.” She witnesses horrible scenes at the site of the accident. She sees a woman wholly on her back touching the spine with the back of her head; lines 3-5, “a woman was lying on the highway, on her back, with her head curled back and tucked under her shoulders so the back of her head touched her spine” the child’s description of the crash site would cause an audience to feel query and shiver at the reality of what really happens around the world.

The process of addressing memories of private suffering within “The Victims” by Sharon Olds is implied through contradictive perspectives. In the poem there is a shift in focus and tone during line 17. The poem addresses issues of suffering from two distinct perspectives, the first coming from a little girl and the second a grown woman. The narrative, imagery and diction are different in the two contrasting parts of the poem, and the second half carefully qualifies the first, as if to illustrate the more mature and established attitudes of the narrator in her older years – a stipulation of the easy imitation of the earlier years, when the mother’s views dominated and set the tone. Change has governed the poems structure here; differences