Ulysses by Alfred Tennyson Essay

Ulysses S. Grant lived an interesting life. He gave so much to this country. His life was

The poet addresses issues of the child observing an unhealthy and abusive relationship between his/her father and mother in the third stanza. The eighth line states, “Do we forgive our Fathers for marrying or not marrying our Mothers?” These words insinuate that the father treated the child’s mother badly or was abusive to her and that she deserved better. This is so considering the only reason to forgive someone for marrying another implies they treated that person improperly. Likewise, having to forgive someone for not marrying another simply displays how the other person never received what he or she

The tone of the poem changes as the poem progresses. The poem begins with energetic language like “full of heroic tales” and “by a mere swing to his shoulder”. The composer also uses hyperboles like “My father began as a god” and “lifted me to heaven”. The use of this positive language indicates to the responder that the composer is longing for those days – he is nostalgic. It also highlights the perspective of a typical child. The language used in the middle of the poem is highly critical of his father: “A foolish small old man”. This highlights the perspective of a typical teenager and signifies that they have generally conflicting views. The language used in the last section of the poem is more loving and emotional than the rest: “...revealing virtues such as honesty, generosity, integrity”. This draws attention to a mature adult’s perspective.

This transfer of the power of voice to Penelope’s perspective plays out similarly in Waddington’s diction choices as pitched against those of Tennyson. While “Ulysses” refers in detail to its hero’s “drunk delight” and “roaming with a hungry heart,” the same marvels are offered less glory or attention in the words of Waddington (Tennyson 16, 12). These events are mentioned, but in passing, not in Ulysses’ terms of conquest and action. While Ulysses takes the place of a passive character and only performs deeds in coming home and “climbing the stairs,” Penelope fills the seat of active rescuer and change-maker as she weaves his story (Waddington 25). Thus it is within Waddington’s diction choices for the actions of Penelope, not Ulysses, that her stanzas best reflect the gallant rhetoric akin to Tennyson’s work. From when “her stitches / embroidered the / painful colors / of her breath,” to her creation of Ulysses as “a medallion / emblazoned in / tapestry,” Penelope’s labors in the retelling of her husband constitute the most dynamic language in the work (Waddington 37-40, 30-32). Here, the facade of incapable “blind hands” falls away to reveal Penelope’s potency to create a new myth (Waddington 33).

The son at first calls his father “baba”, a symbol of both mutual respect and a childlike viewpoint of his father, suggesting he looks up to him as a person. However, he later mockingly calls him a “god”, making fun of his so called authority as his father. Then, right at the end of the poem, he reverts back to his childish ways, calling him “baba” once more, even begging him to “please” read him another story. This shift from respect, to anger, then back to respect represents the circular nature of growing up. While one learns to rebel as they get older, their anger and hostility is replaced with that same wonder and admiration as there existed in the beginning. Even though the son loses respect for his father, he is able to gain it back through his life experience in growing up, furthering the fact that with maturation comes both positive and negative reverberations hand in hand.

Ulysses S. Grant       On April 27, 1822 a boy was born to Jesse Root Grant and Hannah Simpson Grant in the small town of Point Pleasant, Ohio. They named their son Hiram Ulysses Grant. In 1823 the family moved to a town nearby called Georgetown, Ohio, where Ulysses’ father owned a tannery and some farmland. Grant had two brothers and three sisters born in Georgetown.

Children are often too juvenile and ignorant to comprehend all that is done for them. The narrator of this poem is now a grown man and is looking back on his childhood. He says that he would “[speak] indifferently to [his father], who had driven out the cold, and polished my good shoes as well.” (Hayden) After working hard all week to provide for his family, the narrator's father would wake early Sunday mornings to tend to his family. As a grown man, he sees how much effort his father put in to keep him content. Sometimes it was difficult to see this because he was overcome by fear: “...slowly I would rise and dress, fearing the chronic anger of that house.” (Hayden). Though the narrator was intimidated by his father, he still loved and appreciated him. This father- son relationship is unique because the bond grows and develops as a strong connection throughout time, with the help of maturity. The narrator of this poem recognises the unappreciated family sacrifices that are made which only improves the bond between a boy and his

Although Ulysses S. Grant's contemporaries placed him in the highest position of great Americans along with George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, the twentieth century has seen him fade. His presidency has been almost universally condemned, and he is consistently ranked second to rock bottom Warren G. Harding in polls of historians to rate the presidents.

In the poem the speaker tells us about how his father woke up early on Sundays and warmed the house so his family can wake up comfortably. We are also told that as he would dress up and head down stairs he feared ¨the chronic angers of that house¨, which can be some sort of quarrel between his father and his mother in the house. This can also lead the reader to believe that the father may have had been a hard dad to deal with. However the father would polish his son's shoes with his cracked hands that ached. This shows the love that the father had for his son and now that the son has grown he realizes what his father did for him. The sons morals and feelings have changed him because as he has grown to become a man he has learned the true meaning of love is being there for one's family and not expecting it to be more than what it is. Consequently this teaches him a lesson on how much his father loved him and how much he regrets not telling him thank

Throughout the poem the reader will notice that Tennyson uses repetition. At the end of the first three paragraphs Tennyson writes “Rode the six hundred.”(Lines 8, 17, 26). The writer is saying that as they charged into the “valley of death” that they have maintained their ranks even though they realized

The poem starts to narrow in on the relationship of apprentice and master with the lines, “This was his son, who sat, an apprentice, night after night, his glass of coals next to the old man’s glass of coals.” (ll 12-14). “This was his son,” is a powerful statement that gives not only a parental relationship but also of a father forging his son into a man. We all learn from our fathers and in the old days a lot of sons stayed home and

In the novel, The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, about half of the main characters present themselves as something they are not. Throughout the novel, the theme of passing is apparent in Nick, Jay Gatsby, Daisy, and Myrtle Wilson, although they are all passing, each does it for a very different reason. Many scholars have touched on the idea that these characters are not who they appear to be and that their passing is associated with social class issues of the 1920s. Fitzgerald’s characters are built around the idea of passing and social class restrictions.

In the poem, I get a sense that there is no bond, like my father and I have which leads to confusion in the narrator's life. For instance, in line eight when he says, "I would slowly rise and dress,/ fearing the chronic angers of the house"(8-9), this gives me a strong sense of sadness, for him because I feel that he is greatly deprived of what every child should have a good role model as a father, and someone to look up to. “Speaking Indifferently to him, / who had driven out the cold”(10-11) is saying that they really did not know how to communicate with each other. I feel that the boy will regret not having and knowing what it is that makes you who you are, and may never get a chance to have and hold a special bond with his father and having a relationship with a person that can not be held with anyone else. This would bring an enormous amount of sadness to my life had I not had my Dad there to guide and protect me, when I could have used tremendous support and security.

. . should burn and rave at the close of day”(2). This means that old men should fight when they are dying and their age should not prevent them from resisting death. Another example of personification in the poem is “Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay”(8). This line personifies the men’s frail deeds by saying that they could have danced. This means that the potential actions of the men could have flourished and contributed greatly to their lives. The metaphor “. . . words had forked no lightning. . .”(5) is about how the men had done nothing significant with their lives. They had not achieved anything great or caused a major change. The simile “Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay” is about how even grave and serious men will fight against death for as long as they can. Another notable example of figurative language within the poem is “. . . blinding sight”(13). This oxymoron details how the men can see very well and it is very obvious to them that they will die soon, but they know that they can control how they will leave this world. There is an abundance of imagery within this poem, a few examples of which are “. . . danced in a green bay”(8), and “. . . caught and sang the sun in flight”(10) . These examples of imagery are both appealing to the sense of sight by using descriptive words such as “Green” and “danced” in the first example and words such as “caught” and “flight” among others. The second example also appeals to the sense of sound by

The powerful metaphors employed in this work compare the “good night” with the crushing blow of death and the“wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight” to heroism and achievement. Dylan uses oxymorons and similes to emphasize the desperation he felt to highlight the conflicts of man. The “blinding sight”, the “fierce tears” and the “blind eyes [that] could blaze like meteors and be gay,” serve