Upon Wedlock & Death Of Children By Edward Taylor

“A dust-bearing bee sink into the sanctum of a bloom; the thousand sister-calyxes arch to meet the love embrace and the ecstatic shiver of the tree from root to tiniest branch creaming in every blossom and frothing with delight. So this was a marriage! She had been summoned to behold a revelation. Then Janie felt a pain remorseless sweet that left her limp and languid.” (Hurston 11).

In the second stanza, the author employs several metaphors that display the growing and nurturing of a tree which is compared to the feeding of hate and vanity. The lines “ And I watered it in fears […] And I sunned it with smiles” refers to a plant by using words like “watered” and “ sunned” (“Poison” 5-7). These lines demonstrate the reason why the trees keep growing because he takes care of it “night and morning”, which suggests that the “wrath” has taken over the speaker’s life completely, and it is not healthy for both of them.

Harwood revolves this poem around change, through the use of a motherly character she is able to construct a life style that has dramatically changed from free to a fairly constricted. Harwood uses the conversations of two people to get this message across, with the conversation discussing life’s progression with an old lover. “But for the grace of God…” suggests that the ex-lover is somewhat thankful for not ending up as a father figure to these children, as he can see the effect it has taken on her from when he used to know her. “Her clothes are out of date” shows her appearance has altered in the bid to live as a mother, her children are now her identity and that is what she will live to be. This poem is revolved around the negativity of losing yourself through mother-hood and the factors that slowly show that it.

Galway Kinnell’s poem “Saint Francis and the Sow” incorporates motifs from the loveliness found in life. By using innocence as his motive, he then causes the reader to feel a form of guilt. This begins with Kinnell referencing a bud, to him “the bud” can represent “all things”, but at first glance one may expect him to be using the literal meaning of a flower bud, which in simplest terms is a baby flower. From this meaning, however, one can figure out the figurative side of what Kinnell may be trying to say. These themes of flowers and birth can both represent pureness, beauty, and innocent.

Most people consider family to be the people that are related to them by blood or brought together by marriage. The truth is that families can at times be complicated and they may fight, but in the end they stick together through thick and thin,sunshine or rain. In A Death in the Family James Agee uses both literary devices and elements to talk about his theme about how even after all the events that transpired they have remained a unified family with a fortified front.

The final stanza revolves around the nettles retorting to the father’s attacks. In the first line, the father is shown to give the nettles a funeral. This shows the father ending the troubles caused by the nettles. With effective choice of words, the poet describes how the ’sun’ and ‘rain’, representative of nature and its power, finally help the nettles grow. The word ‘recruits’ shows the enemy army was returning and regrouping. Furthermore, the word ‘tall’ depicts the nettles being stronger and healthier than before and their readiness for the battle. The final line states that the son would be hurt by the nettles soon and again. While problems won’t wane with time, despite all of the father’s efforts, the son will have to find a way to learn to adapt to the renewed struggles in his life.

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 is significant because it emphasizes the melancholy and mournfulness that he depicts with imagery in the first stanza. Later on in the second stanza, he author describes the tree the narrator would have planted as a “green sapling rising among the twisted apple boughs”. The author uses visual color imagery of the color green to describe the sapling in order to emphasize just how young the newborn was when he died. Later on in the poem, the narrator speaks of himself and his brothers kneeling in front of the newly plated tree. The fact that they are kneeling represents respect for the deceased. When the narrator mentions that the weather is cold it is a reference back to the first stanza when he says “of an old year coming to an end”. Later on in the third stanza the author writes “all that remains above earth of a first born son” which means that the deceased child has been buried. They also compare the child to the size of “a few stray atoms” to emphasize that he was an infant. All of these symbols and comparisons to are significant because they are tied to the central assertion of remembrance and honoring of the dead with the family and rebirth.

The last line in the poem “and since they were not the ones dead, turned to their own affairs” lacks the emotions the reader would expect a person to feel after a death of a close family member. But instead, it carries a neutral tone which implies that death doesn’t even matter anymore because it happened too often that the value of life became really low, these people are too poor so in order to survive, they must move on so that their lives can continue. A horrible sensory image was presented in the poem when the “saw leaped out at the boy’s hand” and is continued throughout the poem when “the boy’s first outcry was a rueful laugh…the hand was gone already…and that ended it”, this shows emphasis to the numbness the child felt. The poem continues with the same cold tone without any expression of emotion or feelings included except for pain, which emphasizes the lack of sympathy given. Not only did the death of this child placed no effect on anyone in the society but he was also immediately forgotten as he has left nothing special enough behind for people to remember him, so “since they were not the one dead, turned to their affairs”. This proves that life still carries on the same way whether he is present or not, as he is insignificant and that his death

At the end of the play the county attorney said to the sheriff, "Well, Henry, at least we found out that she was not going to quilt it. She was going to-what is it you call it, ladies?” and Mrs. Hale replied, "We call it-knot it, Mr. Henderson," (Glaspell pg10).The ladies knew that Mrs. Wright killed her spouse by tying a rope around his neck, However they were not going to tell. This picture conveys the sense about knotting those rope around the husband's neck: they have found the murder.

A theme is a hidden message that an author projects. This message creates a purpose for their work and it is what makes it fascinating to read or watch. Many authors such as James Agee, use powerful descriptions to portray their themes. James Agee was an American journalist, novelist, poet and screenwriter who began his career in the 1930’s. His childhood and adult lifestyle greatly influenced his writings.

Edward Taylor’s Upon Wedlock, and Death of Children and Upon a Wasp Chilled with Cold are similar in their approach with the illustration of how beautiful and magnificent God’s creations are to humankind. However, each poem presents tragic misfortune, such as the death of his own children in Upon Wedlock, and Death of Children and the cold, enigmatic nature of human soul in Upon a Wasp Chilled with Cold. Taylor’s poems create an element of how cruel reality can be, as well as manifest an errant correlation between earthly life and spiritual salvation, which is how you react to the problems you face on earth determines the salvation that God has in store for you.

The final stanza of the poem represents the woman going into labor and the delivery of her child into the world. “I wither and you break from me;” (16). This line represents the moment the

To Browning, a rose still holds beauty even when it is unable to function in nature. By comparing the fairness of a rose after death and giving it more love “than to such roses bold” (30), Browning indicates that the rose is more deserving of praise than living roses because it is underappreciated. The passing of a rose does not mean that the beauty is gone, in fact, the heart “doth view [the rose] fair, doth judge [it] most complete” (24). Similarly, the departure of a loved one is devastating, however, there is peace in

     Blake also uses startling irony in this poem. This irony shocks the reader into realization of how terrible life is for these small boys. Some of the verbal irony Blake uses lies in the first stanza. The poetic voice claims that “[his] father sold [him] while yet [his] tongue/ Could scarcely cry ‘ ‘weep! ‘weep! ‘weep! ‘weep!’'; (554). These words have a double meaning. They can mean that the speaker was not yet over mourning for his mother, or they can mean that he was so young that he was not yet able to sound out the s sound properly. In this case, he would stand on the corner and, instead of repeating the word sweep in an attempt at getting someone to hire him, he would repeat the word “‘weep!’'; (554). Another, more startling irony is that these young children hoped and lived for death because only in the after life could they become children. Blake emphasizes this with the