Word Play In The Lotter And The Better Sitter

In “My Papa’s Waltz,” Theodore Roethke illustrates an image of a father-son romp around the kitchen that is both harsh in its play and delicate in its memory. Roethke illustrates the poem’s images from his own childhood memories. Roethke uses simple words to create puzzling phrases that could be interpreted in different ways. The poem is ambiguous due to certain word choices that have baffling double meanings. Roethke’s poem paints an image of his childhood interactions with his father. Roethke paints this picture by using ambiguity within a waltz-like structure.

In Katharine Brush’s “Birthday Party,” imagery and diction are used to describe the events of the dinner and how it flew south.

In stanza four the poet is flashing back to his childhood and telling us some other words that he got in trouble for. “Other words that got me into trouble were fight and fright, wren and yarn.” (29-31) Even though he got in trouble by his teacher for not knowing the words, his mother helped him understand them in a different way. “Wren are small, plain birds.” (34) “My mother made birds out of yarn.” (37) Here he is shown how two different things can become the same thing.

Nikki Giovanni’s diction heightens the meaning of the theme where the poem Knoxville, Tennessee uses diction to illustrate the theme of joys of childhood and family. The lines “and okra/and greens/and cabbage/and lots of/barbecue/and buttermilk/and homemade ice-cream” (lines 5-11) show that the poet's diction is repetitive and simple. The repetition of the word “and” with the simplicity of the words show that the writing is like a child’s. The words homemade and barbecue can create a emotional connection between the reader and the piece of literature where it can create a reminiscence of a family gathering from childhood. The lines “and go to the mountains with/your grandmother/and go barefooted/and be warm” (lines 18-21) shows that the poet’s diction is simple. The simplicity of the words in the quote shows that it can be read by even a young child. The words barefooted and warm can create a connection between the reader and the writing where it can create a reminiscence of a moment when the reader walked or did something outside barefooted in his childhood. Thus, relating to the theme of childhood and

In “A Barred Owl,” Wilbur adopts a playful tone through rhyming: “We tell the wakened child that all she heard/ Was an odd question from a forest bird” (3, 4). The rhyme imitates the style of nursery rhymes, creating a joking tone. The playful tone avoids seriousness and weakens the horror of the owl, which contributes to the poem’s style like a nursery rhyme. Wilbur also euphemizes the owl to help create a nursery style. He does not represent the horrible creature of an owl as a carnivore with sharp claws that hunts during the night, but euphemizes it as a “forest bird” (Wilbur 4). The owl’s representation as a safe forest bird refers its figure to the enthusiastic birds with heavenly sounds in cartoons and story books, which often help the protagonist to overcome difficulties and dangers. Referring to nursery imageries of birds, the euphemism contributes to the poem’s style as a nursery rhyme. Creating a playful tone and a nursery style, Wilbur uses rhymes and euphemism to “domesticate fear” (Wilbur

The poem is about a mother having an affair with the milkman. Toward the end of the poem the husband returns home and discovers what his wife has done and goes after the milkman. All the while the children, Peter and Jane, are watching what is taking place, but are also easily distracted by other things that are happening. For example, they are distracted by the dog or playing with their doll and ball. We can see this in the recurring line, “Look at the dog! See him run!” and in the first stanza “Jane has a big doll. Peter has a ball”. They are playing and get excited when they see the milkman arrive. We know the milkman is interested in the mother because the third stanza tells us, “The milkman like Mummy”. However, the mother, “likes them all” which could imply she has been with other men, not only the milkman, whom are not her husband. The poem is written in villanelle form with a simple rhyme-scheme and repetition that mimics the language of children’s books. Since the poem stays within the guideline of the villanelle form, it is perfect. Moving on, Cope’s perfect villanelle form and the analysis of “the closing curtains” help to support our argument innocence is an illusion.

In the poem, the mother takes her daughter to a pool party composed of boys. The speaker watches the children dive into the pool and imagines her daughter working math problems to calculate the gallons of water. As she watches the young girl climb out of the pool in her hamburger and french fry print swimming suit, she notes that the other young girls are looking at the boys, and as well as her daughter, she is beginning to recognize the appeal of their masculinity. The language of the poem is associated with the childness of the young girl. The description the speaker gives of the girl leads the reader to believe she is a child. She calls her “my girl,” and describes her of having a sweet face and a sleek ponytail. “She will glisten in the brilliant air, and they will see her sweet face” (1115), the diction of Olds word choice demonstrates the innocence of a young child beginning to approach maturity. She provides detailed portrayal of the character to provide the reader with an image of the diminishing childhood innocence of the

In both Wilbur's and Collins’ poems, they convey a protective tone to maintain the idea that children must remain pure. In “A Barred Owl”, Wilbur talks of lying to the child that the owl was asking “Who cooks for you?” rather than a scary animal call. The protective tone conveys the message of the poem in that malicious sounds are concealed by childish phrases. The author hints at keeping the child pure and unafraid by changing the meaning of the words. Later, Wilbur tells how words “can also thus

The diction within the poem also captures the bonding experience. Roethke's word selection uniquely relates the event to a dance making the poem pleasantly fun. The overall effect of words such as "dizzy," (2) "waltzing,"(4) and "beat"(13) turn the lines of poetry into a merry shuffle between the father and son. Words such as "step"(11) and "waltzed"(15) fully invoke

Thus, the English translations were insufficient because nuances in French meaning help develop the play’s excess in many of its most central scenes. Ambiguities and connotations, which sometimes go beyond what was possible in English, allow for simultaneous decadence in simplicity — much significance found on occasion in only one term — and decadence in meaning. In the original text, many words become integral to the play due to their second and entirely separate meanings which add a whole other reading that is largely inaccessible for non-French readers. These secondary meanings lend themselves thematically to the play’s profligacy; and

3. What similarities and differences do these stories have in common, considering where and when they take place

The words of this play is convoluted and often mean nothing at all, however it is these qualities that make the words important. The professor often speaks words that sound interesting but have no meaning and is called out by Carol. He uses language that are flowery, used to create the idea that he is an intellectual. These words, while having no straight meaning, creates the overall implication that language is meaningless. This is increased by Carol’s frustration at not being able to understand his lectures.

Toomer’s placement and choice of imagery is crucial in establishing what he wants the audience to see; if he had used different imagery, his poem would not be interpreted in the same way. For example, the first line of his poem states, “Hair -- braided chestnut” (Toomer 1). By describing hair as “braided chestnut”, rather than simply saying “brown”, the

Within stanzas one and two the poet uses imagery and word choice to convey that the narrator is thinking about new life, pregnancy and babies.

It 's easy to just concentrate on the ornate language of ‘’Maud’’, but there 's a lot of drama in the narrative of the poem. There