articles about happiness one common theme arose. What is truly happiness? Many different people interpret this question differently, and all three works of writing seem to have a different view on what happiness is. The poems, “Happiness” written by Jane Kenyon, addresses the come and go nature of happiness, while the essay, “A Balanced Psychology and A Full Life,” focuses on what needs to be done to increase happiness. With this being said “Pig Happiness” by Lynne McFall best addressed the question of
conveys an equal perspective on death. Both Elton Glaser and Jane Kenyon use similes, onomatopoeia and imagery to illustrate their opinions. In “Smoking”, Glaser pinpoints the widely eclectic range of sentiments that derives from an artificial form of death.However in “The Blue Bowl” Kenyon focuses more on the subject of closure and reacting to death. Elton Glaser uses similes to warn us of the long-term consequences of smoking, whereas Jane Kenyon uses them to express her opinion on closure. In the middle
an omega, always a type of power structure. Jane Kenyon explores about this in her poem with the different roles the male and female take within in their relationship. She reveals how a power shift come about and the way in which each person in the relationship acts to accommodate it. “Surprise” In her poem “Surprise”, Jane Kenyon uses yonic and phallic symbols, regression, and the double to reveal the power dynamics within the relationship. Kenyon uses yonic and phallic symbols to describe how
It Might Have Been Otherwise: Analysis of “Otherwise” by Jane Kenyon Jane Kenyon, the author of “Otherwise”, once said, “The poet's job is to put into words those feelings we all have that are so deep, so important, and yet so difficult to name, to tell the truth in such a beautiful way, that people cannot live without it.” Jane died a few years later after writing this poem, and it was published after her death. “Otherwise” is a meaningful poem that describes the tender truth about death in
In Jane Kenyon’s poem, “Otherwise,” she describes her routine of the day. She describes how her morning started to how her day ended. However, everything she did during the day could have happened differently. Everything could have been otherwise. Knowing that all the events in her day could have been otherwise, this allows Kenyon to have a peace of mind of that things were not otherwise. With this peace of mind, she is able to look at her life and appreciate the menial things in life. She is able
married serial killers and didn’t even know it. The wife in the poem may not be afraid that she married a killer but she is definitely worried about not knowing her partner. Jane Kenyon in her poem Surprise uses selective perception, the double, and projection to show the wife’s fear of betrayal. A literary device used in Jane Kenyon’s poem is selective perception .The first instance of selective perception is in the first two lines of the poem when the narrator says, “He suggests pancakes at the
I Swear, It’s Not What It Looks Like: Denial, Selective Perception, and Fear of Betrayal in Jane Kenyon’s “Surprise” Television psychologists and pop culture self-help gurus tell us that marriage is hard work; marriage is compromise; marriage is a choice between being right, and being happy. All of these statements are true. What these experts don’t tell us, however, is that marriage is also about putting on blinders, or looking on the bright side, or one of a hundred other trite phrases to
continue to disguise the problems unconsciously. It benefits our mental state for a certain length of time, but we ultimately suffer from it in the end. In her poem, Surprise, Jane Kenyon utilizes fear of betrayal, the double and being forced into a regressive state that creates her fear to be intimate. In the poem, Surprise, Kenyon displays psychoanalysis by revealing the fear of betrayal through the main characters feelings. The female speaker in the poem unfolds her repressed feelings about her past
The speaker of the poem Happiness by Jane Kenyon doesn’t seem like a person to have a very happy and positive personality. The speaker explains more negative examples throughout the poem rather than positive. For instance, she explain happiness as, “It comes to the monk in his cell” (line 20). This quote makes people question the thoughts the speaker because monks are a member of a religious community of men typically living under vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. In other words, a monk living
would just think “How did you get that from this? ” The two poems I read were “Otherwise”, by Jane Kenyon, and “Hay for the Horses”,by Gary Snyder. I made sure to read them slowly and more than once to try to really understand what the poem is about. My reaction to the poem “Otherwise” was different after I read it a couple of times. In the poem, it repeats the line, “It might have been otherwise” (Kenyon). The first time I read the poem I thought she wanted her life to be different. I felt that she