Davis depicts the marriage between Martin Guerre and Bertrande de Rols as a miserable attempt by both parties to better secure personal wealth and status. For Davis, Martin is an impotent and apathetic husband who abandoned a family for whom he cared little for, and Bertrande is a cunning, deceptive peasant woman who maneuvers to better her condition and retain her honor in the male dominated society of the time. The Martin Guerre imposter, Arnaud du Tilh is in Davis’s view an opportunist seeking a better life, who falls in love with the wife of the man he proclaims to be. Davis proposes that a woman such as Bertrande could not have been fooled by the skilled acting of the Martin imposter, especially after three years and the conception of a child. For Davis, Bertrande and Arnaud where accomplices in the deception, Bertrande accepted the imposter has her husband to escape the troubles of living as an abandoned wife.
In the poem “For That He Looked Not upon Her” written by George Gascoigne in 1573 there is a suffering and miserable attitude that is developed through the usage of literary devices such as the structure, diction, and imagery. First of all, the form or structure helps to convey the suffering and miserable attitude. This poem is a shakespearean sonnet that has an iambic pentameter and a heroic couplet at then end. The heroic couplet at the end reveals the final meaning of the poem, it is when the speaker tells the audience the source of his suffering. These sonnets typically have an attitude that is positive but because of the diction that is used that is what emphasizes on the negative attitude.
“Execution” by Edward Hirsch is about an adult recollecting his thoughts about his high school football career and especially how his coach inspired him because his authoritative role model was battling cancer. The speaker talks about the coach’s goal for “perfect execution” and the infinite strategies the coach would draw up in order to reach his goal. The speaker concludes with their team’s loss against “the downstate team” and how they were ironically defeated by “perfect execution.” A superficial reader might assume that the poem was about the disappointing results that came from his team working hard to reach a goal, but the author’s use of impersonal tone and irony in the fact that their team’s loss is caused by “perfect execution” shows how a strong force can be conquered even when putting your best foot forward when accepting a challenge. Have you ever been a part of a team that seemed invincible and you lost?
In the poem, “For That He Looked Not upon Her,” the poet, George Gascoigne, communicates his fickle attitude towards his lover. With the use of standard Shakespearean sonnet form, exaggerated diction and vivid imagery he explains why the speaker is bound to avoid his ex-lovers eyes, since they can spell him to live a life with further deception and heartache. Gascoigne’s practice of sonnet form consists of the “ABAB” rhyme scheme, couplet, and four stanzas adding emphasis on the protagonists reluctance to see his lover’s face. As the poem progresses it becomes clear on why the speaker is warry. The poem includes paradoxing examples that elaborate his complex situation.
Imagine darkness, sin, and the desire to keep it all hidden from yourself and the outside world. Together Poe and Hawthorne paint this picture of traits which consist of suspense and darkness. Within the stories “Tell Tale Heart” and “Ministers Black Veil”, the two authors writing styles are vividly comparable. With the comparison of these short stories, it becomes more than feasible to feel the true emotion and movement that Poe and Hawthorne wished to give to their readers.
A young woman who had run away from home. A Christian female clad in a man’s clothing. A soldier in the Continental army who had lied at the swearing in. Who had slept in the barracks among men. Who had managed this deception for more than a year and a half.”(12)
Set in a park, the poet introduces a mother whose “clothes are out of date”. It is evident to the reader that she lacks connectedness with her surroundings, as she listens to two of her children onomatopoeically “whine and bicker” and watches another “draw aimless patterns in the dirt”. In contrast, however, McAuley’s father figure is not detached from his surroundings but feels a
In Zora Neale Hurston’s short story “The Gilded Six-Bits”, many different aspects can be justified and analyzed. One of the things I found most interesting was that Zora Neale Hurston attempted to objectify many of the characters. Objectifying means to treat someone, a physical being, as an object rather than a human. Zora Neale’s short story “The Gilded Six-Bits” is a great example of displaying female subjectivity in African American women’s narratives. Otis D. Slemmons, is one of the main characters who plays a very crucial role in the development on this story.
Love is something important. It’s the cause of life, death, and everything in between. It’s the reason that urges some people to get out of bed in the morning. Whether it’s head over heels, or just a short-lived crush, love is beautiful. However, a multitude of people corrupt the view of love with lust, a feeling based wholly on appearance.
Throughout Molière’s ‘Tartuffe” the true intentions of multiple characters are consistently questioned. Different characters involve themselves in self-made delusions for specific reasons, causing the label of ‘hypocrite’ to become a significantly used word. This use of the word ‘hypocrite’ throws everything off balance, forcing the audience to question every statement/event deciding whether or not they are truly sincere. Moliere’s use of hypocrisy when describing Tartuffe brings immediate awareness to the text involving central theme of reason verses emotion, deciding whether or not a characters actions were based on their pure heart or their greed.
While reading Tartuffe, I was constantly dumbfounded by the prevalence in the world today of Moliere’s, comedically portrayed, accusations regarding ignorance in arranged marriage, social class dynamics and religious hypocrisy. Moliere created the characters to the complete contrast to what society saw them as, which was intriguing and comedic. He also displayed the average practices, such as planned marriage, to be disgraceful and shameful. Lastly, but most prevalently, Moliere saturated the hypocrisy of religion by later in the story revealing the religious character’s deceitful and malign nature. In this essay, I will be using historic and literary theory to examine Moliere’s interesting views of such practices and the satire involved.
The Nature of Symbolism within Trethewey’s “Elegy” In this poem “Elegy,” Natasha Trethewey depicts the relationship between herself and her late father by means of a metaphor that carries throughout the entire poem. We see that an elegy is typically used to lament the dead, however the abstract language of this poem sends a more demining message. This connotative thought is exactly what Trethewey chooses to address through subliminal metaphors equipped with items typically used to destroy rather than build, along with symbolism that alludes to fighting adversity.
Besides the author and the reader, there is the ‘I’ of the lyrical hero or of the fictitious storyteller and the ‘you’ or ‘thou’ of the alleged addressee of dramatic monologues, supplications and epistles. Empson said that: „The machinations of ambiguity are among the very roots of poetry”(Surdulescu, Stefanescu, 30). The ambiguous intellectual attitude deconstructs both the heroic commitement to a cause in tragedy and the didactic confinement to a class in comedy; its unstable allegiance permits Keats’s exemplary poet (the „camelion poet”, more of an ideal projection than a description of Keats actual practice) to derive equal delight conceiving a lago or an Imogen. This perplexing situation is achieved through a histrionic strategy of „showing how”, rather than „telling about it” (Stefanescu, 173 ).
Love at first sight, a concept overused in every romantic comedy. It is the instant connection between two soulmates. It is the idealistic perfect love. This phenomenon of true love has been around since the Elizabethan Era, preserved in the writings by some of the greatest poets of all time. “Sonnet 116” written by Shakespeare and “A Valediction; Forbidding Mourning” by John Donne both strive to express their version of Neoplatonic love (an immaculate love).
Love can exist as affection, infatuation, obsession, pleasure and in many other ways, as love is abstract. Hence, there is no one single interpretation of love. Love is a theme that has been embedded into language and literature over the centuries, yet due to the ever changing perception of love people continue to search for a universal definition of love. Poems are able to showcase the inner feelings and desires of a poet as well as their own unique views on love. Nevertheless, through poems “La Belle Dame sans Merci” by John Keats, “My Last Duchess” by Robert Browning, “Mother in a Refugee Camp” by Chinua Achebe, “The day is gone, and all its sweets are gone!”
