Figurative Language In Lucinda Matlock Poem

In many poems, elements of human nature are displayed. Perseverance to find contentment is an idea developed in “Chicago”, by Carl Sandberg, “Lucinda Matlock”, by Edward Lee Masters, and “Mrs. George Reece, also by Masters. It is suggested that it is human nature to persevere through hard times in order to be content in life through the tones, figurative language, and imagery used in these poems.
The tones that Masters and Sandburg develop in their poems display that the speaker or group of people the poem represents are happy with their lives despite the obstacles they have faced. In “Chicago”, the speaker establishes that the city has terrible problems. A tone of pride in the city is developed, though, as the speaker makes it clear that the

George Reece helps to establish the point that contentment follows perseverance. Sandburg makes use of personification in his poem, “Chicago”. The city is personified as the “Hog Butcher for the World,/Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,/Player with Railroads and the Nation’s Freight Handler” (1-3) throughout the poem. As Sandberg’s poem progresses, personification is still used to make the point that though Chicago is all of those things, it is still “Laughing the stormy, husky, brawling laughter of Youth” (22). Personification is used to establish the idea that Chicago as a whole is happy despite the challenges it faces. The figurative language used in “Lucinda Matlock” is mainly parallelism, which, as used in this poem, helps emphasize to the audience a main point of the poem. The speaker tells what she did with her life after facing great tragedy when she says “I spun, I wove, I kept the house, I nursed the sick,/I made the garden” (10-11). The usage of parallelism with starting every statement with “I” makes it noticeable to the audience what the speaker wants them to know: she continues on with her life and remains content even after persevering through hard times. The third poem, “Mrs. George Reece”, uses an allusion to develop the idea of happiness after hard times. In the last line of the poem, the speaker makes a point that the audience should “Act well your part, there all the honor lies” (14), a quote by the poet Alexander Pope. By using this allusion, the speaker can make her final point that even when facing hardships, choosing to persevere through them will bring one honor. In each of these three poems, a different form of figurative language is used to develop a main