ipl-logo

How Did Charles Bukowski Write A Smile To Remember Essay

814 Words4 Pages

Damyan Cunningham
Meredith Katchen
ENG 104
November 4, 2016
Halloween masks or life??

In Charles Bukowski’s poem “A Smile to Remember” there are some really good examples to prove that it is appropriate for halloween, but only after understanding the symbols and metaphors he wrote. He shows how we can or do use masks in our everyday life like we would for Halloween. The three examples that will be throughout this writing is how Bukowski uses the fish as a metaphor for the mother, how she wears a mask of smiles to hide her pain, and how the son recognizes the mother is not happy and is putting on a mask for him.

In the poem Bukowski the boy says, “we had goldfish and they circled around and around.” The fish are trapped in a bowl and they can’t go anywhere other than in the bowl. They just swim and swim and do the same things. Bukowski uses that as an example to express that like the fish, the mother is unable to express her feelings or thoughts. She is unable to speak out what is going on in her mind, or what she is going through. The boy states “my …show more content…

Bukowski puts some little hints here and there to show the readers that the boy knew she wasn’t okay. The boy said “my mother, poor fish, wanting to be happy.” Right there the boy tells the reader that she is not happy and is trying her best to be happy. Than you ask yourself how does he know she is wanting to be happy? There was nothing in the poem where she told anyone that she wanted to be happy or isn’t happy. Seeing that there was no evidence of her stating she wasn't happy. That really shows that actions speak louder than words. When she smiled to him he could see the pain in her, the boy says “ and it was the saddest smile I ever saw.” Him seeing all the pain she has been going through he knows she shouldn’t be fine, but she keeps that smile on even if it wasn't the most convincing

Show More
Related

Summary Of The Bass The River And Sheila Mant

325 Words | 2 Pages

One night in the short story “The Bass, The River, and Sheila Mant” written by W.D. Wetherell, the narrator realized that doing what he loves and being who he truly is comes before any significant person in his life. The narrator was obsessed with both Sheila Mant and fishing so if he wasn’t thinking about one it would be the other. On the way down to their date, the narrator found out that Sheila Mant thought fishing was stupid and boring while he could not live without it. During the story, the narrator decided to let down a fishing line while Sheila was not paying attention and this is where he started to face a dilemma. He realized that “Sheila began talking about something else, but all my attention was taken up now with the fish” (Wetherell

Read More

Imagery In Amy Tan's Fish Cheeks

134 Words | 1 Pages

Amy Tan uses imagery in the short story “Fish Cheeks” in order to let the reader feel the way Amy felt at the table on Christmas Eve. For example, in the story it states, “ My relatives licked the ends of their chopsticks and reached across the table dipping them into the dozen or so plates of food.” This explains that Amy felt embarrassed that her family wasn’t realizing the fact that they had no manners at the table. Amy was completely embarrassed with the fact that, that was the way her family had acted while they ate. Everyone is put into a situation where they wished their parents or family members had not acted the way they did in front of them, and Amy Tan writing this story makes you remember those times.

Read More

Rhetorical Analysis Of Jason Reynolds Speech

818 Words | 4 Pages

Reynolds uses this story to share a personal anecdote, telling how the fish could be seen “...flipping and flopping and flapping, inflating, deflating, dying, only to be met by mortified and confused faces.” By using this alliteration, Reynolds is trying to evoke empathy from the graduates, wanting them to feel the sadness represented through his words. He uses alliteration to help his audience understand how the fish was moving, with the audience being able to imagine what it was like in that moment and how terrifying it was. By using alliteration, Reynolds demonstrates his overall message to the graduates how through the course of life, it is often easy for individuals to only think about themselves, not taking a look at others around them. Through taking a look at other’s situations and checking in on them, humans can learn to help those who are less fortunate.

Read More

Imagery And Alliteration In Jason Reynolds's Speech

479 Words | 2 Pages

The description of the fish flopping on the ground as it is breathless on the ground, shows the symbol of the story, and the purpose of the story. Get in trouble to save the fish, or not get in trouble and not save the fish. Overall, the use of rhetorical devices helps the audience understand Reynolds way of speaking, and clarifies the topic of empowerment and

Read More

Poem Analysis: The Leaving By Brigit Pegeen Kelly

807 Words | 4 Pages

Also, the fish represent the obstacles that one may face while trying to reach their goal and shaping their ability to achieve it. This ultimately challenges them to decide whether to accept the task and grow or abandon their dreams by giving up. The girl’s the environment around her influenced her hard work ethic and her decision to have patience to accomplish her

Read More

Paul L. Dunbar's They Wear The Mask

257 Words | 2 Pages

As I read, Paul L. Dunbar’s “We Wear the Mask” I was interested in how he described what a mask represents. It is true that a mask was used to hide a person’s pain, emotion, or mood before the day known as Halloween developed. I love how Paul refers the use of the masks as a black or white person’s escape from other peoples’ worried faces. No one can ever understand what someone else is going through. People can never truly speak their truth or let out their suffering.

Read More

Shadrack In Toni Morrison's Sula

845 Words | 4 Pages

Trying to make “a place for fear,” Shadrack tries to find a way to organize and compartmentalize his feelings so that he can make sense of them as a “way of controlling it.” It is in that same way that Shadrack also tries to give order to Sula’s ambiguous birthmark. While looking back on the first time he meets Sula, Shadrack thinks, “She had a tadpole over her eye (that was how he knew she was a friend—she had the mark of the fish he loved),” (Morrison 156). With the “mark of the fish he loved,” Shadrack attempts to order Sula, a girl who does not fit into society’s expectations or his own expectations, by saying that she “had a tadpole over her eye.” In calling her very ambiguous birthmark, a tadpole, and making order out of disorder, Shadrack is able to compartmentalize his fear and his experiences into events or animals that he can relate to or make sense of like the “mark of the fish he loved” and having “a place for fear.”

Read More

The Boat Alistair Macleod Summary

692 Words | 3 Pages

I think the narrator is saying that like the sea his mother is dark and intimidating like her people who are also fishing people. In my opinion I think the mother makes the mood of the story dark and melancholy. She wants so much out of her husband and children, and when they don’t do what she wants she doesn’t talk to them. The mother puts too much pressure on the family to do what her family did. I can understand that the mother didn’t want to be alone, but as a mother you should want you kids to do better than you did and want them to succeed in life.

Read More

Symbolism In The Isabel Fish

1980 Words | 8 Pages

The author tells about the water and that fish have to breathe underwater to show the resemblance to the accident Maddy was in. The language here demonstrates that Maddy has to realize the benefits of water even though she's afraid of water. Ever since the accident, Maddy has been scared of water. She thinks that the accident is all her fault and that she killed her best friend. To sometimes when she sees water she gets nervous and because she was scared of water for a while she got a fish tank.

Read More

The Bass The River, And Sheila Mant

472 Words | 2 Pages

What seemed to be the biggest bass in the river, snagged on the line. There is no way the boy could let Sheila know of this. The rest of the night, the narrator maneuvers the boat perfectly and somehow manages to keep the fish on the line, without Sheila having any knowledge. They finally reach their destination and the boy is faced with a crippling decision. The boy has to either cut the line, letting the fish go, or risk having Sheila lose all interest in him by reeling in the fish.

Read More

Cultural Symbolism In Madeleine Thien's Simple Recipes

1223 Words | 5 Pages

The cooked fish signifies the death of the Malay culture within the family. However, the father didn’t give up. In the future, the narrator moved to an apartment, where she was

Read More

The Dust Bowl Fought In The 1930's

784 Words | 4 Pages

In the 1930s few Americans faced harder times than those in the Southern Great Plains. The Dust Bowl drought of the 1930s was one of the worst environmental disasters of the Twentieth Century. The Dust Bowl, also known as the Dirty Thirties, was a period of severe dust storms that greatly damaged the lives of many people. It came in a yellowish-brown haze from the South and in rolling walls of black from the North. Simple acts of life were no longer simple.

Read More

The Cat In The Hat Analysis

1566 Words | 7 Pages

While a child may laugh at the humorous image, the image represents the external conflict of the danger to the Fish. The Cat, at this point in the story, is a representation of the Freud’s Id, “the part of the personality that contains our primitive impulses” (NCTE). The Cat represents the child’s

Read More

Suspense In Kazuo Ishiguro's A Family Supper

528 Words | 3 Pages

In the short story, “A Family Supper,” Kazuo Ishiguro depicts a family of three reuniting after the death of their mother, and having dinner together. Ishiguro creates an atmosphere of suspense in the short story, which throws doubt on the father of the family. Ishiguro uses imagery, dialogue, and symbolism to build suspense in the short story. Kazuo Ishiguro begins by introducing the fugu fish to the short story, when he explains the death of the narrator’s mother. The fugu fish contains poisonous glands and, “Any clumsiness will result in the poison leaking into the veins,” and the only way to tell is by coating it, therefore the fish symbolizes risk and death.

Read More

Charles Bukowski's Poem The Catch '

898 Words | 4 Pages

In Charles Bukowski’s poem, “the catch”, the group of men on the pier are actually trying to identify themselves rather than the creature/fish. The usual everyday lives of the men on the pier are interrupted by the “catch”, and they are left to question themselves on who they really are. The fish has captured all of their attention, and while they are trying to identify it, they don’t realize that they are actually trying to identify themselves however they can’t figure out how to. The moment the fish was out of the water, is the same moment the men start to question their lives on how and what they have experienced. The way in which the men come out with absurd and non-existing names for the fish, clearly shows how they can’t seem to describe or name their own characteristics in themselves.

Read More

More about How Did Charles Bukowski Write A Smile To Remember Essay

Related Topics

Open Document