Natasha Trethewey’s Native Guard is a collection of poems highlighting the childhood of her life and honoring her mother. Additionally, Trethewey speaks about the racial background of the Deep South where she grew up and one of the first black regiments who were called into service during the Civil War, the Louisiana Native Guards. Trethewey includes sonnets and monuments to express the meaning behind her poetry. Throughout the collection of poems, there are certain poems that are very apparent in expressing the severity of Trethewey and the Native Guard’s struggles. One of the poem’s in Native Guard that truly captivates the story of Trethewey’s childhood and racial struggles is “Photograph: Ice Storm, 1971”.
The conflicting interests of the mother and the father result in a situation where one must make a sacrifice in order to preserve the connection in the family. The flat depressed tone of the poem reflects the mother’s unhappiness and frustration about having to constantly
The overall theme of the poem is sacrifice, more specifically, for the people that you love. Throughout the poem color and personification are used to paint a picture in the reader's head. “Fog hanging like old Coats between the trees.” (46) This description is used to create a monochromatic, gloomy, and dismal environment where the poem takes
This shows that the story itself did not matter as much as the actual act of love. The theme of this poem is, “Physical things sometimes have deeper meanings.” The tone of it was heartwarming, reflective, and grateful. When the reader reads this, he or she can feel and relate to the narrator because we all have parents that we have learned from and are grateful for. That is one reason why this is a great poem because almost anyone can relate to it.
In this passage, Zora Neale Hurston uses figurative language to depict a hurricane, which serves as a metaphor for the destructive forces of nature. The hurricane is personified as a monstropolous beast, a form that emphasizes the intensity and destructiveness of the hurricane. The figurative language used in the passage conveys the theme of nature´s severity and power, as well as the vulnerability of human beings in the face of such a beast. The phrase ¨rolling the houses, rolling the people in the houses along with other timbers¨ suggests that the hurricane is indifferent to human life and is destructive to everything in its path. The final sentence ¨The sea walking the earth with a heavy heel¨ again personifies the hurricane and shows the
This assonance begins the poem by setting the scene. We are able to interpret that the unnamed narrator is in a terrible mood, is fearful, and his anxiety is skyrocketing. This is set at midnight, which gives a feeling of uneasiness. These dark terms are emphasized by the assonance to give the
In the story, the author states the tone as bad (the feeling of the author ) and the mood (the feeling of the reader).(Glossary 1). “ It was a sad looking place,which for many years had not known the gentle presence of a
The reader can feel her great depression through the poem. In addition, in order to handle her problems, under the guidance of her psychiatrist, she wrote poetry as her therapy. The form of her poem, which was not organized, could be explained through this fact. It looked like she wrote her thoughts quickly. One thought chased another thought.
Although the poem doesn’t present any rhyme, rhythm, meter or repetition, the word order achieves a great artistic consequence of the title with its distinctive musical styles. The speaker’s harsh and bitter moods change to compassionate and a caring voice; the different tones makes the reader understand how painful and hopeless it is to lose someone he or she loves. The man used to be normal just like any other husbands or fathers who love their families and tried hard to take care of them. Although the poem portrays that the disease is depriving him of his memory of life, it metaphorically draws the positive memories of his house. Because the home gives him a strength and a security, he remembers himself even it is a touch of his life.
In the first stanza, Harwood tells about a memory that was told to her by someone else. It was a memory of her father taking her to the beach. The uncertain tone in the first half of the first stanza and the definite tone in the second half of the stanza emphasises the importance of the emotions she felt at the time of the event rather what happened. The imagery of the beach is portrayed as fearful - ‘sea’s edge’ can represent the danger of life and mystery
Overall the terrible storm, which Alcee deems a cyclone, not only helps to show the theme of the story but helps to reveal the emotions of a character. Because of the repression of women in the time period the risqué details which are enhanced or represented by the storm serve to give detail to the life of
The melancholic tone leads to sympathy as we can see the narrator having feelings towards her captors and the sadness of the situation and her sympathy is shown through the tone in this
She is unable to find consolation in her usual happy vacation spot following the death of her parents but perseveres past her previous exclamation to stop acting brave. The Cape in June would normally be a happy, carefree vacation, but when she travels there after her father’s funeral she does not find the normal joy of the gentle wind, the warm sunshine, and the welcoming sea: “We drive to the Cape. I cultivate / myself where the sun gutters from the sky, / where the sea swings in like an iron gate / … In another country people die” (5-8). The speaker uses paradoxical imagery to show her inner contradictions between a place that she feels is usually happy, and her current state filled with sadness.
The home mourns and wishes for its family because without them, it will be what it was before, a house. Just like the empty vase, one of the few objects that remain inside, it has lost all meaning without life pumping through its core. Larkin shows this loss through a depressing personification, separated and detached tone, and the slow crumbling structure. The home is not yet a house because it is still filled with memories of the past, which it is desperately grasping onto. Those memories - the pictures, the cutlery, the music in the piano, and that vase, are the only things that remain.
In the poem “At Dusk” by Natasha Trethewey, the speaker's tone goes from gloomy to hopeful. In the beginning of the poem, it gives off a gloomy tones when the speaker talks about the neighbor calling for her cat, they say, “Nor how they sometimes fall short… She’s given up calling for now.” These words have a negative connotation and they connect to a gloomy tone because it shows how the neighbor is sad since she misses her cat and wants her back home. The phrases “fall short” and “given up” show a gloomy tone about the neighbor being devastated that she has failed to call her cat back home.
