In this journal I'll be relating my feelings on and interpreting Alberto Rios' poem "A Chair She Sits In." With Alberto Rios's poem, it's obvious that this poem speaks about death, theorizes about why we stick around when we die, and talks to us about the habits in our modern day multi-media lives that we get hooked on as well as the habits and comforts a little simpler than that in our lives. This poem comes off to me as being quite melancholy. The writer of the poem writes in this poem as though he stares at death in the future and look within himself, his habits, his identity, and with fear for what's beyond for himself.
Anthem Anthem, written by Jim Daniels, is a free-verse poem, and this essay examines thirteen lines of the overall poem, which comprise two stanzas. Within the first stanza, a daughter or son uses a reflective voice to consider how his or her father’s work from when the speaker was a child affected their relationship. The second stanza describes the present, still strained relationship, that the father and now grown-up speaker admit they want to improve. Though not particularly evident in these thirteen lines, the second stanza takes place as the speaker and father stand before the start of a football game, singing the national anthem.
When placed in particular situations, humans rank which cultural or personal values they found the most essential. Consequently, certain ideals are not considered. During the infamous incident known as the Holocaust, this occurred frequently. As a result, the people that underwent these horrible situations nominated particular personal or cultural values over others. This selection determined the difference between life and death for several individuals.
With some of the best selling books and highest rated movies being of the memoir genre, it’s easy to wonder how much of an impact they may have on the world. Through Elie Wiesel’s carefully crafted words in the critically acclaimed “Night”, the reader is immersed into the harsh reality that is the Holocaust and granted the opportunity to glance at Wiesel’s personal story. Though however renowned a memoir may be, the genre lacks the ability prevent such atrocities from happening again due to it’s unreliability, the readers own perception of the book and the obstinacy of human nature. Though unable to hinder forthcoming events, memoirs do present the freedom for one to share their intimate experiences, thoughts and feelings.
Alexander uses a multitude of tones ranging from boredom, concealment, justification, unrest, impurity, wisdom, to a striking realization. Each of these tones elicits a specific response in correspondence to Alexander’s youth. The opening tone of boredom is viewed when, “That Summer in Culpepper, all there was to eat was white: cauliflower, flounder, white sauce, white ice-cream” (lines 1-2). Alexander’s tone of boredom from the uneventful activity is clear, by using the visual sense of the color white, as there is not any type of variety or favor to life regardless of the season of summer being present. This contradiction of a colorful eventful season of summer to the white boring foods being consumed issues an immediate hook for the reader to engage with and it is critical to being the attention to the start of the poem.
Values are those which seem of great prominence to one and meaning influenced by the daily movement, experiences and viewing of perspectives that profoundly surround us and change our thinking. A text can challenge these values by the use of characters that reach out to the audience and allow them to rethink their own by the presenting of differing perspectives. A text’s word can influence different meaning, send out a message, inform and change one’s opinions and beliefs by allowing one to experience different ideas and then to re-think about them. The ideas can oppose conceptions formed without any evidence resulting in the creation of new values, beliefs and visions to perceive the world by filling in the gaps of evidence that was not there
Mary Oliver’s utilization of tone in the poem, “Just as the Calendar Began to Say Summer”, displays the speaker’s reluctant feelings towards the forthcoming school year, and a deep nostalgia to be free in nature, away from the mechanical routines and the structured classrooms that are forced upon them. There is a stark contrast between nature and industrialism, conveying the speaker’s own visions and aids to the tone. In the first stanza of the poem, the speaker’s tone is displayed using diction. The beginning of the poem opens with the speaker “[spending] all summer forgetting what [they’d] been taught” (3).
“That Bitter Dream” Minnesota is known for its cold weather; F. Scott Fitzgerald's short story "winter dreams" takes place in Black Butte Lake, Minnesota. Dexter, the protagonists, is a fourteen-year-old caddy at the Golf Club. Dexter falls in love with eleven-year-old Judy Jones, and looks forward to have her. After some time when he is twenty-three years old, they start dating. Though Judy tricks Dexter and goes with another guy.
In a world like today populated with over 7 billion people who share different forms of languages, vernaculars, and dialects are more common than ever, making it more than ever to be able to communicate successfully across languages and cultures. This essay will examine the advantages of learning other languages for individuals. To answer this question, we turn to the insights of two influential authors: Gloria Anzaldua and David Foster Wallace. Gloria Anzaldua, a Chicana writer, and activist wrote extensively about the complexities of language and identity and believes that learning an additional language may provide a variety of social and personal advantages. David Foster Wallace an author of the book “Authority and American Usage”.
Ambrose Bierce’s “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” revolves around the manipulation of time through the conflict of man versus nature. Bierce uses time in his favor as he switches between the past and the present life of the main character, Peyton Farquhar, as he lives his last moments. He uses this to show how time can be “subjective and phenomenal during times of emotional distress”. (BookRags). The manipulation of time that is unnoticeable whilst reading the story strengthens the themes that are present in this work, such as man’s denial of mortality, and the conjuring of irrational situations.
Explication of ' "Hard Rock Returns to Prison” In the society, people focus much on heroes to see whether they will fall or remain as heroes. The poem ‘Hard Rock Returns to Prison...’ is a narrative tale of life in prison. ‘Hard Rock’ is a hero in the prisons. Every member of the prison are out to see how he has lost his lobotomy.
“A drowsy, dreamy influence seems to hang over the land, and to pervade the very atmosphere. Some say that the place was bewitched by a high German doctor, during the early days of the settlement; others, that an old Indian chief, the prophet or wizard of his tribe, held his powwows there before the country was discovered by Master Hendrick Hudson.” Washington Irving wrote The Legend of Sleepy Hollow in 1820. It is about a teacher, Ichabod Crane, who is chased away by the headless horseman.
The most influential Chinese poets, Du Fu, grew up motherless. Although he didn’t have a complete family, but he used this as the motivation in his poem. He had provided creditable poems by his early teens that had been widely spread through the nation. However, during his later years, he was suffering from illness, and financial problems that he needed to face by himself. Arthur Cooper, interested in Chinese Culture and history, translated Night Thoughts Afloat.
‘Ballad of Landlord’ lays an emphasis on the conflict with social injustice between people of different social level. Langston Hughes stresses the idea of unfair advantage given to people of higher ranks in society by subtly raising the idea of racial segregation between the blacks and whites. He develops a unique rhythm to represent the different stances between a Negro tenant and a white landlord through uses of dialogue, rhetorical question, and hyperbole. The poem opens up with a repeated structure in the first two stanzas to show the dependence of a tenant on a landlord.
The literary device that seems ubiquitous in this poem is alliteration. The first one found in lines 633-634, “ still brave, still strong/ And with his shield at his side, and a mail shirt on his breast.” The “S” sound is repeated. Another example of alliteration shown is on lines 717-718.
