ipl-logo

Poem Analysis: 'Exile' By Julia Alvarez

407 Words2 Pages
There is a journey and there is a destination, which is more important? “Exile” is a poem by Julia Alvarez, which is about a girl and her family leaving the Dominican Republic to go to New York because their country was taken over by a dictator. “Exile” by Julia Alvarez shows that the journey is more important than the destination.
In the poem it seems that the journey is more of the main idea. Alvarez talks about how it is important for the family to make it to the place they are going without getting caught. In line 29 where Alvarez says “Past the checkpoint, we raced toward the airport.” This line gives the story an intense feeling like they are trying to get away fast. When the family is in New York the family feels out of place even though
Show More
Related
136 Words | 1 Pages

The trip being her reward for having completed school, basically her childhood. The way she connects these separate thoughts and the evenly distributed connotation of the two, signifies

Read More
246 Words | 1 Pages

In the poem, “Dusting,” by Julia Alvarez, the speaker is being rebellious against her mother and wants to do different things than what her mother wants her to do. In the first stanza, the poet writes that the speaker writes her name many times on dusty furniture “each morning” while the mother followed her to dust the furniture and the mess by the girl. This is an example of the speaker rebelling her mother since this is a metaphor meaning that the girl wants to accomplish different things than her mother but her mother keeps on erasing her accomplishments and wants the girl to be just like her. Another evidence in the poem is at the end of stanza two, where the speaker says “But I refuse with every mark to be like her, anonymous.” This phrase

Read More
510 Words | 3 Pages

La Migra is a poem written by Pat Mora about the Mexican - American immigration issue. It’s purpose is to acknowledge the emotions and sentiments of the Mexican immigrants who try to come to the United States illegally. The denotation of the poem’s title means immigration and the connotation is referring to the police officers standing at the Mexico-United States border. The poem is divided into two stanzas to acknowledge immigration through the different perspectives of the illegal immigrant and also through the eyes of the border police. The first stanza is through the perspective of the male border cop, who thinks his power and nonessential items make his superior to the immigrants.

Read More
619 Words | 3 Pages

Some see the ugliness in the most beautiful things but others see the beauty in the most hideous of things. The poem William Street by Kenneth Slessor demonstrates this thesis statement as he talks about how he sees the beauty in the street that is renowned for its ugliness and the unsightly surroundings it is engulfed with. This poem's literary techniques and imagery gives the readers an insight into the environment and the surroundings that are seen vividly even though they are described through the use of foreshadowing. Each stanza gives the readers a different understanding on what is going on during the poem.

Read More
618 Words | 3 Pages

“It never stopped, this running. We were constant prey, and the hunters soon became big blurs: the police, the gangs, the junkies, the dudes on Garvey Boulevard who took our money, all smudged into one. Sometimes they were teachers who jumped on us Mexicans as if we were born with a hideous stain. we were always afraid. Always Running.”

Read More
806 Words | 4 Pages

Journeys can be driven by the desire to escape to a better place, but the process itself is just as significant as it discovers and transforms an individual’s perspective and identity. In Crossing the Red Sea, the migrants’ journey from war-torn Europe is ironically at a standstill, forcing them to contemplate their past and present circumstances. The voyage is a source of alleviation from emotional seclusion demonstrated through the personification “Voices left their caves / Silence fell from its shackles”, creating a mood of hope. Negatively, however, the migrants’ “limbo-like” status is highlighted by the metaphor of “patches and shreds / of dialogue”, creating a pessimistic tone increasing the sense of lost identity. The metaphor of “a

Read More
788 Words | 4 Pages

Throughout the story, “Invierno” by Junot Dìaz, there are many journeys that are taken by each character. Each character had experienced a different journey whether if it was a literal or metaphorical journeyed. In the short story, “Invierno” by Junot Dìaz, Mami takes a literal journey from her homeland the Dominican Republic towards the United States, specifically New Jersey. Mami takes the long journey with her family and despite the positives of receiving a better life, ultimately this journey was in fact a negative experience for Mami because she faced a lot of hardships transitioning from the Dominican Republic to the U.S. For instance, one hardship she faces instantly when coming to New Jersey was trying to learn and understand the English language when nobody wants to help her and having to feel lonely the entire time being over in New Jersey. Although, Mami was pleased with the idea of coming at first and hearing about the laundry room.

Read More
934 Words | 4 Pages

How would you feel if someone could control what you were thinking? In “The Feed” written by M.T Anderson, everyone living in the community had a feed in their brain that was controlled by one large organization. Violet, the main character, suffers through a malfunction in her feed that changes the way she sees her society. Most people’s opinions can be changed when they have experienced the benefits and the disadvantages of something. Since Violet is aware of how life is with and without the feed, she becomes hesitant to believing that her community is being run efficiently.

Read More
251 Words | 2 Pages

Julia Alvarez, in her poem “’Poetry Makes Nothing Happen’?”, writes that poems do play a role in people’s lives. She supports her idea by using relateable examples of how poems might change someone’s life. Her first example is simple, poetry can entertain someone on long drives. This does not only aply to long dirves however, Alvarez uses this to show that poetry does not have to have a big influence on someone’s life, instead it can affect a person in the smallest of ways, such as entertainment. The second example describes poetry comforting someone after the loss of a loved one.

Read More
728 Words | 3 Pages

The poem My Mother The Land by Phill Moncrieff poetically describes the struggles the aboriginal people faced at the hands of the European people and colonisation throughout history. The fact that the author based the poem on accurate historical events adds to the authenticity of representations and engages the reader in an emotional journey with the struggles the aboriginal people faced with the somewhat loss of their country, culture, identity, people and place. The author uses a variety of language features and text structures to create this view point, for instance the author uses several language features and text structures throughout verse one to demonstrate the loss of culture and people. The poet uses effective language features throughout the poem to describe the loss that the narrator feels in their country, culture, identity, people

Read More
1442 Words | 6 Pages

Rina Morooka Mr Valera Language Arts Compare and Contrast essay on “The poet’s obligation”, “When I have fears that I may cease to be”, and “In my craft of sullen art” The three poems, “The poet’s obligation” by Neruda, “when I have fears that I may cease to be” by Keats, and “In my craft of sullen art” by Thomas, all share the similarity that they describe poets’ relationships with their poems. However, the three speakers in the three poems shared different views on their poetry; the speaker in Neruda’s poem believes that his poems which were born out of him stored creativity to people who lead busy and tiring life, and are in need of creativity, while the speaker in Keats’ poem believes that his poems are like tools to write down what

Read More
526 Words | 3 Pages

“Poetry Is Not a Luxury” (1982) intertwines feminism and poetry together. Author Audre Lorde says that for women, “poetry is not a luxury, but a necessity of our existence” (Lorde, 1982, pg. 281). In today’s society, women’s opinions aren’t really expressed, because it’s not widely accepted in this man-built world. Lorde’s quote “poetry is not a luxury, but a necessity of our existence” means that women should use their voices and channel their energy into poetry. Since poetry is accepted, women aren’t being deviant.

Read More
989 Words | 4 Pages

The poem A Step Away From Them by Frank O’Hara has five stanzas written in a free verse format with no distinguishable rhyme scheme or meter. The poem uses the following asymmetrical line structure “14-10-9-13-3” while using poetic devices such as enjambment, imagery, and allusion to create each stanza. A Step Away From Them occurs in one place, New York City. We know this because of the lines, “On/ to Times Square, / where the sign/blows smoke over my head” (13-14) and “the Manhattan Storage Warehouse.”

Read More
869 Words | 4 Pages

“On the Subway,” written by Sharon Olds, is written from the perspective of what is presumed to be an upper class white woman, who finds herself on a subway with a lower class black boy. In “On the Subway”, Olds focuses on the controversial issue of racial conflict, and the theme of White v. Black. She does so by use of contrast between whites and blacks, by using harsh enjambments, powerful imagery, and by using the tone to convey the purpose. A major strategy used by Olds throughout the poem is contrast; in this case, the contrast between blacks and whites.

Read More
1000 Words | 4 Pages

Nothing But Death Analysis. Nothing But Death, The poem from Pablo Neruda translated and edited by Robert Bly. The poem presented about the looks of the Death and about how the death appears around the human.

Read More

More about Poem Analysis: 'Exile' By Julia Alvarez

Related Topics

Open Document