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Civil rights movement in the usa
Civil rights movements in the united states
Civil rights movement in the usa
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In Nikky Finney's poem "Red Velvet", Rosa parks, a 42 year old seamstress recalls the time 12 years ago when she was put off of a bus for refusing to give up her seat to a white man. On December 1st, 1955, 12 years after the incident, she boards the same bus that was driven by the driver who put her off before, but this time when asked to move, Rosa parks decides to stay put. She reminisces on her experiences of segregation, discrimination and her daily struggles on and off the bus. Finney uses an extended metaphor as she compares the strength of fabric to the persistence of Rosa Parks. The part that I thought was most important/moved me the most was when Finney claims that the job of a seamstress is tough and that one should never underestimate
This metaphor displays his uncertainty as per his crucial part in that moment in time. The soldier pictures himself as the hand on a clock, subject to the inevitable force of a clockwork motor that cannot be slowed or quickend. He realises that he does not really know why he is running and feels “statuary in mid-stride”. However, towards the end of the poem, all moral justifications for the existence of war have become meaningless- “King, honour, human dignity, etcetera Dropped like luxuries in a yelling alarm”, which is extremely dismissive of all the motives people provide for joining the army, explicitly stating that those motives do not justify and do not withstand the war. Disorientation is also highlighted in the line “Stumbling across a field of clods towards a green hedge That dazzled with rifle fire” where the confusion between the natural world and man-made world is expressed.
Often times these protests were broken up by the police. Moreover, it vividly depicts the violence that the African Americans had to endure. The mother has this underlying fear that if her kid would go out to march, that they would face the police’s brutality. Throughout the poem, it’s read in a very sing song manner
The repetition of “walk” at the end of every stanza of this section “…on their slow walk/…run-no walk/…robes walk/…shadows walk/…hollow walk/…know-walk” (35-48) reflects how tough it is to move on from a loss. Through the line “Our limbs tangle in sleep, but our shadows walk,” (44) Smith tries to show how she has been affected by the memories of her lost father and how hard she is struggling to cope with his death. She emphasizes to walk away so that she can divert herself from his memories but ultimately, she wants the readers to realize that the only option left is to accept the truth and move on from the grief. According to an article Life On Mars, “The poems about Floyd are affecting and hauntingly convey Smith’s grief as she attempts to cope with his death. In referring to the unknowable expanses of the universe, she is able to express her feelings of both loss and hope.”
In the poem, "If We Must Die," McKay uses figurative language to convey the message of racial equality to his audience. Using figurative language, the readers are able to have a deeper understanding of what the African Americans are going through. For instance, in the poem it states, “If we must die, let it not be like hogs.” (1). In this sentence, the author compares the way hogs die to the African Americans dying.
Dhrumi Patel Period:4 Mrs.Blanke Mrs.Hnasko English Lit IV A Research Paper Langston Hughes Influence on the Harlem Renaissance “Democracy” by Langston Hughes was written during the Harlem Renaissance and left a great impact on it. It helped people stay true to their traditions and made people want to fight for their equality. His real name was James Mercer Langston Hughes and was born on February 1, 1902, in Joplin, Missouri. His parents got a divorce when he was a young child.
Readers are able to gain a deeper understanding of the poem “truth’’ when they view the poem after learning about Gwendolyn Brooks’ life and times. We were able to understand the poem better when the text said, “...with several of her poems reflecting the civil rights activism of that period…(“Poetry is life distilled”-paragraph 1).” As a rule, when an author is passionate about a subject, they often reflect that in their writing. By examining Brooks’ background as a civil rights activist, the reader is able to connect passages of the poem, such as the light/sun metaphor “and if sun comes how shall we greet him”(“truth” by Gwendolyn Brooks), with the civil rights movement and as a time where everyone can be treated as equal. We are also able
The agony the writer is feeling about his son 's death, as well as the hint of optimism through planting the tree is powerfully depicted through the devices of diction and imagery throughout the poem. In the first stanza the speaker describes the setting when planting the Sequoia; “Rain blacked the horizon, but cold winds kept it over the Pacific, / And the sky above us stayed the dull gray.” The speaker uses a lexicon of words such as “blackened”, “cold” and “dull gray” which all introduce a harsh and sorrowful tone to the poem. Pathetic fallacy is also used through the imagery of nature;
Carefully noticing his choice of words would give a deeper understanding of the poem. His use of the word charter’d to describe River Thames, which pertains to a document issued by the government that gives rights to a person or group, means that everything was by the government’s ruling. The last two lines of the first stanza, ”And mark in every face I meet /Marks of weakness, marks of woe” show that however the conservatives want to consider the revolution an insult to the European civilization, the faces of the people he saw in the city show loneliness and weakness because the city was crumbling to ashes and its people were left to suffer the consequences of a bad governance who’s had the people believe they could not do anything. In the second stanza, he mentions the mind-forg'd manacles, which denotes that the kind of thinking of the people around this time was trapped in the prison they made themselves because they have accepted the way things are for themselves with no attempt to change the repression to their rights. The people in his poem were not actually present, but an indirect meeting with them was demonstrated through the traces they may have left, like the blood and the cries that haunt the city, which was a literary symbolism: not one of them appears in
Finishing on the third stanza, Owen has used colour once again. “ purple spurted from his thigh”, it illustrates the bruises he had gotten from war and the deep impact on him, a colour signifying life and languor. Ending the poem with soldiers in the institute waiting for people to come emphasizes the fact that he is dependent and helpless. Also it reflected back to the start of the poem where he was waiting for death to come. “ How cold and late it is!
The poem “Coal” written by Audre Lorde uses figurative language to elaborate on how words are open. Leaving the meanings open to interpretation for the reader. The poem “Harlem” created by Langston Hughes expounds the correlation between between dreams and objects that eventually fade in value. Using rhetorical questions to allow the reader to come to their own conclusion. Understanding the time period of which they’re written helps understand point of view of each poem more vividly.
The poem aims to glorify soldiers and certain aspects of war, it goes on to prove that in reality there really isn 't good vs bad on the battlefield, it 's just a man who "sees his children smile at him, he hears the bugle call, And only death can stop him now—he 's fighting for them all.", and this is our hidden meaning.
Firstly within the poems, both Owen and Harrison present the horrific images of war through use of visual imagery. “And leaped of purple spurted his thigh” is stated. Owen describes the immediate action of presenting the truth of war as horrific and terrifying . The phrase “purple spurted” represents the odd color of the blood which was shedded as the boulder from the bomb smashed his leg in a matter of seconds. The readers
The poem Truth, by Gwendolyn Brooks, has a lot of symbolism in it. Different things throughout the poem both represent parts of the Civil Rights movement as well as things that we can relate to our lives today. She did really well with her literary elements used, especially personification. This makes her writing more relatable and realistic in our minds to grasp. Truth is a wonderful poem full of all sorts of different literary elements.
The poet compared the graves like a shipwreck that is the death will take the human go down and drowning to the underground like the dead bodies in the graves. The last line “as though we lived falling out of the skin into the soul.” is like the rotting of the dead bodies. The second stanza there is one Simile in this
