ipl-logo

Summary Of Louise Glück's 'Terminal Resemblance'

1034 Words5 Pages

In Louise Glück’s poem “Terminal Resemblance,” the speaker tells about her relationship, or lack thereof, with her father. The speaker explains a relationship with their father, saying it is not existent. They have a conversation that is supposed to be meaningful, considering he is dying, but it seems to have no meaning to her at all. The speaker wishes her father the best and leaves him and her mother at the door, with the same relationship she had with him before. The poem seems to be about how the speaker does not have a relationship with her father and the news she receives of him dying soon has made her realize that she wants to pursue one with him and start fresh. The strands in the poem actually shows that she has been told that her …show more content…

She uses the phrase “new gravel” (line 11). The word “new” here could seem to mean that she was starting a new relationship with her father and going to form a relationship with him. Since she had talked about her father and how it was like any normal conversation with him, it implies that “new” here means new way to life without him. He is dying and even though the relationship was barely there, her life will change without him. So, “new” could signify the new challenges she will face without him and her new life. The speaker also mentions “young children” (line 29) and “new families” (line 28). The two words “young” and “new” in this context could as well mean the new relationship she will form with her father. In reality, it means the new families that have come while she was gone. The families that were there while she was growing up have left and new ones have came in and moved in with their kids. She used to be that young kid in the neighborhood, and now she has grown up and moved out. This also symbolizes that she has grown up and grown further away from her father since she has grown up. She no longer has that relationship with him, and it is something she cannot rebuild or

Show More
Related
667 Words | 3 Pages

After reading Chapter 1 of “Through Deaf Eyes”. I was not surprised by the facts that were introduced in Chapter 1. Some of these things that were talked about and discussed I have experienced in my life as a deaf person with cochlear implants. "Do you lip read? That's a very dangerous question because if you say yes, they talk [way too fast].

Read More
1273 Words | 6 Pages

The once “fairytale” like expectations on relationships and love came tumbling down as reality set in. This shifting of tones towards love could symbolize many different things; it could symbolize the the transformation of innocent, naive Yolanda into skeptical, emotionally unavailable Yolanda, or the possible life that lies ahead of her and her constant longing for intimacy, or it could even be foreshadowing the possible growing apart that her once close knit family will experience. The utilization of

Read More
2120 Words | 9 Pages

When we speak of Autobiography, we mean life writing which is considered to be a way to write and tell our own struggles and hardships in our lives. As an example of Autobiography, Lucy Grealy’s “Autobiography of a face” as the protagonist in her book, she is relatable to many Greek Mythical creatures, because of her life experiences, life events and the difficulties she faced. Lucy was born in Dublin, Ireland, her family moved to United States, to New York. She was diagnosed with cancer at the age of 9, which lead to the removal of her jawbone. Her childhood was not the typical childhood you would see in our daily life, it was harsh ,tough, full of insults, and taunts followed by the piercing stares of everyone around her, because of how she looked.

Read More
932 Words | 4 Pages

he explains how his father’s motive for loving him and raising becomes a challenge for the son to accept, because of his adolescent behavior and likewise in Sharon Old’s poem “The Possessive” the narrator would describe how uncomfortable she felt when she her daughter grow up too fast. Both poems use a narrative that suggest that there are

Read More
945 Words | 4 Pages

In the Jeannette Walls memoir Glass Castle, the author expounds on situations about education found beyond the classroom walls by using life lessons such as survival skills and moral lessons such as acceptance and forgiveness through figurative language by using imagery. One way Jeannette walls describe education beyond the classroom walls is through a life lesson such as survival skill. At a tender age of five jeannette learned to shoot guns and throw a knife; skills like this could be helpful if you were surviving in the wilderness. The author stated specifically “He also taught us the things that were really important and useful, like how to tap out Morse code and how we should never eat the liver of a polar bear because all the vitamin

Read More
2001 Words | 9 Pages

It is a normal day in fourth grade. I am continuously stumping my classmates academically; however, students also make fun of my accent and unbreakable pattern of defeat in my Physical Education, P.E class. I have come to accept my lack of athleticism, and am giving up on my dream to become an athlete. Yet deep down inside, it still matters to me that no one wants me on their team. I disguise my dreadful athleticism from my classmates by acting careless and uninterested in the game.

Read More
1061 Words | 5 Pages

She constantly compares her current reality to the past perfection: "I tried not to compare their lives to those of my own family" (282). Her new relationships stem from her thirst to replace Boyer and River: "All of them, all the men in my life, except Vern, have had some resemblance to Boyer. And to River. " The implication of what she is saying is not lost on me.

Read More
668 Words | 3 Pages

When she says, “As you increase in years, you will find your understanding opening and daily improving”, she is explaining the process of becoming an adult and identifying his own

Read More
859 Words | 4 Pages

Those words meant that when you are a kid life is gold and to always stay young and enjoy life while everything's new. In particular, Darry grew up too quick and missed out on young childhood experiences. Those small events in life he missed. can change the way he thinks while it was hard to deal with his age going by

Read More
502 Words | 3 Pages

You see the speakers disappoint when she states, “dear mother and father/ I apologize/ I’ve worked very hard, /not good enough/ harder, perhaps to please you/ if only I were a son,” (4-10). This uncover how she is feeling how whatever she does is not good enough for her parents because she is not what they wanted, a son. As the poem continues the poem displays the way the speaker copes with it, when she states “I make this ledge my altar/to offer penance…on my broken body/cover me like whisper of sorries /sorries” (42-43, 52-54).

Read More
838 Words | 4 Pages

She addresses her father as “daddy” like a little kid, speaks in a child-like abrupt manner, and begins the poem with “you do not do/you do not do/ anymore black shoe,” lines that resemble the old nursery rhyme “There is an old woman who lived in a shoe”. However, this is not a happy child, but one with frustration and unresolved conflicts with her father, as she calls him “evil” and a “bastard”. Furthermore, the way an adult woman completely turns into her childhood self suggests an obsession and a fixation within the past, a phenomenon commonly associated with psychological deficiencies stemming from unsolved childhood issues. These observations correspond to how the speaker metaphorically refers to her father as a “black shoe” that she had to live in, showing her inability to overcome the shadow of her late father. Thus, by addressing him directly instead of referring to him in the past tense, the speaker confronts her obsession and tries to escape the

Read More
957 Words | 4 Pages

Captivity is defined as the state of being imprisoned or confined. A tragic experience is given a whole new perspective from Louise Erdrich 's poem, “Captivity”. Through descriptive imagery and a melancholic tone, we can see the poem and theme develop in her words. Erdrich takes a quote from Mary Rowlandson’s narrative about her imprisonment by the Native Americans and her response to this brings readers a different story based off of the epigraph. Louise Erdrich compiles various literary devices to convey her theme of sympathy, and her poem “Captivity” through specific and descriptive language brings a whole new meaning to Mary Rowlandson’s narrative.

Read More
1215 Words | 5 Pages

She starts off the poem with the speaker looking at a “photograph” (Trethewey l. 1) of herself when she was four years old. The reader is instantly taken into a personal memory of the narrator and

Read More
845 Words | 4 Pages

In this song, the speaker is portrayed as a man who is hurting from his past relationship and so he tries to figure out what made things change and where they went wrong. Throughout the song the speaker reflects on how he was feeling while they were still together and now that they are apart. The song was written as a message to the antagonist, the woman that the speaker loved, and now, is no longer with; he wants answers and he wants her to know how he feels and just how much she hurt him. The speaker lets us know that the pain he is feeling from this broken love of theirs is internal by stating, “To hear that tears me up inside and to see you cuts me like a knife” (Poison).

Read More
1055 Words | 5 Pages

This creates a dissimilarity between some of the poems and how death is presented. Long Distance is about the pain of remembering someone who has died naturally. The poem describes the narrator’s father’s failure to come to terms with the death of his wife. Although she has been dead for two years he still renews her bus pass and warms her slippers. His son cannot understand this behaviour, but the final stanza reveals that now that both his parents are dead, and despite how he felt earlier, he still keeps their phone numbers in his “new black leather phone book.”

Read More

More about Summary Of Louise Glück's 'Terminal Resemblance'

Related Topics

Open Document