Tornado Warning: What are we really afraid of?
Many people fear change that they usually want stability and comfort. However, they can be harmful in some ways. In Amy Wright’s poem “Tornado Warning,” she describes how the people in the village are getting isolated not only by the tornado but also by their attitude. The tornado figuratively represents immigrants and their culture, which the people are afraid of. The author especially focuses on the people’s reaction and interaction among themselves as the tornado is coming and passing by: they feel lonely, isolated, and segmented from each other. Amy Wright uses imagery, symbolism, and irony to give the readers a message that people should not fear the new change or the immigrants because they can be stimuli for further development and auspicious future with interactive and cooperative generations.
The very first literary element Wright uses in the poem is
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In the poem, Wright uses two main specific symbols to make readers to understand the poem. The first symbol is the windowless first-floor copy room. “Windowless” illustrates unsafety and vulnerability of the room. It implies how easily the room can be affected by the wind or tornado. As it used to be a place where people had normal, happy lives, now that it is damaged, Wright understands the power of the “tornado.” The second symbol is tornado or great wind, which depicts immigrants or settlers to local area. Tornado and great wind seem also represent the negative impact of immigration or the attempt of new culture incorporating or blending into other culture as Wright describes as “if a great wind / has already sucked them up from the center, whirled / them into an infinite vacuum of aloneness” (12-14). Although they may seem harmful at first glance, they can also be the people who can help local residents to fight hunger and hurt and to live together if the residents bear to be together with