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Recommended: Poetry poems
Throughout the poem "Two Hangovers" many vivid and descriptive images are given by the author. The images the reader gets are cold, lonely, and dark as some think winter to be; however, in the second part the reader receives an image of bright colors which could be interpreted as a time of renewal, spring, or a time when things are looking up. Imagery and metaphors are used to show the reader the feeling and life depiction of the person in the poem while portraying the image that reflects this. In "Two Hangovers," James Wright uses imagery and metaphors to illustrate a harsh winter changing into spring, and how he feels and acts during these seasons.
As he slouches in bed, a description of the bare trees and an old woman gathering coal are given to convey to the reader an idea of the times and the author's situation. "All groves are bare," and "unmarried women (are) sorting slate from arthracite." This image operates to tell the reader that it is a time of poverty, or a "yellow-bearded winter of depression." No one in the town has much to live for during this time. "Cold trees" along with deadness, through the image of "graves," help illustrate the author's impression of winter. Wright seems to be hibernating from this hard time of winter, "dreaming of green butterflies searching for diamonds in coal seams." This conveys a more colorful and happy image showing what he wishes was happening; however he knows that diamonds are not in coal seams and is brought back to the reality of winter. He talks of "hills of fresh graves" while dreaming, relating back to the reality of what is "beyond the streaked trees of (his) window," a dreary, povern-strucken, and cold winter.
The end of Number one also reinforces the impression of winter. The image of a sparrow, generally a brown or dark bird, that "sings of the Hanna Coal
Co. and the dead moon," reinforces the description of winter once again, because there is no life during winter as opposed to a harvest moon in fall when it is warm, life is good, and food is plenty. "The filaments of cold light bulbs tremble," gives a very cold image and it is like music, but he can not listen to it.
As characters in the poem are literally snow bound, they find that the natural occurrence actually serves a relaxing and warming purpose, one that brings together family. This effect is further achieved through the use of meter throughout the work as a whole. In its simplistic yet conversational tone, the author uses meter to depict the result that nature has forced upon these humans, who are but a small sample size that actually is representative of society that that time. Due to nature, the characters can talk, represented by the conversational meter, and thus, they can bond within the family. A larger representation of this more specific example can be applied to a more general perspective of human’s relationship with the natural world. Although “Snowbound” captures what humans do as a result of nature, it can also represent a larger picture, where nature appears at the most opportune times to enhance relationships from human to human. In “snowbound,” this is symbolized by the fire, “Our warm hearth seemed blazing free” (Whittier 135). This image relays a spirited, warm, mood full of security, which is expertly used by the author to show how fire, a natural phenomena, can provide such beneficial effects on humans. This very occurrence exemplifies how such a miniscule aspect of nature can have such a profound effect on a family, leaving the reader wondering what nature and its entirety could accomplish if used as a
The image is tantalizing: a small, desolate town, cursed with numbing chilliness, has its streets, its buildings, and its trees blotchily painted upon layers and layers of colorless coldness. The heavy snow continues falling, stacking, growing, and engulfing the town in white, dull skies threatening no stop, until there is a sudden halt. Just for a moment, the skies are clear, pure and bright. A pleasant warmth touches every spot, every nook, and every cranny drenched in snow. Everything seems to be filled with a bright warmth before the cold chill engulfs the town once more and continues to bury the town even further into a bitter, cold winter. In Edith Wharton's novel, Ethan Frome, the dark climate exemplifies Ethan's grief of living a miserable life in Starkfield. His long term marriage with his bitter wife, Zeenobia, only adds to his hardships and it is clear that his only source of joy comes from the company of Zeena's young and cheerful cousin, Mattie Silver.
It begins with the narrator stating, “Slowly I slip into oncoming twilight in unutterable silence of fog and green light” (Stanza 1). Thus, the foggy atmosphere represents her loneliness now that her man has vanished. When the narrator lays her, “back against the ancient elms until they shiver with their age,” (Stanza 2) she reminisces the memories of her love. Larsen demonstrates how the elms are growing old just like her lover, and she slowly illustrates the memorial in the background as the stanzas continue. As the memorial becomes more visible, the narrator recounts, “I watch him light on a blade of grass and he stays without breath, without motion,” (Stanza 4). Using the firefly to represent the deceased, Larsen also compares the forest to a memorial through her description of the atmosphere and visuals faded behind her
In many ways, the ideas and themes expressed in Edith Wharton’s Ethan Frome are comparable to those detailed in Margaret Atwood’s poem, “February”. As both works of literature feature the cold winter months or a single harsh winter month as the respective settings for the pieces, the messages that the writers intend to convey to their readers is incredibly similar. In both cases, winter symbolizes the repression of love and passion and the increased frequency of depressing thoughts. Atwood writes that in February, “famine / crouches in the bed sheets.../ and pollution pours / out of our chimneys to keep us warm” (20-24). In the life of her speaker, there is no love during this cold, brutal month. She has no one else to keep her bed warm,
At the beginning of the poem, the speaker starts by telling the reader the place, time and activity he is doing, stating that he saw something that he will always remember. His description of his view is explained through simile for example “Ripe apples were caught like red fish in the nets of their branches” (Updike), captivating the reader’s attention
The opening lines of the poem paint a picture of a bright forest in autumn, when the leaves are just turning red and nature is preparing for the coming of winter. However, this forest is empty. The “light in the nothingness” (line 2) is an image describing the way this person feels and the grief that now stares him in the face because of the cremation of his father. His father is now “dull cinders and grit” (line 4), something that is no longer human, and yet the author wants to look at the ashes as though they are still human. When he sees the “round
Fitzgerald, F. Scott. "Winter Dreams." Print. Rpt. in English 102 Course Pack. By Megan Newell. Montreal: Eastman Systems, 2012. 33-40. Print.
She describes the September morning as “mild, benignant, yet with a keener breath than the summer months.” She then goes on to describe the field outside her window, using word choice that is quite the opposite of words that would be used to describe a depressing story. She depicts the exact opposite of death, and creates a feeling of joy, happiness, and life to the world outside her room. After this, she goes into great detail about the “festivities” of the rooks among the treetops, and how they “soared round the treetops until it looked as if a vast net with thousands of black knots in it had been cast up into the air”. There is so much going on around her that “it was difficult to keep the eyes strictly turned upon the book.” Descriptions like these are no way to describe a seemingly depressing story about a moth, but by using these, joyful descriptions, Woolf connects everything happening outside to a single strand of energy. These images set a lively tone for the world around her, and now allow her to further introduce the moth into the story.
The valley is described as a “desolate” place where “ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills into grotesque gardens”. (21) Ashes that dominate the area take the shape of natural greenery. The term “grotesque gardens” uses alliteration, with juxtaposition; to highlight the odd pairing of ashes and greenery. Ashes are associated with death while ridges and “gardens” represent the potential to flourish and grow in the promise and ideal of equality as in “the trees that had made way for Gatsby’s house, had once pandered in whispers to the last and greatest of all human dreams.” (143) The trees that once stood here were able to speak to man’s dreams, which allude to America, the land able to speak to man’s dreams and capacity for wonder. All this is replaced by grey ash that suffocates the inhabitants, restricting them to their social class. This presents a bleak image of hopelessness that surrounds the valley.
Smith successfully uses the periodic nature of the seasons to mirror her own emotions as she considers the hope of new life offered in spring and the fading of life in the autumn. However it is this cyclical nature that she wishes to prevent and she expresses this through her experimentation of sonnet form and by rejecting the regular cycle of a sonnet. Although the diction and alliteration employed by Smith enables the reader to imagine the force of the autumn as it destroys the life of the landscape, the speaker finds comfort in this and is able to relate it due to her own melancholy situation. Such imagery allows the reader to relate the loss and decay of autumn to the speakers own experiences of loss and her own life fading away.
Despite his position, Wordsworth can hear the “soft island murmur” of the mountain springs. As “five long winters” suggests, Wordsworth is cold and dreary—London, we must remember, is a bitter place. He longs for the islands: the sand, sun, and warm waters that those murmurs suggest. The coldness of winter could be brought about by Rebecca’s distance from her brother; they had been, at the time of the poem’s writing, separate for five long years. But he can hear reconciliation coming just at the edge of hearing: he can spot the horizon of friendship. But no sooner does friendship appear in the poem than it is thwarted by these lines:
In both, out of some onomatopoeic words for a bird song and realistic sceneries of nature, the true beauty and ugliness is doubted. While we all suppose spring to be the most beautiful fantastic global fete, the poet shows us a mocking unpleasing view out of that. Or on the other hand he shows us a delicate heartsome scene in the lifeless vapid "Winter."
The use of visual imagery in each poem immensely contributed to conveying the theme. In the poem “Reluctance”, Robert Frost used this poetic device to better illustrate the leaves of autumn:
The more Pitch thought on the matter the more clearly the string of events became in his mind. From the time Jack had broken from his control to the moment he had wrapped his hand around the winter spirits neck. He could still see the look in Jack's eyes as he struggled to free himself from his grasp. To free himself so that he could breath once more. Perhaps though what he could see most clearly was the sight of the life fade from ...
Images of different different seasons of the year to explain the process of growing older. Images that depict the fading of light in a persons soul transforming into darkness. Images that the reader can perceive as vivid actions. Images that all symbolize one thing, death. In the first quatrain the speaker begins by comparing an old middle age man to a tree with few to none yellow leaves hanging on its branch, and branches moving to the wind of a cold late autumn/early winter day. Image that depicts a lifeless trees and shivering branches, branches that perhaps represent the weak muscles of the speaker. Another image is depicted in the first quatrain containing the same idea. The image of an old church choirs in ruins. In the second quatrain the speaker depicts a moving image of a twilight that can be seen fading on him as the sun sets in the west and soon turns into darkness. Symbolizing the last moments of life the speaker has. In the third quatrain the speaker depicts an image with a similar meaning as the previous, except for one distinctly last thought. The speaker depicts a living image of a bonfire extinguishing and turning into ashes, ashes that may represent his well lived youth. The image gives the idea that ashes represent what once was a beautiful life to the speaker. Overall the images representing the