When someone thinks of a hurricane, it is not often that fruit is the first thing that comes to their mind. In “Problems with Hurricanes,” Victor Hernandez Cruz brings mangoes and bananas to center stage in the midst of a hurricane. The poem, as told through the eyes of a “campesino” (a native of a Latin-American rural area), gives the fruit a dangerous, deadly part in contributing to casualties during a hurricane (Webster’s 178). The campesino believes that death by produce is a dishonorable way to die and points out that people need to be aware of the things that may be happening around them because there is a possibility that they don’t appear as all that they are. Throughout “Problems with Hurricanes,” Cruz reveals that the most beautiful sweet things can be the most dangerous.
A flower or dove or the goddess Aphrodite are all easily associated with beauty, but the color red or warnings are associated with danger. Humans as a whole don’t normally associate beauty with danger. However, in some rare, unexpected scenarios, for example, a hurricane, the beautiful things can become the danger. The campesino points this out when he references flying fruits being deadly amidst the winds of a hurricane. “A mango smashing/ [someone’s] skull/ or a plantain hitting [their]/ temple at 70 miles per hour,” are his examples of the fruits causing death (Cruz 786, 20-23). The fruits he mentions, mangoes and plantains, are symbols of all sweet, beautiful things with their flowering blossoms and vibrant colors. Neither shows any signs or symbols of being dangerous, but according to the campesino, when thrown about in a hurricane,
W a l l | 2 they can be dangerous enough to cause death. Even though a symbol can portray an object or feeling as bea...
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...l/sweet things,” but warnings don’t associate with
W a l l | 3 beauty, giving an example of how the majority of the human race doesn’t normally think of anything beautiful as dangerous (Cruz 787, 32-35).
Victor Hernandez Cruz uses symbols, images, and tones in “Problems with Hurricanes” to get the point across that people should be wary of sweet beautiful things, as they can cause the most damage and be the most dangerous. Through the words spoken by the campesino as the poem progresses, readers are brought to the conclusion that just because an object looks enticing on the outside (a banana or mango), doesn’t mean it can’t turn into something deadly under the right circumstances, even if it is the cause of an outside force acting on the object that makes it deadly. Thus, the things that are the most appealing- sweet and beautiful- can cause the most harm and danger.
Gwendolyn Brooks and Sonia Sanchez, in their poems “We Real Cool” and “Summer Words of a Sistuh Addict”, are both alike in their idea of dealing with troubled youth. Brooks discusses in her poem “We Real Cool” rebellious pool-playing youth that “sing sin” (Line 5) and “thin gin.” (Line 6) The whole poem centers around disturbed youth. The narrator in Sonia Sanchez’s poem “Summer Words of a Sistuh Addict”, is also a disturbed young woman who is addicted to heroin, and seems to live a rather rebellious lifestyle. In addition, both of these poems use tone via word choice, sentence structure, and meter in order to vividly describe the scenarios in their poems, and to impact their reader. However, both poets use the literary elements mentioned above differently in their poems.
A storm such as Katrina undoubtedly ruined homes and lives with its destructive path. Chris Rose touches upon these instances of brokenness to elicit sympathy from his audience. Throughout the novel, mental illness rears its ugly head. Tales such as “Despair” reveal heart-wrenching stories emerging from a cycle of loss. This particular article is concerned with the pull of New Orleans, its whisper in your ear when you’ve departed that drags you home. Not home as a house, because everything physical associated with home has been swept away by the storm and is now gone. Rather, it is concerned with home as a feeling, that concept that there is none other than New Orleans. Even when there is nothing reminiscent of what you once knew, a true New Orleanian will seek a fresh start atop the foundation of rubbish. This is a foreign concept for those not native to New Orleans, and a New Orleanian girl married to a man from Atlanta found her relationship split as a result of flooding waters. She was adamant about staying, and he returned to where he was from. When he came back to New Orleans for her to try and make it work, they shared grim feelings and alcohol, the result of which was the emergence of a pact reminiscent of Romeo and Juliet. This couple decided they would kill themselves because they could see no light amongst the garbage and rot, and failure was draining them of any sense of optimism. She realized the fault in this agreement,
The poem “Exile” by Julia Alvarez dramatizes the conflicts of a young girl’s family’s escape from an oppressive dictatorship in the Dominican Republic to the freedom of the United States. The setting of this poem starts in the city of Trujillo in the Dominican Republic, which was renamed for the brutal dictator Rafael Trujillo; however, it eventually changes to New York when the family succeeds to escape. The speaker is a young girl who is unsophisticated to the world; therefore, she does not know what is happening to her family, even though she surmises that something is wrong. The author uses an extended metaphor throughout the poem to compare “swimming” and escaping the Dominican Republic. Through the line “A hurried bag, allowing one toy a piece,” (13) it feels as if the family were exiled or forced to leave its country. The title of the poem “Exile,” informs the reader that there was no choice for the family but to leave the Dominican Republic, but certain words and phrases reiterate the title. In this poem, the speaker expresser her feeling about fleeing her home and how isolated she feels in the United States.
“The House on Mango Street” emphasizes on this issue, even broadens to explain other controversial matters such as abuse, misogynistic views, and stereotypes. The protagonist, Esperanza Cordero moves to Mango Street where she must witness the abuse affecting her friends, neighbors, and family. Either Sally a close friend, Mamacita a neighbor, or her own mother handling 4 children. Over the course of the novel Esperanza changes physically and mentally. Through the use of imagery as well as complex, descriptive vignettes Cisneros epitomizes the misogynistic views within Esperanza’s
Symbolism is the key to understanding Sandra Cisneros’ novel, “The House on Mango Street”. By unraveling the symbolism, the reader truly exposes the role of not only Latina women but women of any background. Esperanza, a girl from a Mexican background living in Chicago, writes down what she witnesses while growing up. As a result of her sheltered upbringing, Esperanza hardly comprehends the actions that take place around her, but what she did understand she wrote in her journal. Cisneros used this technique of the point of view of a child, to her advantage by giving the readers enough information of what is taking place on Mango Street so that they can gather the pieces of the puzzle a get the big picture.
Once there was, as never before, a hurricane of great might and strength. As never before, there once was a hurricane of many names: storm, cyclone, tempest, typhoon, and flood. Yet it has lived on in history as the Great Galveston Hurricane of 1900. Humanity has glorified and immortalized the hurricane. The Great Galveston Hurricane has been the subject of numerous articles, novels, plays, and poems, as well as four major nonfiction studies (Longshore). It is truly one of hurricane lore’s greatest of storms.
Junot Diaz’s “Otravida, Otravez” postulates a perspective of life where one’s present and future always reflects their past in some way. Diaz incorporates symbolic figures to convey how a person’s past can be carried into the future. Diaz’s use of symbolic figures includes the dirty sheets washed by Yasmin, the letters sent by Virta to Ramon, and the young girl who begins working with Yasmin at the hospital. These symbolic figures and situations remind the readers that the past will always play a major role in one’s present. Additionally, Diaz’s word choice, where Spanish words appear in many different parts of the reading, suggests that indirectly, one’s past habits are not easily broken.
When I first watched the video “Strange Fruit” I found it nothing short of gruesome. The words swelled my eyes with tears as the images thwacked into my empathetic heart like an axe cutting into a tree. I could feel each clang as each picture changed. I listened intently to the words that sadly sawed through the lyrics leaving sawdust and residue in my mind. The song bears the pain of the fruit that has been lost. The title, like the trunk of a tree, is the foundation of the song, the representation of its strength but not what is most remembered. The pictures, are the flowers, of the video blooming of the face of each hanged man. The leaves, as Billy Holiday sings them, so simple but yet the crown of the tree, the sadness over the hierarchal rank
Jimmy Santiago Baca’s poem “Green Chile” describes a personal experience growing up with a staple food of the Southwest tradition. In the 3 stanzas and 45 eloquent lines, Baca uses symbolism through red and green chile peppers. The red chile peppers symbolize strength and progression and are also the peppers the author prefers. On the other hand, the green chilies represent youth, which are Baca’s grandmother's favorite. Both the red and green chilies are differentiated by the flavor and taste to tell a story of Baca and his history of growing up with his grandmother.
Gina Valdes in her poem English con Salsa used many literary techniques. One of them was humor and throughout the poem it is used greatly. An example of it starts in the beginning where the po...
A symbol of these hardships and obstacles would be the hurricane. The destructive storm occurs in the Everglades where Janie and Tea Cake live. Soon as the storm comes, they try to quickly evacuate the area but are unsuccessful. While huddling with their colleagues from the storm, they heard “the wind came back with triple fury, and put out the light for the last time… They seemed to be staring at the dark, but their eyes were watching God” (160). In the eyes of the characters, this mighty force of nature is compared to God. God is a powerful, divine being who can create beautiful things but can abolish them. The hurricane from God represents the hindrances Janie faced throughout her journey. Despite facing these difficulties, she manages to keep faith and overcome her hardships. The massive storm gives Janie the strength to conquer her future obstacles in her prolong
“A Poison Tree”, and many other poems by William Blake are superb examples of the Romanticism movement through their focus on the situation and sins of the common man and use of nature as a major symbol and conceit. These highly romantic characteristics, along with his simplistic language, convey the romantic focus on mankind. This poem is easily understood by all who read it; however simplistic it is, the message of warning continues to stand true. Blake’s unique transitional writing style to the romantic literary movement made him one of the most influential men in literature in his day. His works aided in the popularization of Romanticism, which continues to be a large contributor to the art and literature of today.
The idiom “revenge is sweet” appears so frequently that one might think the cliché is true, yet the nature of revenge is far more complex and may leave more bitterness in its wake. The cyclical nature of revenge and man’s inhumanity to man means it has a propensity to intensify and devastate the people in its wake including the inflictor. Gabriel García Márquez’s Chronicle of a Death Foretold and Isabel Allende’s The House of the Spirits examine the theme of the nature of revenge through the presence and significance of prominent characters seeking revenge in both Latin American novels.
The storm is the main metaphor in this story; it is seen as the lust that stomps through their lives like the storm rages through a single d...
Nichols also uses symbolism in her poem, the hurricane is a symbol of her Caribbean culture. They are very irregular in