Life grows like the unappreciated green grass in a desert-like environment, swiftly springing up, but with overflowing surprises that make humans question in curiosity, because life wants these mere humans who just survive day by day to expect the unexpected without a countdown or warning. These unexpected and ineluctable occurrences happen daily, whether positive or negative, it will paint a new memory and point of view for the individual experiencing it. Some of the joyful unexpected things in life are marriage proposals, employment acceptances and salary increases while in contrast, the most despised unexpectancies might include breakups, unwanted pregnancies and a lost job one truly cherished. In spite of all of these common tears of …show more content…
Although it was proven that “our neighbor says they’re not for her, / and no one has a birthday near”(4-5), it was still a sweet anonymous “blunder” that belonged to nothing but the surface it sat on. The unexpected flowers can be symbolized as the unforeseen events to change an individual’s life and how the neighbors had no relation to the anonymous gift can represent an affected individual feeling alone or without any help from close ones. As the mystery continues, it even escalates to the point where both partners in the relationship start to question, “Is one of us having an affair? / At first we laugh, and then we wonder”(7-8), which they both have the feeling of insecurity or denial behind each other’s …show more content…
I thought I understood the poem and originally, I believed that it meant to appreciate the unexpected things in life because it can change your own life, for the better or worse, because even though all of these surprises come in, we have a tendency to care for them like it belongs to us. I kept reading it over and over, trying to make connections with the words in my life and that’s what made me believe that this poem was “just right” for me. Only the poet knows the meaning, but since we all think differently, I have an addition to my interpretation, which I think the poet talks about unloyal or suspicious relationships. People who don’t know how to trust each other or feel as if someone who’s more worthy should be kept in a cage or else, someone else is going to sweep them off their feet. I think this is really common, especially for insecure people. This can relate to my life because when I moved to California, I wasn’t ready for it and never intended to live with my mom. It was just a last minute thing because I was afraid of the bullies at the previous middle school I attended in Wisconsin. It was an unexpected action for me to take and I had promised my dad, I’d come back, but I didn’t. I thought it was for best, but now that I think about it, I was just running away from minor problems and that distanced the relationship between me and my dad. Other real life examples that I
trauma can have on someone, even in adulthood. The speaker of the poem invokes sadness and
It is the challenges we face that make it look dark and gloomy. The key to a productive existence is not the emotions we feel when presented with adversity, but in our ability to overcome, grow and evolve. In comparison, examine the Spoken Indian searching for hope in hardships, or the extraordinary taste and smell of the wine connoisseur who lacks sight. See the trial & errors or the young man growing to love both parents, and the college student whose heart is blistering with pain from the loss of his mother, but finds healing in his new home as an emerging scholar. We are all exploring methods to handle
Meghan O 'Rourke 's intense and image-rich poem, "Unforced Error," presents the gamut of emotions as its speaker reflects on different moments in his or her life. The poem 's tone is alternately joyful, despairing, and much in between, and it evokes a strong emotional response in readers because of its use of imagery, paradox, strong evocative diction, and deep philosophical reflection. A careful analysis of the poem 's strategies and devices reveals O 'Rourke 's subtle yet devastating poem about the human inability to predict or control life 's outcomes, and the need to savor life. The poem questions human control over the direction of our lives, and asks us to think about whether it is “yellow raspberries,” “bitter plums,” “curtains in wind,” or all three. “Unforced Error” uses vivid imagery, a reminiscing tone, and alternating moods that align with nature to show how precious each living moment can seem when reflecting back on the past.
Everyone can pant a pretty picture of how wonderful their life may be. In fact, doing so may come with a consequences. Reading these three short stories “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, “Shooting an Elephant” by George Orwell and a short biography by Malcolm X called “My First Conk”, set off many different emotions. I felt as these author’s wanted to me to feel in such way. I believe there is a life lesion in every life story someone has to share, no matter how small or big.
I think in the beginning, this poem is mocking the façade of happiness that many clean-cut individuals have. It is a mockery of the thoughts in the criminal mind. Many times, a criminal cannot bring himself to commit suicide, so they take someone else's life instead. By doing so, subconsciously, the criminal knows he will be caught and in turn, executed.
It sounds like her father’s death made her angrier at the fact that she is not able to get anything from him anymore. There are several times in the poem when she switches emotions on her father. She forgives him and then is angry again. It’s hard for her because she does not know whether or not she can forgive him, considering all the pain and hardships the family was put through. She tries to justify her father’s actions by blaming his father, but is still angry because her father didn’t help the situation. At the same time, the daughter is almost as upset with her mother as she is with her father when she says “you were each other’s bad bargain, not mine” (Line 21). By the end of the poem, she is able to accept the fact that the broken relationship with her father and content relationship with her mother has to remain untouched. She is able to see that she cannot fully blame her father for being the reason why she is not emotionally content with their relationship. There’s nothing she can do about it now since both her parents are dead, but she is able to let go of it at this
“Apparently with no surprise” by Emily Dickinson presents the trials and tribulations that a flower must overcome if it is to survive. Dickinson creates a microcosm of the real world and a deep ecological study of human kind. Her word choice betrays a hidden disdain for human beings egotistical aims.
We know that the mind clings to the negative — but research also shows us that 3 times more positive things happen to us than negative things every day. At any given time, a lot of things are going right in our lives. Either in our career or in our personal lives. It could be that you enjoy what you do at work, are grateful for the paycheck, or appreciate your organization’s values or benefits. It could be the joy you derive from your family, hobbies, sports, or community service. When we savor our experiences, we derive more pleasure and satisfaction from them. Spending time enjoying and feeling grateful for what is going right in your life will help you weather the rest. Caroline spent hours every week devoted to a community service activity from which she derived the joy and strength with which to face her other
Ordinarily, Valentine’s Day conjures up images of exchanging flowers, chocolates, cards, and so on and so forth for most people, except Carol Ann Duffy, who buys her lover’s Valentine’s Day gift in the produce aisle of her local grocery store, an onion. In her poem appropriately titled, “Valentine,” she challenges her lover to adopt her what she deems a realistic notion that if one has true love for another, romance can be found in any gift, even something as unromantic as an onion. In order to convey the message that gifts of love are subjective and do not have to align with tradition; she uses an extended metaphor to compare her love to an onion throughout the poem.
In a typical family, there are parents that expected to hear things when their teenager is rebelling against them: slamming the door, shouting at each other, and protests on what they could do or what they should not do. Their little baby is growing up, testing their wings of adulthood; they are not the small child that wanted their mommy to read a book to them or to kiss their hurts away and most probably, they are thinking that anything that their parents told them are certainly could not be right. The poem talks about a conflict between the author and her son when he was in his adolescence. In the first stanza, a misunderstanding about a math problem turns into a family argument that shows the classic rift between the generation of the parent and the teenager. Despite the misunderstandings between the parent and child, there is a loving bond between them. The imagery, contrasting tones, connotative diction, and symbolism in the poem reflect these two sides of the relationship.
The poet tries to appreciate the people, who are always present when their friends and family are in need. She says that when people are in need of help, and/or suffering, all one needs to do is stick by their side, to give them courage to overcome their troubles.
This metaphor showcases how the wife tries to conceal her unloving marriage from the world in hope that it will be resolved, yet she still suffers from the way the man treats her. The small candle on the cake is another metaphor used to portray the loneliness of the wife. This feeling is a common emotion felt by many victims of a detached relationship. The description “...one pink candle burning in the center”, gives the candle a feminine trait which reflects the wife. The cake, which the candle was used for was not well received by the husband and the celebration comes to a halt. Then, the cake is ignored and the candle burns in loneliness. Similar to the cake and the candle, the wife and her efforts have never been appreciated or respected by her husband. Much like the cake, the wife is ignored, and she lives her life in desolation and solitude. Lastly, the setting symbolises the wife’s lack of importance to her husband. The setting is described as “a little narrow restaurant” and with a few
She defines her idea of what is right in a relationship by describing how hard and painful it is for her to stray from that ideal in this instance. As the poem evolves, one can begin to see the author having a conflict with values, while simultaneously expressing which values are hers and which are unnatural to her. She accomplishes this accounting of values by personalizing her position in a somewhat unsettling way throughout the poem.
In life, many things are taken for granted on a customary basis. For example, we wake up in the morning and routinely expect to see and hear from certain people. Most people live daily life with the unsighted notion that every important individual in their lives at the moment, will exist there tomorrow. However, in actuality, such is not the case. I too fell victim to the routine familiarity of expectation, until the day reality taught me otherwise.
One of the more common meanings of success, aside from the superficial materialistic meaning, is being successful in regards to family and other intimate relationships. Many have made the statement that the greatest feeling in somebody’s life is the birth of their children. This feeling that people receive gives a long-lasting feeling of self-satisfaction which provides residual dividends throughout their life. These experiences are all similar by the fact that they possess a deep emotional investment of the individual, unlike shallow experiences like succeeding in a business deal or making a large turn on an investment. It should be mentioned...