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Literary analysis on emily dickinson
Literary analysis on emily dickinson
Emily dickinson famous poems analysis
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Nature can be sweet and calm, but can also be ferocious and scary. It can be a human's best friend, or his worse enemy. A great poem uses poetic devices such as the following- diction, imagery, symbolism, and tone- to create an intense story or poem. Emily Dickinson uses irony, imagery, and tone in the poem, "A Narrow Fellow in the Grass," to make the reader understand what the meaning is in the poem. In the article, "Excerpts from 'A Narrow Fellow in the Grass'," it states that "The poem is structured to relate the speaker’s experience in encountering nature, specifically in the form of a snake" (Estes 2). Thus, meaning that the author of the poem is talking about a snake in his experience. In the poem, "A Narrow Fellow in the Grass," the author states that the snake is "A narrow Fellow in the Grass" (Dickinson 1). This statement creates irony on the snake. A snake in nature has a bad reputation and is intended to be evil and scary. However, according to "Excerpts form 'A Narrow Fellow in the Grass'," the author states that the "snake is a 'Fellow' who 'rides' in the grass, a familiar presence that even the reader has encountered" (Estes 2). …show more content…
In the poem, it states that "The Grass divides as with a Comb- / A spotted Shaft is seen, / And then it closes at your Feet / And opens further on" (Dickinson 5-8). Thus, creating an image of the spotted snake, and slithering at the feet of the author. In "Excerpts from 'A Narrow Fellow in the Grass'," it states that, "Despite the snake’s cultured appearance, the first two stanzas introduce the snake’s ability to appear and disappear suddenly" (Estes 2). The author of this article, Angela M. Estes, is stating that the poem is making the snake have the ability to appear and disappear to the reader, which creates an
The effect the reader perceives in the passage of Rattler is attained from the usage of the author¡¯s imagery. The author describes the pre-action of the battle between the man and the snake as a ¡°furious signal, quite sportingly warning [the man] that [he] had made an unprovoked attack, attempted to take [the snake¡¯s] life... ¡± The warning signal is portrayed in order to reveal the significance of both the man¡¯s and the snake¡¯s value of life. The author sets an image of how one of their lives must end in order to keep the world in peace. In addition, the author describes how ¡°there was blood in [snake¡¯s] mouth and poison dripping from his fangs; it was all a nasty sight, pitiful now that it was done.¡± This bloody image of snake¡¯s impending death shows the significance of the man¡¯s acceptance toward the snake. In a sense, the reader can interpret the man¡¯s sympathy toward the snake because of the possibility that he should have let him go instead of killing him.
We now know that we are in the real world in a natural setting a place where deer’s run. Also we know that the dark is nothing more than the cover of darkness in the night. Now that the dark is painted into our heads it will help us to visualize the poems significance. As we go through the poem he states that he sees a dead deer, “Traveling through the dark I found a deer dead on the edge of the Wilson River road” (1-2). Towards the end of the stanza he says “It is usually best to roll them into the canyon: that road is narrow; to swerve might make more dead” (3-4). What he is saying is that one needs to move away from any situation which might not be ideal before harm comes aboard. He is calm and controlled and does not get overly excited thus keeping his emotions intact.
Therefore, Oliver’s incorporation of imagery, setting, and mood to control the perspective of her own poem, as well as to further build the contrast she establishes through the speaker, serves a critical role in creating the lesson of the work. Oliver’s poem essentially gives the poet an ultimatum; either he can go to the “cave behind all that / jubilation” (10-11) produced by a waterfall to “drip with despair” (14) without disturbing the world with his misery, or, instead, he can mimic the thrush who sings its poetry from a “green branch” (15) on which the “passing foil of the water” (16) gently brushes its feathers. The contrast between these two images is quite pronounced, and the intention of such description is to persuade the audience by setting their mood towards the two poets to match that of the speaker. The most apparent difference between these two depictions is the gracelessness of the first versus the gracefulness of the second. Within the poem’s content, the setting has been skillfully intertwined with both imagery and mood to create an understanding of the two poets, whose surroundings characterize them. The poet stands alone in a cave “to cry aloud for [his] / mistakes” while the thrush shares its beautiful and lovely music with the world (1-2). As such, the overall function of these three elements within the poem is to portray the
Dickinson tucks away a series of morose words in every line with the exception of line four. One must first examine the word choice of the first word and the first line. The use of the word “Apparently” creates a standard for irony and sardonicism that is seen throughout the poem. The scenario constructed leads the audience to presuppose that an entity such as the flower should necessarily face such perils. When in fact the connotative effect is the exact opposite. If one continues down the poem to the next line she projects human emotions upon the flower when she seemingly exclaims that it is a “happy” flower. This provides an additional example of embedded irony in that the plant is being fraught with challenges yet it is happy. The projection also depicts human kinds adept ability ...
The purpose of the poem was to express my interests of nature and how I felt and what I experienced when I was in the woods at that time. There’s also that life and death aspect in this poem, in which the bird has the lizard in his mouth and also by the word “fire”.
A brief summary of this poem is a man is being swallowed by a snake (The Boa Constrictor). He is describing each part of his body being eaten, but he is doing this in a funny entertaining way (The Boa Constrictor). There is no specific setting of the poem (The Boa Constrictor). The audience of this poem is intended to be towards a young group (The Boa Constrictor). Imagery can be seen in depicting a boa constrictor eating a man as he is talking about being eaten by the snake (The Boa Constrictor). The tone of this poem is a little bit of distress because he is being swallowed by a snake (The Boa Constrictor). The structure of the poem includes internal rhyme (The Boa Constrictor). Some examples would be “Oh, I'm being eaten By a boa constrictor, a boa constrictor” that is an example of free verse (The Boa Constrictor). Also an example of internal rhyme would be “Oh, gee, It’s up to my knee.”(The Boa Constrictor). The assonance shown in this poem would be no toe, gee knee, fiddle middle, pest chest, heck neck and those are the uses of assonance (The Boa Constrictor). The theme is that Shel Silverstein is turning what could be a tragic incident in real life, but making it funny and entertaining for the reader (The Boa Constrictor). I remember this poem from a very young age and I have always enjoyed reading this poem, and many more of Shel Silverstein's poem (The Boa Constrictor). To sum it up, this is a very funny poem that Silverstein uses to show many different stories, and he continues to do the same through many of his
Lawrence uses figurative language in order to present his ideas of societies expectations of a man. Lawrence changes the structure and style of “Snake” in order to highlight the struggles of the narrator. Specifically, when writing about the snake he uses repetitive and flowing words. He also uses traditional devices like alliteration, for example “and flickered his two-forked tongue from his lips.” The use of these technics gives the snake an almost human like feel that the reader can connect to. At the same time, Lawrence writes about the log used to hurt the snake in a different style creating such a contrast between the snake’s description and the log. The words describing the log are much different, “and threw it at the water trough with a clatter.” The changing styles helps emphasize the internal struggle the narrator is experiencing as he tries to figure out if he should do as society dictates and kill the snake like a man or do as he wishes and leave the snake in peace as his guest at the water
In Mary Oliver’s poem “The Black Snake,” the narrator contemplates the cycle of life with the unpredictability of death. Mary Oliver’s work is “known for its natural themes and a continual affirmation of nature as a place of mystery and spirituality that holds the power to teach humans how to value one’s life and one’s place” (Riley). In the poem, The Black Snake, the narrator witnesses a black snake hit by a truck and killed on a road one morning. Feeling sympathy for the snake, the narrator stops, and removes the dead snake from the road. Noting the snake’s beauty, the narrator carries it from the road to some nearby bushes. Continuing to drive, the narrator reflects on how the abruptness of death ultimately revealed how the snake lived his life.
In ‘All the Pretty Horses’ Luis states ‘among men there was no such communion as among horses and the notion that men can be understood at all was probably an illusion’, by this he means the relationship man has with nature is totally unique, it is sacred; the relationship between men is a misapprehension. In some respects the reader may agree with the statement because it is true, man’s relationship with animals and nature is fairly simple compared to man’s relationship amongst each other which is far more complex due to conflict of opinion and other complications. John Grady Cole’s relationship with Alejandra faced much turmoil and complication, one of the biggest issues they faced was the fact Alejandra’s family condemned their relationship and forbid her to be with him. To a certain extent John’s romance with Alejandra mirrors Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet in respects to their forbidden love, however their story does not end in tragedy. Wordsworth shows nature to be more of a companion for man in ‘The Solitary Reaper’. The woman reaps the crops alone in the field singing with a voice so ‘thrilling’ it resonates ‘Long after it was heard no more’. Although she is lonely, she is wholly reliant upon the sustenance she receives and the relationship she has with nature. The poet proceeds to compare her to the Cuckoo and the Nightingale stating ‘No Nightingale did ever chaunt more welcome notes to weary bands’ being compared to birds with such beautiful song surely displays her oneness with nature. Unlike the ‘maiden’ Victor tries to control and dominate nature, this resentment could stem from the fact his mother died of the fever, making him go to extreme lengths in constructing this figure from different body parts to create a cre...
One of Emily Dickinson’s greatest skills is taking the familiar and making it unfamiliar. In this sense, she reshapes how her readers view her subjects and the meaning that they have in the world. She also has the ability to assign a word to abstractness, making her poems seemingly vague and unclear on the surface. Her poems are so carefully crafted that each word can be dissected and the reader is able to uncover intense meanings and images. Often focusing on more gothic themes, Dickinson shows an appreciation for the natural world in a handful of poems. Although Dickinson’s poem #1489 seems disoriented, it produces a parallelism of experience between the speaker and the audience that encompasses the abstractness and unexpectedness of an event.
Alliteration is a key aspect to how the reader experiences the poem; it especially gives interest toward alliteration of the letter T. This alliteration begins in the very first line “Tell all the Truth but tell it slant-” (1.1). The alliteration on the T is used three times within the first line; however, it does not stop there. Dickinson uses the “T” sound to continually draw back to the theme of truth. Dickinson, through the use of two stanzas, four lines each, uses quite a distinct rhyme scheme to organize her poem. The second and fourth lines of each stanza are clearly examples of end rhyme, by using words such as “lies” (1.2) and “surprise” (1.4). However, every single line is not an example of end rhyme. The first and third lines rhyme words such as “slant” (1.1) and “delight” (1.3); which can be described as near rhymes for they give a small sensation of rhyming. This rhyming pattern continues for the second stanza as well. The sequence of rhyming is not arbitrarily put into practice, rather, it also adds on to the truth theme. The near rhymes Dickinson stresses to not tell the truth in its entirety, but rather, convey a little bit of truth. This is being directly compared to the almost rhyming sensatio...
There are a few themes that are presented throughout Emily’s poems, one of themes was nature. Many poets during Dickinson time wrote about nature, but Dickinson looked at nature differently than they did, and wrote about it in a different way then they did. In a lot of her poems she writes about the mystery of nature and its qualities, while also marveling at it. Emily spent much of her time studying nature and the various aspects of it. One example of a poem where she talks about nature is “A bird came down the walk.” In this poem the bird is moving around and is in action. This bird is also oblivious to a person watching it. Emily’s point in writing this poem is to say that as the person is not seen then nature keeps moving along in its random and informal way (Borus: 44-73).
Along with the selected reading above, Dickinson’s work reflects a strong reverence for the natural world. This appreciation for nature is conveyed through a number of references and reoccurring images. In poem #627,
... Nature, including human beings, is `red in tooth and claw'; we are all `killers' in one way or another. Also, the fear which inhabits both human and snake (allowing us, generally, to avoid each other), and which acts as the catalyst for this poem, also precipitates retaliation. Instinct, it seems, won't be gainsaid by morality; as in war, our confrontation with Nature has its origins in some irrational `logic' of the soul. The intangibility of fear, as expressed in the imagery of the poem, is seen by the poet to spring from the same source as the snake, namely the earth - or, rather, what the earth symbolizes, our primitive past embedded in our subconsciouness. By revealing the kinship of feelings that permeates all Nature, Judith Wright universalises the experience of this poem.
Through the ingenious works of poetry the role of nature has imprinted the 18th and 19th century with a mark of significance. The common terminology ‘nature’ has been reflected by our greatest poets in different meanings and understanding; Alexander Pope believed in reason and moderation, whereas Blake and Wordsworth embraced passion and imagination.