The last element used in both poems is allusions. “The Hollow Men,” alludes in the first epigraph to Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, “Mistah Kurtz—he dead. / A penny for the Old Guy” (lines 1-2). This novel contains a character, Krutz, who is like the men in the poem because is forced into violence. “A penny for the Old Guy” is an expression used by kids in England to collect money for fireworks on Guy Fawkes Day, an annual celebration of the failure of Guy Fawkes to blow up parliament. This is similar to the straw men who would be burned during this celebration. Eliot also provides an allusion to Dante’s Inferno, “Those who have crossed/With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom / Remember us—if at all—not as lost/Violent souls” (lines 15-18). This novel is a perfect example of this poem’s theme. As the well-known quote from the novel tells the reader to abandon all hope, just as the hollow men have done. This also …show more content…
The poem says, “You may think at first I'm as mad as a hatter” (line 3), which make reference to Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. This direct quote from the Mad Hatter amplifies Eliot’s state of mind and the audience's attitude when first reading this poem. He also states the names of Greek philosophers, royalty, and mythological Gods, and other respected figures in saying, “Peter, Augustus, Alonzo or James, / Such as Victor or Jonathan, George or Bill Bailey--/All of them sensible everyday names. /There are fancier names if you think they sound sweeter, /Some for the gentlemen, some for the dames:/Such as Plato, Admetus, Electra, Demeter” (lines 6-11). This allusion is used to show how the first name for the public is meant to be someone of high intelligence and accepted. However, all of these people also contained a second and third personality that not everyone saw. This poem shows that maybe one does not know two thirds of who the actual
As the first poem in the book it sums up the primary focus of the works in its exploration of loss, grieving, and recovery. The questions posed about the nature of God become recurring themes in the following sections, especially One and Four. The symbolism includes the image of earthly possessions sprawled out like gangly dolls, a reference possibly meant to bring about a sense of nostalgia which this poem does quite well. The final lines cement the message that this is about loss and life, the idea that once something is lost, it can no longer belong to anyone anymore brings a sense...
The deep complexity of its message is furthered by Olds’ use of metaphor. In describing the unburied corpses strewn about the cemetery, she notes a “hand reaching out / with no sign of peace, wanting to come back.” Through indirect metaphor, she is able to not only bring emotion to the stiffness of a frozen hand, but ponder a greater question—whether the “eternal rest” of death is peace at all. Despite the war, despite “the bread made of glue and sawdust,” and despite “the icy winter and the siege,” those passed still long for life. Human cruelty and the horrors of existence permeate even the sanctity of death. In war, nothing is
However, after further analyzing the poem one might be extremely intrigued by the message the speaker conveyed. The audience gets a sense of the setting being in a cold, dark, brooding place. The orator uses language such as, cold, bitter, snow, icy, and white. There is a play on words in the first stanza, eighth line, using the words “coal” and “cold”. Instead of saying “icy cold,” the orator states “icy coal.” At first glance the audience may feel as though someone is in dying in this poem. Comparing this to similar scenarios in films, where a lead beloved character experiences cold shivers as they get ready to pass to the great beyond. The title “Who Will Know Us?,” catches the reader 's attention because as humans, we wander the legacy and effect we will leave behind. It causes the reader to contemplate what happens after death, when the world you left behind ceases to remember you exist. The readers are left with the question of is there a really a “life after death.” There is also use of similes such as, “it is cold, bitter as a penny...with his loose buttons like heads of crucifies saints”(Soto). Nostalgia, a word some readers may not be familiar with is featured in this poem. Nostalgia is a sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations. Personification plays an integral part on the voice in
The informal language and intimacy of the poem are two techniques the poet uses to convey his message to his audience. He speaks openly and simply, as if he is talking to a close friend. The language is full of slang, two-word sentences, and rambling thoughts; all of which are aspects of conversations between two people who know each other well. The fact that none of the lines ryhme adds to the idea of an ordinary conversation, because most people do not speak in verse. The tone of the poem is rambling and gives the impression that the speaker is thinking and jumping from one thought to the next very quickly. His outside actions of touching the wall and looking at all the names are causing him to react internally. He is remembering the past and is attempting to suppress the emotions that are rising within him.
What is the important message, or theme, in this book? Why do you think the author felt this message was important? Support your answer with three specific quotes or pieces of evidence from the text.
The setting of the poem is a day at the ocean with the family that goes terribly awry. This could be considered an example of irony, in that one would normally view a day at the beach as a happy and carefree time. In “Feared Drowned,” Olds paints a very different scenario, using dark imagery to create the setting: “…suit black as seaweed / Rocks sticks out near shore like heads.” The poem illuminates moments of intense fear, anxiety and the element of a foreseen sense of doom. Written as a direct, free-style verse using the first-person narrative, the poem opens with the narrator suspecting that her husband may have drowned. When Olds writes in her opening line: “Suddenly nobody knows where you are,” this signals to the reader that we are with the narrator as she makes this fearful discovery.
reflects upon the theme of the novel. As it highlights the fact that if people in the society
Diction is strongly used in both the novel and the poem to manipulate the thoughts of the reader and to stir up emotions. The poem makes an almost undecipherable, literal tone within the sound of the rhyme scheme, also creating calm peace with a mostly unpleasant situation. An example is the reoccurring line, “I have a rendezvous with Death” (Seeger 1, 5, 11, 20). The word “rendezvous” is a nice word where a person would meet somebody out of free will, even like to two lovers seeing each other. Differently, death is the unknown for many humans to fear. The narrator has arranged to meet with an experience known as death. The narrator would only take such actions if he had reason to believe it was not as fearful an action to take as so many believe. The repetition of this line keeps this idea fresh in his audience’s mind. Similarly, in All Quiet on the Western Front, Remarque uses word like forgotten and misunderstood to describe the way that outsiders think of the soldiers participating in the war. The way
Firstly I will be exploring metaphor as it is used so much in this poem. The first metaphor which I will examine is “Haunting Flares” on line 3 of the first stanza. This quote has so many connotations, my first opinion on this was that the flares which the enemy are firing to light up the battlefield are said to be representing the souls of the soldiers fallen comrades. This could also be said to represent the power the enemy has on their own mortality as the bright flares would light up the battle-field exposing everything to their view, this indicates that the enemy always seem to have power upon the soldiers, almost godly. The second metaphor which I will explore is: “An ecstasy of fumbling” in line one of the second stanza.
know dark is right” (4). “Wild men. sing the sun in flight/do not go gentle into that good night” (10,12). “Eyes.blaze like meteors” (14). Thomas uses examples of different characters, and how they, too, find ways to keep fighting the oncoming of death.
T. S. Eliot’s “The Hollow Men” is a dramatic monologue, free verse poem that consists of five parts that could be considered five separate poems. His use of “allegorically abstract text nevertheless achieves a remarkable unity of effect in terms of voice, mood and imagery” (Morace 948). Before the poem starts, there are two epigraphs; “Mistah Kurtz – he dead. / A penny for the Old Guy” (lines 1-2). Eliot alludes to these two epigraphs because their themes are developed throughout his poem. “The first epigraph is from Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness,” a story …that examines the hollowness and horror of lack of faith, spiritual paralysis, and despair” (Bloom 61), just like the “hollow men” in his poem. The second epigraph “refers to the celebration of Guy Fawkes Day in Britain” (Bloom 61). This is a day that celebrates Fawkes’ unsuccessful rebellion against King James I with his capture in the cellar of the Parliament building, where stored gun powder was supposed to blow up and kill King James I and his family. Once captured, he cowardly turned over his co-conspirators and they all were killed. It is “celebrated with bonfires, fireworks, the burning of scarecrows,
...the poem “The Waste Land” with a space between what the word would be which is “wasteland”. This can also represent how Eliot views modern society as a waste of land, as well as being a barren wasteland of culture and society. Eliot’s style and development is so precise that even a small hint of a pun in the title of one of his poems can relate to the entire product as a whole.
By only having the characters connected with evil (the downfall of Thomas) Eliot has specified a subtle way to differentiate between the evil characters concerned with the ruling power of man (the rhymers), and those who believe in the ruling power of God. Those that are believers in the ruling power of God do not rhyme. Those vying for the ruling power of man, do.
This poem entitled For Whom the Bell Tolls (or No man is an Island) was written by John Donne in the early 1600’s. It talks about how all men are connected as one, so don’t ask who they are mourning, they are mourning you. This theme what Ernest Hemingway used as the theme for his book, also titled, For Whom the Bell Tolls.
The absence of a complete identity and the inability be whole is what creates a line between The Love song of J Alfred Prufrock with Eliot’s other poems The Hollow Men and Portrait of a Lady. These poems work together using imagery and characters to highlight the darkness that was weighting down most people after the First World War was finished.