Poetry is such a different and intricate form of literature. It can not only be dissected with different bits and pieces to the puzzle, but can have more than one meaning for each piece as well. Many layers can be interpreted differently depending on the certain way an author or poet writes them. The audience could have a different view of a poem than the author had initially intended to come across. But with prison poetry, it almost has twice as many meanings, because the symbolism and tones that the poet shapes within their writing, needs to be taken into consideration. In Etheridge Knight’s “For Freckle-Faced Gerald,” Knight uses symbolism in such a tender and raw way to explain the shifting tone and situation that occurs to the innocent …show more content…
character Gerald. Knight uses a lot of symbolism in this poem for uncovering a devastating situation that happens to the character Gerald. We first see a glimpse of symbolism when Knight describes the other character in the poem Rufus,“ol Rufus. He beat drums, / was free and funky under the arms” (1-2) This helps the audience picture Rufus as this older, carless fellow who marches to the “beat of his own drum.” The text even talks about Rufus jumping off a bridge in line 3, hinting that his character is not all that civil. The parenthetical aside in line 4 “and thought nothing of the sacrilege,” also refers to the wild character of the manly Rufus. This contrasts to the character of Gerald who is young and more innocent. We can see where Knight plants this innocent character with, “hadn’t even done a good job on his voice. / … / had no memory or hope of copper hot lips” (6-11). This part of the poem suggests that he was still going through puberty, and was still a virgin. The text says that Gerald was only sixteen, and was serving in an adult prison. Since Gerald was put into an adult prison facility, he has learned a lot of things from the much older inmates that surround him. The majority of the things he learns, 16-year-olds usually shouldn’t learn until they are older, but the weak willed situation that Gerald is in makes it hard for him to refrain from learning early. In the text, Knight lightly disguises the situation that Gerald is pinned up against with some symbolism. “Let tall walls and buzzards change the course / of his river from south to north” (14-15), and “loss of his balls” (25). At first glance this wouldn’t mean much of anything, but analyzing the words that are written, Knight is trying to set the scene of rape. Because of the fact that Gerald is so young and innocent, he was unfortunately an easy target. The symbolism of the river changing course represents the natural way to lose innocence compared to something unnatural like rape.
In a couple of years, depending on his sentence, Gerald would have more than likely became sexually active and experienced it in a more natural way. Since the situation happened to occur in prison and with a man, both parts of this occurrence was in fact unnatural. In this part of the poem we can see a very drastic shift in tone. Knight writes about Gerald having “no memory or hope of copper hot lips-” (11), referring to his virginity, to it being taken in one of the most unnatural ways. Not only the symbolism of the river, but also the buzzards in line 14. Knight is referring to the other inmates that surround Gerald in this facility. Similar to a buzzard some of these inmates only see Gerald as prey. Something they want to get their hands on, only to benefit themselves. Instead of treating him like a human being, he was dehumanized. Concluding in the scarring event that happened to innocent …show more content…
Gerald. A couple motifs of this poem consist of victimization and of defeat.
Because of the weak and innocent character of Gerald, we can imagine it was hard for him to fight off those “buzzards,” leaving him to be the victim. We also get a sense of defeat near the end when Knight writes, “didn’t even know that the loss of his balls / had been plotted years in advance / by wiser and bigger buzzards” (25-27). Here we can see that Gerald has just come to the conclusion that he cannot fight a losing battle. He considers his strengths that underweight the ones of his victors, and he accept his fate as the victim. Which as unfortunate and depressing the situation is, it happens to a lot of people. Victims feel as if they are helpless and cannot do anything to get them out of the situation they are in. For Gerald, he had nowhere to run, so that might be part of the reason for the motif of defeat. The situation would have definitely been different if he was in a juvenile institution, or even not in prison at all. His unfortunate circumstances were obviously of no benefit to him whatsoever. This motif kind of collides with an overall theme of vulnerability. Gerald’s lack in experience and his very innocent character really leaves him in a vulnerable state. Again, it is hard to fight a losing battle when the opponent is stronger and
wiser. Etheridge Knight gives his audience a challenge with this poem. Having to uncover hidden meanings and symbolism, Knight’s audience really feels and experiences the pain that Gerald had to go through at such a young age. Even though Knight did not use Gerald’s point of view as the narrator, the readers can sense the corruption and defeat that Gerald went through in this situation. Gerald was cornered and had no choice but to be vulnerable. Not to mention his innocent, boy character did not give him any leads in an environment of men.
One of the ways the author does this is by using enjambment to make the title and the first line of the poem flow into one single line. This symbolizes how when you are in jail there is no real beginning; one day flows to the next. His extensive use of figurative language, allows for the reader to paint a picture in his or her mind. “... to a dark stage, I lie there awake in my prison bunk.” This line can be interpreted literally and figuratively; he is really in prison in his bunk or it feels so much like a dream that it is as if he were on a stage. However, his diction shows that he has does this often. “...through illimitable tun...
...they want to be not only respected but also being able to survive in the prison environment. In prison, there are so many inmates and not two inmates are the same. The inmates will disrespect the officers by calling them names, giving officers difficult times, but it goes the other way around too. It is disturbing image after learning that sometimes it is the officer’s fault and not just the inmates’ wrongdoings. There will be times when officers and inmates will engage in a conspiracy crime and times when the female staff is engaged in sexual actions with an inmate. Conover wrote this book to allow the audience to see the prison society from many different point-of-views and give future officers an early insight to becoming a correctional officer.
The poem's narrative is centered around a heroic character named Hard Rock. The name "Hard Rock" is a complicated pun on the American penal system and rock/jazz music as well. Although the term "the Rock," is associated with the military/federal prison in the San Francisco Bay, the term "hard rock" epitomizes freedom (in music). The phrase/name "Hard Rock" is an excellent example of Knight's powerful use of diction to exhibit the poem's meaning on both a denotational and connotational level. The character Hard Rock is his own person-a "free man," though impr...
More of Knight’s notable use of diction and tone is found in this stanza, where he writes, “A hillbilly called him a black son of a bitch/ And didn’t lose his teeth, a screw who knew Hard Rock/ From before shook him down and barked in his face./ And Hard Rock did nothing” (lines 24-27). It can be felt from Knight’s use of tone that this type of action is uncharacteristic of Hard Rock. The second stanza details Hard Rock’s lobotomy, with Knight writing, “...the doctors had bored a hole in his head,/ Cut out part of his brain, and shot electricity/ Through the rest” (lines 8-10). This leaves the inmate with an intruding presence of hopelessness. The imagery and diction is the last stanza of the poem drives home the motif of disheartenment that the black prison inmates felt after realizing that Hard Rock is forever changed. Similar to the movie One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, the central, nonconformist character Randle McMurphy, who gave the inmates a sense of hope, is lobotomized, leaving the prisoners afraid and unable to challenge authority in the way they could have if McMurphy was still his full, original self. This is the same way that Etheridge Knight and his fellow prisoners felt after Hard Rock’s return. The one person who was brave enough to stand back was now made into a martyr for the prisoners as well as an example made for the prisoners on what would happen if
The main themes of the poem are rebellion, oppression, and imprisonment. The theme of imprisonment is evident in Hard Rock Returns to Prison from the Hospital for the Criminal Insane poem. Hard Rock was a tough inmate, silenced by lobotomy. Hard Rock was a hero to the other prisoners, and this made the authority to take actions against him in order to tend his defiance. The punishment given to him was unjust because, it altered his body and movements, in addition to shortening his life. Authorities are used to oppressing the people who voice out what they believe is not right.
Slaves used to sing in front of their owners while they worked the fields, similarly the character sings in front of prison guards while working. A notable feature in the poem is the sound “hunh” splitting the phrases. Brown uses the onomatopoeia as a form of imagery here. The reader has to imagine the character making this sound while he is hammering rocks. At first glance, readers could imagine that the character is taking out all his frustration trough the action of hammering. However, when they take a closer look, they see that character is trying to smash something. Since Brown is mirroring the prison with slavery, the character is smashing his own fate, or racism. Although the weight of bringing the hammer up and down tires him, he still continues to fight. A life as miserable as the protagonist does not seem worth living; and despite the hardships, he still is hopeful. Brown wants the readers to be in awe of the strength and grit of the character. The quote "Chain gang nevah--hunh--Let me go" (Brown) represents the similarity between slavery and prison. In both cases, the white men are in control and the black men are in chains. Being in prison brings back memories of the time during slavery and the hate between the groups. Brown cleverly delivers this point in his poem and brings to light the strength of the African American community during their
It is important to know a little of Etheridge Knight’s background to fully understand his poem “Hard Rock Returns to Prison from the Hospital for the Criminal Insane”. Knight began exploring the world of poetry when he was young in the form of humorous, verbal poems used for entertaining. An African American born in 1931, Knight undoubtedly faced racism and prejudice throughout his life, leading him to explore those concepts within his poetry. Knight became a well-known figure within the Black Arts movement, partly due to encouragement from his wife at the time; Sonia Sanchez, who was also a poet involved in the movement. As stated before, Knight also spent several years in prison, giving him knowledge of the feelings and slang within jail, both of which he later interjected into his writing. Knowing his background helps the reader further understand the feelings...
The theme throughout the two poems "A Black Man Talks of Reaping" and "From the Dark Tower" is the idea that African American live in an unjust
This poem is about a servant that serves other servants. This servant has to clean up after and feed these men, and their work is never done because it is an endless cycle. This servant is of a lower status than the rest of them because the clean up after everyone, and therefore is seen as lowly and is ignored by them all. This servant is at the bottom of the social ladder and is being isolated because they are different. Then this servant goes on to tell the story of their uncle that had a cage built for him because he was crazy. They go on to say that they are glad they got away from that, they had made jokes about the cage being a jail. That even when they were there with the uncle in the attic, they were still happy enough to have a roof over their head. Even though they are deemed as worthless and lowly as the servants servant, that they will stay because they must be kept and it is better than living outside, although that would mean freedom, the roof is better than the ground. The tone of this poem is very casual, the speaker tells this seemingly sad and unfortunate story in a manner that sounds like casual conversation. This poem had a rhythm to it, that I couldn’t quite get in reading it aloud, but it’s obviously there. The rhythm helped the words flow and tell the
In today’s modern view, poetry has become more than just paragraphs that rhyme at the end of each sentence. If the reader has an open mind and the ability to read in between the lines, they discover more than they have bargained for. Some poems might have stories of suffering or abuse, while others contain happy times and great joy. Regardless of what the poems contains, all poems display an expression. That very moment when the writer begins his mental journey with that pen and paper is where all feelings are let out. As poetry is continues to be written, the reader begins to see patterns within each poem. On the other hand, poems have nothing at all in common with one another. A good example of this is in two poems by a famous writer by the name of Langston Hughes. A well-known writer that still gets credit today for pomes like “ Theme for English B” and “Let American be American Again.”
In the final stanza, the poet claims that young men whom are of the same mind will look to the criminal for guidance. These young minds will relate to the social-stance of the criminal, and maybe follow in the same footsteps, treating the criminal as their role model.
We can perceive that these delinquents live a life of crime and hurt people to make themselves feel good. With those lines in the stanza we try to discern that these people are a sneaky bunch who try to enact violence in a dishonorable manner and feel proud of the fact that they do it. “Lurk late. We (line 3)” that gives you the feeling that these people are just flat out criminals and live a high risk lifestyle. Those words have so much to interpret and read from. “We Strike straight (Line 4)” can mean that these people hurt people, but they have alluded that they play pool, so their shady late night habits lead to
Furthermore, the opening “I stand” sets e assertive tone in the [poem. The speaker never falters in presenting the complexity of her situation, as a woman, a black [person], and a slave. The tone set at the beginning also aid the audience to recognize that the speaker in the “white man’s violent system” is divided by women, and black by whites. The slave employs metaphors, which Barrett use to dramatized imprisonment behind a dark skin in a world where God’s work of creating black people has been cast away. To further illustrate this she described the bird as “ little dark bird”, she also describes the frogs and streams as “ dark frogs” and “ dark stream ripple” Through the use of her diction she convey to readers that in the natural world unlike the human one, there is no dark with bad and light with good, and no discrimination between black and white people.
Paul Laurence Dunbar’s “We Wear the Mask” is a lyric poem in which the point of attraction, the mask, represents the oppression and sadness held by African Americans in the late 19th century, around the time of slavery. As the poem progresses, Dunbar reveals the façade of the mask, portrayed in the third stanza where the speaker states, “But let the dream otherwise” (13). The unreal character of the mask has played a significant role over the life of African Americans, whom pretend to put on a smile when they feel sad internally. This ocassion, according to Dunbar, is the “debt we pay to human guile," meaning that their sadness is related to them deceiving others. Unlike his other poems, with its prevalent use of black dialect, Dunbar’s “We Wear the Mask” acts as “an apologia (or justification) for the minstrel quality of some of his dialect poems” (Desmet, Hart and Miller 466). Through the utilization of iambic tetrameter, end rhyme, sound devices and figurative language, the speaker expresses the hidden pain and suffering African Americans possessed, as they were “tortured souls” behind their masks (10).
This is shown in the quote,” I am trapped on a dessert of raw gunshot wounds/ and a dead child dragging his shattered black/ face off the edge of my sleep/ blood from his punctured cheeks and shoulders”(5-8). The use of enjambment creates a feeling of suffocation among the reader. The reader feels just a bit of what minorities feel each and every day when they deal with racism. Also the metaphor of “a desert of raw gunshot wounds” helps the reader to understand how it feels to be a minority. The desert can be compared to a place where minorities feel alone and outnumbered, and can not relate to others. Therefore in a way the poet is also creating an image for the reader. Lorde also writes, “raping an 85 year old white woman/ who is somebody’s mother/ and as i beat her senseless and set a torch to her bed/ a greek chorus will be singing ¾ time” (51-54). The image that Audre Lorde created emphasizes the amount of injustice there is between two races. She shows the reader how it is okay to kill an innocent African American ,yet revolting to rape “an 85 year old white woman”. The poet’s choice to choose the white women is more impactful to the reader rather than a white man being shot, which allows the reader to remember the injustice of how these crimes are