Andrew Marvell's poem, "Damon the Mower," is packed with natural imagery, from the setting and the weather, to the animals surrounding the characters. The setting, unchanged from beginning to end, is the meadow where Damon earns his living. Though it has formerly been a place of respite for the mower, with the cruel rejection by Juliana, the positive relationship changes as the meadow becomes a hellish place as the "sunburned meadows sear" (10). However, Nature is not punishing the mower, nor is it to blame for the infernal conditions. Instead, Juliana causes the change in Nature and the mower himself. Ultimately, the poem's usage of natural imagery serves to characterize the protagonists, both Juliana and the mower, into binary, contrasting roles. …show more content…
Heat withers the grass, while frogs and grasshoppers attempt to escape the oppressive warmth. Though this extreme hot weather is common in the summer, the mower refuses to believe that the weather is caused by Nature. "This heat the sun could never raise, / Nor Dog Star so inflame the days … / Not July causeth these extremes" (17-23). Instead, it is the influence of “Juliana’s scorching beams” that causes the extreme heat (24). The Oxford English Dictionary describes one figurative usage of “beam” as a “ray, gleam, emanation: beam of sight, a glance” (21). Additionally, Juliana’s eyes are invoked earlier in the poem, “Like her fair eyes the day was fair” (5). Eyes, traditionally seen as the windows to the soul, in this poem point to Juliana’s cruel spirit. Though they appear “fair,” they scorch both Damon and the
Currently in the United States, many of us are afraid of the future. There have been many recent events that have stirred up fear in this country, especially tensions regarding human rights. In Carolyn Forché’s “The Colonel,” the speaker tells us her story of when she had to deal with the mistreatment of others. The speaker is telling us her story of meeting the colonel to show us the horrible things that have happened in the fight for justice and to encourage us to speak up. She tells us this story because she does not want others to end up the way that the ears did. The speaker wants us to stay strong and fight for justice when we begin to live in a state of constant fear.
Without the use of stereotypical behaviours or even language is known universally, the naming of certain places in, but not really known to, Australia in ‘Drifters’ and ‘Reverie of a Swimmer’ convoluted with the overall message of the poems. The story of ‘Drifters’ looks at a family that moves around so much, that they feel as though they don’t belong. By utilising metaphors of planting in a ‘“vegetable-patch”, Dawe is referring to the family making roots, or settling down somewhere, which the audience assumes doesn’t occur, as the “green tomatoes are picked by off the vine”. The idea of feeling secure and settling down can be applied to any country and isn’t a stereotypical Australian behaviour - unless it is, in fact, referring to the continental
This essay will explore how the poets Bruce Dawe, Gwen Harwood and Judith Wright use imagery, language and Tone to express their ideas and emotions. The poems which will be explored throughout this essay are Drifters, Suburban Sonnet and Woman to Man.
The poem “Moco Limping” by David Nova Monreal is about a man who has very high hopes for his dog. He wants him to be heroic and a leader but is disappointed when he doesn’t live up to those standards. He thinks his dog is clumsy and stupid. The poem “Oranges” by Gary Soto is about a boy who was walking with the girl he had a crush on down to a drugstore. He spends a nickel and an orange to buy her chocolates. These poems, “Moco Limping” and “Oranges” have different tones that the authors expressed using different word choice in the beginning of the poems, but become similar at the end.
Both poems are set in the past, and both fathers are manual labourers, which the poets admired as a child. Both poems indicate intense change in their fathers lives, that affected the poet in a drastic way. Role reversal between father and son is evident, and a change of emotion is present. These are some of the re-occurring themes in both poems. Both poems in effect deal with the loss of a loved one; whether it be physically or mentally.
Australian poets Bruce Dawe and Gwen Harwood explore ideas and emotions in their poems through vivid and aural poetic techniques, the poets also use symbolism to allow the readers to relate to the text. In Dawes “Homecoming”, the poet explores the ideas in the text using language techniques such as irony, paradox and visual imagery to construct his attitude towards war and the effect. While in Gwen Harwood’s, “The violets”, she uses prevailing imagery and mood to emphasize fertility and growth. Contrastingly, In Bruce daws, “Life cycle”, the poet uses the idea of sport to symbolise and represent religion with the use of clichés and juxtaposition to convey his ideas of religion, myths and Christianity in the language use, similarly Harwood poem
There are multiple examples of visual imagery in this poem. An example of a simile is “curled like a possum within the hollow trunk”. The effect this has is the way it creates an image for the reader to see how the man is sleeping. An example of personification is, “yet both belonged to the bush, and now are one”. The result this has is how it creates an emotion for the reader to feel
Kim Addonizio’s “First Poem for You” portrays a speaker who contemplates the state of their romantic relationship though reflections of their partner’s tattoos. Addressing their partner, the speaker ambivalence towards the merits of the relationship, the speaker unhappily remains with their partner. Through the usage of contrasting visual and kinesthetic imagery, the speaker revels the reasons of their inability to embrace the relationship and showcases the extent of their paralysis. Exploring this theme, the poem discusses how inner conflicts can be powerful paralyzers.
Both authors use figurative language to help develop sensory details. In the poem It states, “And I sunned it with my smiles, And with soft deceitful wiles.” As the author explains how the character is feeling, the reader can create a specific image in there head based on the details that is given throughout the poem. Specifically this piece of evidence shows the narrator growing more angry and having more rage. In the short story ” it states, “We are below the river's bed. The drops of moisture trickle among bones.” From this piece of text evidence the reader can sense the cold dark emotion that is trying to be formed. Also this excerpt shows the conflict that is about to become and the revenge that is about to take place. By the story and the poem using sensory details, they both share many comparisons.
The poem opens upon comparisons, with lines 3 through 8 reading, “Ripe apples were caught like red fish in the nets/ of their branches. The maples/ were colored like apples,/part orange and red, part green./ The elms, already transparent trees,/ seemed swaying vases full of sky.” The narrator’s surroundings in this poem illustrate him; and the similes suggest that he is not himself, and instead he acts like others. Just as the maples are colored like apples, he
He uses personifications specifically in this poem to write about what is going on and to describe things. “It's a hard life where the sun looks”(19)...”And its black strip of highway, big eyed/with rabbits that won’t get across ”(2)...”A pot bangs and water runs in the kitchen” (13) None of these are really human body parts on things such as the sun, a pot, or a highway, but they help describe what something does or what something looks like. In the first instance, the sun cannot actually look at something, but it could mean that the sun is visible to the humans, and if humans are out for a long time in the sun, they can get hot and exhausted. For the second line, the big-eyed highway could mean that the highway has many cars with bright headlights that are dangerous for the rabbits, the immigrants, to get across. For the third and final line, pots are not able to bang things on their own, and it could have possibly been a human who made the pot bang, preparing the meal of beans and brown soup that they survive on. There is also a simile in this poem, “Papa's field that wavered like a mirage” (24). This simile could suggest that the wind is moving the grass or crops on his father’s field and looked like an optical illusion. According to Gale Virtual Reference Library, the literary device, “tone” is used to convey the significant change of the author’s feeling in the poem. In the beginning lines, the tone is happy. The poem talks about nostalgia of when he was little, “They leap barefoot to the store. Sweetness on their tongues, red stain of laughter (5-6). (GVRL) These lines illustrate the nostalgia and happy times of Gary Soto’s life when he was probably a child. However, after line 11, the tone becomes more of a negative one. Soto later talks about Farm Laborers and how the job was not a great one. After line 19, a brighter
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
... overall themes, and the use of flashbacks. Both of the boys in these two poems reminisce on a past experience that they remember with their fathers. With both poems possessing strong sentimental tones, readers are shown how much of an impact a father can have on a child’s life. Clearly the two main characters experience very different past relationships with their fathers, but in the end they both come to realize the importance of having a father figure in their lives and how their experiences have impacted their futures.
In “A Rainy Morning”, the imagery appeals to the senses of sight, touch, and sound. Some of the imagery in this poem that appeals to the sense of sight would be: “a women in a wheel chair”, “black nylon poncho”, and “long white fingers”. Also, some imagery that appeals to touch and sound would be: “strike just as the chord fades”, “her wet face beautiful in its concentration”, and “the wind turns the pages of rain”. Without the use of imagery in “A Rainy Morning” we would not be able to compare the woman and the pianist. Imagery helps us to see how these two are able to be compared to each other even though they are two different type of people, they are still
To begin, the reader may gather that the poem has a very dark and saddened tone. Due to Lowell's vivid imagery, a mental image of a dark urban setting is created. It also seems very cold, with the mentioning of wind and nighttime. Readers may be able to relate to urban places they know, adding to the reality of the poem. Connections can be made. The imagery is left in such a way that the reader can fill in the gaps with their own memories or settings. Also, since the poem uses free verse, the structure is left open to interpretation. This makes the poem more inviting and easier to interpret, rather than reading it as a riddle. However, though simple in imagery, the poem still captures the reader's interest due to the creation it sparks, yet it never strays away from the theme of bei...