“Women on the Beach” is a poem written by Canadian author/writer Anne Michaels from Toronto, Ontario. Michaels is highly recognized for her collections of poetry, winning her several awards including the Canadian Author’s Associations Award in 1991. “Women on the Beach” is one of Michaels’ many popular poems, in which she uses rhetorical devices like imagery and symbolism to capture her audience. Within the very first line of the poem, “Light chooses while sails, the bellies of gulls” (Michaels, 1997, p.30), Michaels uses figurative imagery through the metaphor she creates comparing seagull bellies to the appearance of the beach and sails. This line also uses personification, where human traits are given to light when it “chooses” white
sails. Personification allows readers to relate and connect to inanimate subjects (i.e. light) in order to provide a deeper understanding of the main idea in the text. Further down the poem reads, “Your three bodies form a curving shoreline” (Michaels, 1997, p.30), which uses symbolism in order to showcase the main idea of how women and nature are equals. This line in the poem tells readers of the resemblance between women sitting on a beach and the curves on a shoreline. Ultimately, the quote uses the symbolic images to represent that women and nature are one. In the poem, “Women on the Beach,” Anne Michaels paints a very vivid picture in the reader’s mind through the use of imagery, symbolism, metaphors, and personification. This makes her work relatable and easy to follow when attempting to comprehend the overall main idea of the poem. Her use of rhetorical devices turned something as simple as an image of women relaxing on a beach into a passionate outlook on the harmony of nature and women as one. Anne Michaels’ work demonstrates how powerful words are through the use of imagery and symbolism – where everyday instances act as the raw material that soon turn into poetic truths.
As a way to end his last stanza, the speaker creates an image that surpasses his experiences. When the flock rises, the speaker identifies it as a lady’s gray silk scarf, which the woman has at first chosen, then rejected. As the woman carelessly tosses the scarf toward the chair the casual billow fades from view, like the birds. The last image connects nature with a last object in the poet's
Personification is presented by the author as the only explanation for the narrator’s consumption. “The Blue Estuaries” begins to stir the narrator’s own poems (line 24) until she bores down on the page once more, coming back into what is perceived by the reader as a much more clear state of mind. Then, the narrator claims to have “lost her doubts” for a moment (line 34). This was a turning point in the narrator’s tone- signalling a shift in her thoughts, and was a strikingly out of place claim- especially coming from somebody so preoccupied- making the reader wonder what she had thought about for a moment. The narrator then begins to read once more (Line
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
Why did Ray Bradbury choose the poem “Dover Beach” by Matthew Arnold? Ray Bradbury chose the poem “Dover Beach” by Matthew Arnold, because at the time when Guy Montag reads it, he is questioning his faith similarly to Matthew Arnold. Also, the poem “Dover Beach” expresses Fahrenheit 451 Guy Montag’s sadness and unhappiness with the world. Lastly, this poem represents the loss of love, and hopelessness that Montag feels.
The tone of the waves is "thunderous and mighty" and the gulls are looked upon as "uncanny and sinister."(Crane391). Furthermore, the crew fears the upcoming danger of the sea, blaming it as the "play of the free sea."(Crane390). Meanwhile, many beautiful colors such as "emerald", "white", and "amber" decorate the sea, another name of nature.(Crane390). What matters here is that the crew 's attention focuses not on the beauty of nature but on the danger they face. In other words, people are likely to interpret natural phenomenon based on their prejudices, thus distorting the features of nature as
The imagery used in “The White Heron” is shown through the relationship that is formed with Sylvia and the pine tree. She realizes that she needs to connect with nature and not let human greed take over. “The pine tree seemed to grow taller, the higher that Sylvie climbed. The sky began to brighten in the east. Sylvie’s face was lik...
"The water of the Gulf stretched out before her, gleaming with the million lights of the sun. The voice of the sea is seductive, never ceasing, whispering, clamoring, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander in the abysses of solitude. All along the white beach, up and down, there was no living thing in sight. A bird with a broken wing was beating the air above, reeling, fluttering, circling disabled down, down to the water." Chapter XXXIX
One of the great things about Composition and Literature is that the readings can relate to many other topics outside of the class. The poems and the stories read in this class give a more in depth look at a specific subject and give a clearer picture of what life was like and how people lived at that time. In most classes about U.S. History, the sections taught on segregation don’t give specific examples of how people were treated or the perspectives of the people who were mistreated. However, reading Gwendolyn Brooks’ poetry in the Composition and Literature course gives students an opportunity to learn greater details about segregation through the perspectives of the people most affected by it and the
Frost uses quite a bit of personification throughout the poem to give the sky and ocean human like traits. The use of this literary device helps embody the meaning of the poem. The first use of personification is seen in the second and third line “Great waves looked over others coming in/ and thought of doing something to the shore”. This illustrates how the waves were smashing upon each other and getting larger and larger than the ones before. The personification of the waves in line three, suggest that the waves have an actual mind of their and shall do what they wish.
Personification is an important theme throughout this poem. In lines 1-2 it says, “The mountain held the town as in a shadow I saw so much before I slept there once:.” Also in lines 3-4 it says, “I noticed that I missed stars in the west, where its black body cut into the sky.” This is an example of personification. In lines 5-6 it says, Near me it seemed: I felt it like a wall behind which i was sheltered from a wind.” Most of the examples showing personification in this poem, are displayed in the first couple of lines of the poem.
In this poem, Frost includes his fear of the ocean and exaggerates its destructive power. As Judith Saunders stated that “The first thirteen lines have depicted an ocean storm of unusual force, and through personification the poet attributes to this storm a malign purposefulness” (1). Frost provided human characteristics on the storm to help prove his point that the ocean has bad intentions and its only purpose is to hurt him. Frost does not describe the waves as a result of unfavorable weather; he explains them as having a malignant intention to destroy the world. This poem revolves around the forces of nature and could be included in the long list of nature themed poems by Robert Frost.
Though he commands everything in section nine, the only things he can change is how he perceives the world, and therefore he demonstrates that his character in reflected throughout the entire poem by the idle seagulls with oscillating bodies, allowing the air to carry them wherever. When he commands “fly on, sea-birds! Fly sideways, or wheel in large circles high in the air” in comparison to his previous observation where the seagulls flew in “slow-wheeling circles,” he shows how he has changed his point of view and made himself ambitious instead of slow-moving and
One of the most prevalent of the literary tools used in this poem is the simile. Repeatedly throughout the poem Bishop uses the simile to give the reader a clearer picture of the situation at hand. The simile is an ideal literary tool to use when the author is trying to convey a sensory description of an object or idea. When describing the fish?s physical appearance in lines 9-15 she compares the fish?s skin to ?ancient wallpaper?; this immediately gives the reader an impression of the age and outward appearance of the fish. Later in the poem when in lines 61-62 she describes the pieces of broken fishing line hanging from the fish?s mouth as ?medals with their ribbons / frayed and wavering? she is using a simile to give the impression of pride and honor. This comes at a point when ...
George Gordon, Lord Byron’s poem “She Walks in Beauty” illustrates an unnamed woman about her beauty and perfection, in which uses contrast of beautiful, but dark imagery to describe the woman’s beauty. This poem explains why the woman is so flawless and perfect in the words of the narrator, and why she is the main focus of the poem, in which is described like the starry night skies. “She walks in Beauty, like the night/Of cloudless climes and starry skies “ the poet uses imagery in order for the reader to visualize the beauty such as the night sky that surrounds the woman. By comparing this to the night sky filled with light, such as stars, he uses equality as an ideal balanced picture in which can be compared to the woman. Later within the stanza, the woman claimed by the narrator also contains opposite features away from her perfection.
Connotation- The first glance at the poem, "The White Doe" leads the reader to believe that it is strictly about an encounter with a white doe, but it actually is a love poem. The white doe represents the woman the author loves. This poem's rhyme scheme varies from stanza to stanza. The first stanza has a rhyme scheme of ABAB, the second ABBA, the third ABA, and the fourth stanza has no rhyme scheme. The deterioration of the rhyme steady serves as a tool to exemplify how the speaker becomes lost in following the animal/woman. The entire poem is an example of personification because the white doe represents the woman whom the author loves. White symbolizes the...