Analysis of Cesar Vallejo's Poem, Our Daily Bread (Translated by James Wright)
I was in a turmoil when I read and reread "Our Daily Bread." This poem has a lot of emotions involved in it. Feelings of hunger, sadness, anger, guilt, and warmth are felt through out the poem.
In the first stanza, the speaker sets the scene with "Damp earth of the cemetery," "City of winter," "mordant crusade." Especially when the speaker speaks of "the fragrance of the precious blood," we feel coldness, loneliness and death. All through this poem, the speaker uses symbols to connect us with Jesus. The "precious blood" is a symbol of Jesus giving his life for us. If you look at it in a different way, the precious blood is the blood that drips down from Jesus' forehead from the crown of thorns. The phrase "and emotion of fasting that cannot get free" represents hunger and death.
The meaning behind "I wish I could beat on all the doors, and ask for somebody" -- if we think of the narrator as Jesus's voice -- is that Jesus wishes he could have reached more people who were in need. "Look at the poor, and, while they wept softly" is surely an emotion of guilt that he didn't reach as many people as he wanted to. Then he goes on with feeding the poor: "give bits of fresh bread." He turns his guilt to anger toward the rich by saying he would "plunder the rich of their vineyards."
Other symbols of Jesus dying for us is the blood and wine that our sins may be forgiven. The speaker uses "two blessed hands" -- Jesus's hands as they nailed him to the cross. "Blasted the nails with one blow of light" represents Jesus's crucifixion. As they nailed him to the cross, it grew dark, and his holy spirit "flew away from the Cross!" up to the heavens.
The speaker returns to the crucifixion with the phrase "every bone in me belongs to others." This is a symbol of Jesus dying for us. "Maybe I robbed them," he says. Jesus feels that he did not achieve his purpose as he continues: "I start to think that, if I had not been born, another poor man could have drunk this coffee."
"I feel like a dirty thief." This phrase conveys Jesus's feelings of betrayal that he robbed us by not fulfilling his goals.
This shows how the little boy looks at his father in complete awe and thinks that he can do no wrong. Christ is God-like too many people and the boy puts his father on the same level as Christ. The Brewery cops could only “watch in drunken disappointment,” could be viewed as all of the Christians who watched as Jesus was freed from the struggle which is known as life on Earth. The last line of the poem, “I searched my father’s hands / for a sign of the miracle” indicates that he looked for the wounds that Jesus was said to have had on his hands from being nailed to the cross. This connects to the theme of racism because the hole in the father's hands would have been the only thing that directly connected him to Christ. Which would have explained why the father was able to tolerate the unjust cruelty that he faced every day due to being a victim of racism because it is said that Jesus was able to get through any and every hardship thrown his way. In the second stanza, the narrator says, “in 1964, I had never tasted beer, / and no one told me about the picket signs.” This can be seen as
Major Ted Tolman’s F-105 Thud fighter/bomber streaked through the air at just under the speed of sound. His aircraft performed modestly at best, struggling to maintain its speed and altitude under the heavy load of ordinance and fuel it carried under its wings (Patrick).
For example, one line, “Soon our pilgrimage will cease; Soon our happy hearts will quiver, with the melody of peace,” which is saying that one day we will die, and you can’t stop that. “Lay we every burden down; Grace our spirits will deliver, and provide a robe and a crown,” also reveals that you should appreciate what we’ve had, and what was given to us. This song is telling you, in every line, that you can’t live forever, but appreciate what you have, while you
I would like to investigate the many struggles of women, whether it be race that differentiates them or an event that any woman could experience that brings them together. Beauty is not easily defined, and women everywhere struggle with not only pleasing the people around them, but themselves. Wanting to describes themselves and feel beautiful is one of the many struggles women experience throughout their lives. “Las Rubias” by Diana García from Fire and Ink represents a common example of what women of color experience while comparing themselves to the “beauty” of white women. The poem is divided into eight numbered sections, each containing their own experience or thought. This is effective because by the end of the poem, the reader has almost
This statement really stood out to me because no one can stand in Jesus’ presence. This is an awesome display of the anointing. Just like Paul on the road to Damascus, John fell down in the presence of Jesus. I can only imagine what it was like to be in the presence of Jesus. This really encourages me to continue on with the good fight of faith and one day all believers will get a chance to see Him face-to-face.
Lynch, Michael. “The Emancipation of the Russian Serfs, 1861: A Charter of Freedom or an Act of Betrayal?” History Review. 2003.
This essay is being written to prove that NASA spending has a negative impact on American society. Continuing NASA and the programs run by it is harmful to American society and Government. NASA harms the economy. NASA also harms the environment in which we live. And the money that NASA spends could be used to help solve problems in our country, not on another planet.
...s and have nothing to eat” (Mark 8:2). Jesus commanded his disciples to give them something to eat. This wellspring of concern for those in need is like a genetic trait passed down to the followers of Jesus. While the book of James is perhaps the most forthright in expressing the church’s need to honor the poor and warn the rich, concern for those in need pervades the New Testament.
Although, I wished that the poem included more about the resurrection. It was good that it discussed Jesus return and the Day of Judgment, to encourage man’s repentance and salvation in Christ. I wondered if this poet who must have lived sometime in the Early Middle Ages actually had a dream where he imagined a tree speaking to him about the death and resurrection of Christ and then he wrote it down. If that was the case, then I can understand why the poem is not perfectly accurate and somewhat jumbled, when compared to scripture. Often our thoughts are jumbled, when we dream. The order of events seems to be a little offset. For example, the earth did not tremble, until after Jesus spirit left Him. The poem appears to put the trembling ahead of Jesus death. However, there is a lot of the good, the true, and the beautiful in this poem. It celebrates the sacrifice that Jesus made on the cross and it encourages us to look to Him on the cross, so we don’t forget how much He loves us. Also, it encourages us in our faith and knowing that Jesus will return someday, to take us into eternal glory with Him. It was good that the poem concluded with the Dreamer feeling enthusiastic about the cross, looking forward to eternal glory, and desiring to share the good news with others. This is the way that
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The consistent pattern of metrical stresses in this stanza, along with the orderly rhyme scheme, and standard verse structure, reflect the mood of serenity, of humankind in harmony with Nature. It is a fine, hot day, `clear as fire', when the speaker comes to drink at the creek. Birdsong punctuates the still air, like the tinkling of broken glass. However, the term `frail' also suggests vulnerability in the presence of danger, and there are other intimations in this stanza of the drama that is about to unfold. Slithery sibilants, as in the words `glass', `grass' and `moss', hint at the existence of a Serpent in the Garden of Eden. As in a Greek tragedy, the intensity of expression in the poem invokes a proleptic tenseness, as yet unexplained.
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Stanza three explains what life was like at the farm he lived on, as the previous stanzas have. Line twenty describes the landscape and how beautiful it is. It describes it as Fields high as the house, the tunes from the chimneys, it was air,” (20). Lines twenty one through twenty three use more imagery to describe the landscape. They use words such as “lovely and watery” (21) to show how pleasant it was to gaze upon the land. The word “And” is also repeated in the beginning of each of these lines which creates suspense. They also show repetition by repeating words such as “green” and it brings up the starry night again. Line twenty four talks about owls and how they are starting to come out. The day is starting to end and there is still beauty in everything. Now night has begun and all the things that made the day happy and carefree are starting to disappear. Lines twenty five through twenty seven use imagery to show that the moon is appearing and the horses and everything else is disappearing into the night. This begins to show that the youth the speaker is experiencing is starting to