“Spawn” by Andy Campbell is a blatant attack on technology and its interactions with humanity. Immediately upon launching Campbell’s electronic poem, a metallic, incessant noise assaults the ears (Campbell). To describe it as “background music” is sanctimonious to the idea of music, as the word, “droning” better suits the auditory component of the poem. As a result, however, the audio creates a cold, alien, and electronic tone that is carried through out the rest of the poem (Campbell). This tone first introduced by the auditory components is perpetuated by the visual counterparts of the electronic poem. Black and white are the only “colors” present (Campbell). This, coupled with the plant suffocating in a jar, reinforces the coldness of the poem and introduces the idea of decay (Campbell). In addition, black eggs or spores are trapped with the decaying plant, evocative of an alien infection (Campbell). The eggs can be interacted with, and when moved, expel flashes of extraneous computer code that accumulate across screen (Campbell). Visually, it suggests that coding has had an integral part in bringing about decay of life due to the eggs proximity to the centered decay. …show more content…
As the spores expel computer code, they simultaneously trigger phrases to appear on the screen.
Andy Campbell’s choice of clunky and fleshy language such as “chunk chipped” (Campbell), and “bad gums” further reinforces the strange, alien aspect of the poem(Campbell). Furthermore, the word spawn’s denotative and connotative definitions also support the alien tone, as does Campbell’s decision to include the definition in his interactive poem (Campbell). Degrading references to technology, “JPEG headed” (Campbell), and “pixel-for-brains” (Campbell), clarifies Campbell’s negative stance toward technology. As more and more spores are interacted with, phrases, the extraneous coding, and incessant droning all build into a cacophony of chaos that is centered around death of life
(Campbell). “Spawn” tells the tale of a world where technological influences have brought about the decay of life. The computer-code-expelling black eggs’ proximity to decay communicates technological responsibility for the decay (Campbell). In addition, a cold and alien tone, common with science fiction involving hostile alien life, is evident in choice of word, color, and sound (Campbell). In other words, Andy Campbell crafted “Spawn” as a warning against the interweaving of technology into everyday life.
Technology has been around as long as people have and has been advancing ever since. It is the reason that we have access to the miraculous tools that we do today. From the forks that we eat our supper with to the cars that get us from place to place technology is everywhere. However, with technology advancing at such a rapid pace, it could pose a threat to our future society. In the short stories “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut and “By the Waters of Babylon” by Stephen Vincent Benet, the authors describe how bleak society could become if we do not take precautions when using technology.
In the film Wall-E, produced by Disney and the novel Fahrenheit 451, written by Ray Bradbury illustrate similar themes of how technology can destroy a society. Through technology, humans do not directly communicate with one another, they only interact through screens. Through technology, humans are letting robots and other technology do everything for them, making humans seem inferior to the machines. These futuristic technology based societies are a warning to the modern society to control the human use and production of technology.
Specifically, the grandfather in this poem appears to represent involvement with nature because of his decisions to garden as he “stabs his shears into earth” (line 4). However, he is also representative of urban life too as he “watched the neighborhood” from “a three-story” building (line 10). The author describes the world, which the grandfather has a small “paradise” in, apart from the elements desecrated by humans, which include “a trampled box of Cornflakes,” a “craggy mound of chips,” and “greasy / bags of takeouts” (lines 23, 17, 2, and 14-15). The passive nature of the grandfather’s watching over the neighborhood can be interpreted in a variety of different ways, most of them aligning with the positive versus negative binary created by the authors of these texts. The author wants to show the reader that, through the grandfather’s complexity of character, a man involved in both nature and more human centered ways of life, there is multifaceted relationship that man and nature share. Through the also violent descriptions of the grandfather’s methods of gardening, the connection between destructive human activities and the negative effects on nature is
M.T Anderson’s novel Feed gives readers a representation of a future dystopian world, one in which technology is not simply around us yet embedded inside our heads. Anderson gives a warning for our own society by drawing parallels between our society and the feed. As Anderson describes, "Everything's dead. Everything's dying." (Anderson 180). In this dystopian world, the environment turns into a disaster due to how rapidly technology is advancing, and this concept can relate to our society today. Indeed, society’s life has improved over the decades due to technological advances, however, it brings more damage to the earth.
Owen starts the octave in a bitter tone as he criticizes the treatment of the dead soldiers. He asks rhetorically what the “passing bells” (1) will sound like to the families of the soldiers who perish. Instead of normal funeral bells that one can expect, the soldiers receive bells in the form...
Sound Devices help convey the poet’s message by appealing to the reader’s ears and dr...
The morbid, melancholic mood of the story sets the atmosphere for author’s observant yet sympathetic tone. Woolf also uses many literary devices throughout the story to expand the reader’s interest, such as her use of diction in line ? “Pathetic” and her use of imagery in line ? “hay-colored wings”. Woolf also uses description to portray the moth’s appearance throughout his efforts to live., using flowing adjectives throughout. The story as a whole uses symbolism to depict life and death in a different light, using the moth’s representation of life trying desperately to avoid death, but ends in the eventual fate of decease.
In addition, the author uses tone or mood to show how neglect can lead to dangerous or mischievous things. For example, “...the yellows of lions and summer grass, and the sound of the matted lion lungs exhaling on the silent
Many of Ray Bradbury’s works are satires on modern society from a traditional, humanistic viewpoint (Bernardo). Technology, as represented in his works, often displays human pride and foolishness (Wolfe). “In all of these stories, technology, backed up by philosophy and commercialism, tries to remove the inconveniences, difficulties, and challenges of being human and, in its effort to improve the human condition, impoverishes its spiritual condition” (Bernardo). Ray Bradbury’s use of technology is common in Fahrenheit 451, “The Veldt,” and The Martian Chronicles.
Bishop begins by admiring not her lover, but lichens, described as “still explosions on the rocks.” The lichens’ growth records the passage of time, and yet “they have not changed”. Lichen is a type of fungal organism that grows very slowly and gradually. Over time, the lichen can spread and overtake the surface it grows on. A metaphor describes how the lichen “grow by” means “spreading, gray, concentric shocks” in a pattern that can be compared to an “explosion[s]”. The idea of “gray” is used here to describe the pattern of lichen growth; it is repeated throughout the poem and echoed in the third stanza. Bishop uses a whimsical hyperbole to describe the meeting of the lichen with the “rings around the moon”. Lichens cannot actually grow far out enough to meet with an object in space, but Bishop exaggerates their growth to emphasize that they are
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.
In the third stanza of Shelley's poem, he uses personification by assigning emotion to some of nature's elements. In the eleventh line, Shelley declares that the "sea-blooms and the oozy woods" will "suddenly grow grey with fear". The emotions he assigns are relative to the idea of death. These are the feelings that humans develop when they feel that death is near. Shelley has again, managed to give the reader an intense image of foliage shaking in their roots at the thought of the west wind's approach.
sexual element. The fact that the worm is invisible indicates it can? t be stopped and nothing can be done because it can?t be seen in the picture. I believe this adds mystery to the poem.
Poe’s most famous poem begins with an imagery that immediately brings the reader into a dark, cold, and stormy night. Poe does not wish for his readers to stand on the sidelines and watch the goings on, but actually be in the library with the narrator, hearing what he hears and seeing what he sees. Using words and phrases such as “midnight dreary” and “bleak December” Poe sets the mood and tone, by wanting his readers to feel the cold night and to reach for the heat of the “dying embers” of the fireplace. You do not come into this poem thinking daffodils and sunshine, but howling winds and shadows. By using these words, Poe gives you the sense of being isolated and alone. He also contrasts this isolation, symbolized by the storm and the dark chamber, with the richness of the objects in the library. The furnished room also reminds him of the beauty of his lost Lenore. Also, Poe uses a rhythm in his beginning stanza, using “tapping”, followed by “rapping, rapping at my door”, and ending with “tapping at my chamber door.” You can almost hear the tapping on the door of the library as ...
Punk rock is a very firm theme of this poem that is supposed to be menacing. This is established when it says, “ Clanging, Clanging upon the heart as upon an anvil.'; This is saying how he feels that the chains that the kids wear are frightening. He feels that the sound of their chains dangling together is intimidating. When people who wear chains run the often make a loud noise ...