Home is a nearly impossible thing to find, but those who find their homes will stand up for it no matter what. Carl Sandburg’s “Chicago” does a fantastic job of capturing the relationship between a man and his city. The narrator in the piece defends his city in a protective and almost romantic manner. Sandburg displays the intricate and under-discussed relationship through lavish and descriptive language, humanizing personification, and superb sentence structure. Sandburg marvelously utilizes language throughout the piece to encapsulate the connection between the narrator and his home of Chicago. The language used paints the exact picture needed for the audience to do the majority of the work of discovering the relationship between the narrator …show more content…
The narrator forces the audience to see images of citizens of the city who have worked hard and are terrified of the future, but despite that, they continue to smile. By creating a contrast between the surface-level disgust that the citizens must live through and the secret joys beneath said citizens, the audience can swiftly gather that the narrator isn’t just ignorant of his city’s faults, but instead has learned to embrace them. The narrator, upon being told that his city is “crooked” (Sandburg, 8) and “brutal” (Sandburg, 9) does not back down and concede, but instead, he stands up for his home. Despite the accusations that the narrator must somewhat agree with, he stands up for his home and begs for the city’s naysayers to “show me another city with lifted head singing so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning.” (Sandburg, 13) Once again the narrator takes on the horrible things about his home and embraces them. He doesn’t …show more content…
The poem opens in a conversationally unnatural format. The narrator describes his city as the “Hog Butcher for the World / Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat” (Sandburg, 1-2) and calls his city “City of the Big Shoulders.” (Sandburg, 5). The structure sets the scene for the rest of the piece as the narrator talks about his city in an unfocused manner. Opening the poem by establishing a basic understanding of how our narrator sees his home in simple, short sentences, allows the audience to quickly get comfortable and gather an idea of what the rest of the poem has in store. Sandburg’s understanding of the connection one has to their home is more than pleasant, however. The distant and split sentences throughout the poem match not only the narrator’s thoughts about their city, but also reflect the natural flow of an argument which reinforces the theme of a man and the pride he feels for his city. For example, the structure on lines 11-16 focuses on long, drawn-out sentences while retaining sharpness with each word and paragraph space. Then, the split of the established pattern from lines 17-18 continues the argumentative feeling of the sentences, but now takes a more hopeful and blissful tone. Then, in a genius maneuver, Sandburg ends the poem with the beginning lines of the piece, but
Chicago, one of the most popular cities in America. Visits from families all around the country, what makes this place so great? Is it the skyscrapers that protrude the sky? Or is it the weather people loved? Does Chicago being the second most favored city in America show that this town has some greatness? In the nonfiction novel The Devil in the White City, Erik Larson uses imagery, tone, and figurative language to portray the dreamlike qualities of Chicago and the beauty that lies within this city.
The most noticeable aspect of the structure of the entire poem is the lack of capital letters and periods. There is only one part in the entire forty lines, which is at the very end, and this intentional punctuation brings readers to question the speaker’s literacy. In fact, the speaker is very young, and the use of punctuation and hyphens brings to attention the speaker’s innocence, and because of that innocence, the
Something that sticks with the reader is found in the prologue of The Great Inversion. That something is Ehrenhalt’s writing about Chicago and the events of the winter of 1979. What is written is the account of a 22inch snow fall that hit Chicago in 1979 that has a profound effect on government. The snow fall of that was of disastrous quantity and in turn the city’s transportation system failed many of the residents of Chicago’s urban area, and succeeded the rich suburban population. The urban population of mostly black and Hispanics placed blame on the mayor and he lost the democratic primary. Today Chicago is different; the rich majority is living in the city while the poor minority is living outside of the city limits. We are given the 1979 picture of Chicago and its inhabitants and the stark con...
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
One rhetorical strategy developed from the opening passage and carried on throughout the novel is the detachment of the narrator. By not including any mention of who is telling the story, the novel maintains a journalistic nature and allows for the audience to make their own judgments. Moreover, the city of Holcomb becomes just an average place that neither the narrator or audience has any relation to due to the repeated inclusion of understatements, allowing the plot of the novel to pervade deeper into the senses
In “Brooklyn Bridge,” an account of a man on the bridge describes him in his “magic spot” or his personal area where two years ago he decided that New York wouldn 't break him. This suggests the essence of New York is tied to these “magic spots”. By magic spots I mean the places around the city where individuals decided to change their lives , something out of the ordinary happened to them, or just a place they feel serene. In the Library of Congress this work of nonfiction can be found under homes and haunts, a “ Magic Spot” is incredibly similar to a home. What makes a place a person’s home is the memories and experience they felt there. Even though New Yorkers begrudgingly accept all this change surrounding New York that Whitehead describes, they also thrive on it. By remembering the past in terms of their New York,their present is enhanced because the feeling of history contributes to a greater feeling of home because again the feeling of home is based on the memories. The only difference here is that instead of calling home a building or a house, the whole city acts as your home and like a tour guide Whitehead is giving his reader an insider’s account of his home. The essence of New York is this sense of home that you can find seemingly anywhere. People are drawn here based on that desire to feel comfortable and
...ace to place to fit the needs of the area. When you listen to Wolfe, you get one side of the story. Without knowing the other side anyone would agree with him and his opinions. Thirty years ago the city was on its way to a massive behavioral sink, but has been cleaning up its act. The streets, subway systems, workplaces, and attractions have all cleaned up and done there part. More and more people are living in the city. Wolfe believes that this city is on its way to the sink, but the city is proving him wrong.
Colson Whitehead explores this grand and complex city in his collection of essays The Colossus of New York. Whitehead writes about essential elements to New York life. His essays depict the city limits and everyday moments such as the morning and the subway, where “it is hard to escape the suspicion that your train just left... and if you had acted differently everything would be better” (“Subway” 49). Other essays are about more once in a while moments such as going to Central Park or the Port Authority. These divisions are subjective to each person. Some people come to New York and “after the long ride and the tiny brutalities... they enter the Port Authority,” but for others the Port Authority is a stop in their daily commute (“The Port Authority” 22).Nonetheless, each moment is a part of everyone’s life at some point. Many people live these moments together, experiencing similar situations. We have all been in the middle of that “where ...
Just look at the quote I gave you earlier: “Brooklyn, New York, as the undefined, hard-to–remember the shape of a stain.” He sees it as nothing but a stain on the map. He goes on to talk about “…the sludge at the bottom of the canal causes it to bubble.” Giving us something we can see, something we can hear because you can just imagine being near the canal and hearing the sludge bubble make their popping noises as the gas is released. He “The train sounds different – lighter, quieter—in the open air,” when it comes from underground and the sight he sees on the rooftops. Although some are negative, such as the sagging of roofs and graffiti, his tone towards the moment seems to be admiration. In the second section, he talks about the smells of Brooklyn and the taste of food. He’d talk about how his daughter compares the tastes of pizzas with her “…stern judgments of pizza. Low end… New Hampshire pizza. … In the middle… zoo pizza. …very top… two blocks from our house,” and different it was where he’d grown up. He talks about the immense amount of “smells in Brooklyn: Coffee, fingernail polish, eucalyptus…” and how other might hate it, but he enjoys it. In the same section, he describes how he enjoys the Brooklyn accent and the noise and smells that other people make on the streets and at the park across from his house. “Charcoal smoke drifts into the
He shaped his literary work so people of all demographics could relate, and embedded different unique perspectives with literary device for people who For example, in Sandburg’s poem Chicago, the whole first stanza uses personification. He writes “Hog Butcher for the World, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with Railroads and the Nation’s Freight Handler; Stormy, husky, brawling, City of the Big Shoulders”(Sandburg 764). By using personification, Sandburg gives human characteristics to non-human things. He references “brawling” and “big shoulders” which are human characteristics that a city cannot have. Sandburg showed the diversity of the city, and people through his use of personification, and he “catalogs Chicago’s glories as well as its degradation; or rather, in recognizing its weaknesses and seeing through and beyond them, he arrives at its greatness: the muscular vitality, the momentum, the real life that he loves”(Masterplots).
I believe that the structure of this poem allows for the speaker to tell a narrative which further allows him to convey his point. The use of enjambment emphasizes this idea as well as provides a sense of flow throughout the entirety of a poem, giving it the look and feel of reading a story. Overall, I believe this piece is very simplistic when it comes to poetic devices, due to the fact that it is written as a prose poem, this piece lacks many of the common poetic devices such as rhyme, repetition, alliteration, and metaphors. However, the tone, symbolism, allusion and imagery presented in the poem, give way to an extremely deep and complicated
When Willy and Linda purchased their home in Brooklyn, it seemed far removed from the city. Willy was young and strong and he believed he had a future full of success. He and his sons cut the tree limbs that threatened his home and put up a hammock that he would enjoy with his children. The green fields filled his home with wonderful aromas. Over the years, while Willy was struggling to pay for his home, the city grew and eventually surrounded the house.
This is evident in the first person“I rise into the mirror.stow the book and wash bag and city clothes” this slowing tonal shift suggests that the persona feels a sense of renewal and content with leaving behind the city life. This renewal is not just personal, but also universal, reflecting the potential for all individuals to find liberation and transformation in the ordinary. Ultimately,
The reader sees two different worlds, one of machinery and industrialization, but also one that includes a spiritual search and a longing for fulfillment. As the poem goes down a list of the “best minds of my generation destroyed by madness” (Ginsberg 1) the reader can see different worlds, some reality, some using the aid of the imagination. For example, each line in part one continues with the word “who” (Ginsberg 5-14). In part two “Moloch” (Ginsberg 3-23) is the line that continues. Then in part three “I’m” (Ginsberg 48) is the line that is repeated.
Chicago, Illinois, is one of the largest cities in the United States, with over 2.7 million residents filling its streets. Robert “Mac” Hanslip was one of these residents before he moved here to the University of Alabama. Mac says that much like “Sweet Home Alabama,” Fischer’s song is the anthem of the city, and he says that they would play the song before every game played by the Chicago Bulls. He also agrees strongly with the lyric “The folks who visit all wanna settle down,” because of how much his parents moved around until they found Chicago. The song was published in 1922, with several different musicians releasing their own versions throughout the years. The song “Chicago” by Fred Fischer is an important part of Chicago’s culture, with its style, lyrics, and societal importance.