People decide whether or not to be happy and whether to accept the circumstances that life places them in, or to struggle against them. Two poems “The Chimney Sweeper” (1789) and another poem by the same name (1794) develop this idea of choosing happiness in otherwise horrific scenarios through their use of diction and tone. The contrast of the use of these devices in either poem highlights the subtle differences in how people look at happiness through different perspectives while in a similar situation. The tone in each poem shows the difference in perspective while the diction highlights what that perspective is. The tone in the 1789 version of miserable acceptance, where a small boy has turned to god in the face of overwhelming disparity in his life. It …show more content…
For example in the 1979 version fire is illustrated through “soot” (Line 4) against the 1794 version where the word “health” (Line 5) is used. This denotes the difference between the two works where the first one is all about the after of a blazing fire while a heath has the possibility for more. Also the use of the word “Heath” (Line 5) is more euphonic. Moreover when describing the conditions of their life and their accommodations the 1789 poem uses “coffins of black” (Line 12) while the 1794 uses “clothes of death” (Line 7). Coffins bring out feelings of entrapment and permanence, they are our final resting place. Clothes are temporary, they can be changed to how we feel and replaced as we grow; the expectation of change remains in the face of miserable circumstances. It is mentioned in the 1789 that the child has no father figure and turns to god as a type of replacement “He’d have god for a father” (Line 20) while in the second one god is mentioned as a “King” (Line 11) which is more noble but also more distant. The child without a father clings to God as a source of hope and acceptance in his life, to replace the one that he lost. To the child in the 1794 version God
John Stuart Mill, who is an English philosopher, explains another way of achieving happiness based off of his personal experience. After suffering from a d...
In her poem entitled “The Poet with His Face in His Hands,” Mary Oliver utilizes the voice of her work’s speaker to dismiss and belittle those poets who focus on their own misery in their writings. Although the poem models itself a scolding, Oliver wrote the work as a poem with the purpose of delivering an argument against the usage of depressing, personal subject matters for poetry. Oliver’s intention is to dissuade her fellow poets from promoting misery and personal mistakes in their works, and she accomplishes this task through her speaker’s diction and tone, the imagery, setting, and mood created within the content of the poem itself, and the incorporation of such persuasive structures as enjambment and juxtaposition to bolster the poem’s
The constant process of life and death, driven by an indestructible progression of time, explains the attitude of carpe diem expressed in three poems focused on human love being a fickle matter. Within the poems “To His Coy Mistress” by Andrew Marvell, “To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time” by Robert Herrick, and “Youth’s the Season Made for Joys” by John Gay, the concept of how a shy attitude towards the inevitable end of all life is exposed as an inherently useless view. Nevertheless, though their primary themes and ideas of this constant procession of time are obviously expressed, the manner in which they do this, through figurative language and imagery, is the main point in which each of these three poems can be contrasted and examined
Hurst uses Doodle’s coffins as a symbol for death and doubt. His parents do not believe he will live, and Hurst shows it through objects such as the coffin. Doodle is just an infant when his father has a coffin for him. “Daddy had Mr. Heath, the carpenter, build a little mahogany coffin for him” (Hurst 110). This shows that the father has doubt in his son due to his figure and appearance. The coffin is a manifest symbol for his father’s doubt. Brother makes Doodle touch the coffin that is meant to be his, and this is a parallel. “One day I took him up to the barn loft and showed him his casket, telling him how we all believed he would die” (Hurst 111). In addition to the previous example, this shows how the coffin symbolizes death, but proves that the whole f...
The novel We Have Always Lived in The Castle by Shirley Jackson is a very unique book. This is due to the very strange behavioral patterns from the two sisters, Merricat and Constance, in the poem. But what is the most unusual about the two sisters is their definitions of happiness. To see Merricat’s definition of happiness is best seen when she refers to the “moon” and under the same weekly routine schedule she has always been under since she her family was murdered. Constance’s definition of happiness clearly displayed when Charles comes to the house and when she starts embracing Merricat’s “moon” fantasy world.
The philosopher Aristotle once wrote, “Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.” This famous quote compels people to question the significance of their joy, and whether it truly represents purposeful lives they want to live. Ray Bradbury, a contemporary author, also tackles this question in his book, Fahrenheit 451, which deals heavily with society's view of happiness in the future. Through several main characters, Bradbury portrays the two branches of happiness: one as a lifeless path, heading nowhere, seeking no worry, while the other embraces pure human experience intertwined together to reveal truth and knowledge.
Happiness plays an important and necessary role in the lives of people around the world. In America, happiness has been engrained in our national consciousness since Thomas Jefferson penned these famous words in the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” (Jefferson). Since then, Americans have been engaged in that act: pursuing happiness. The problem however, as Ray Bradbury demonstrates in his novel Fahrenheit 451, is that those things which make us happy initially may eventually lead to our downfall. By examining Guy Montag, the protagonist in Fahrenheit 451, and the world he lives in we can gain valuable insights to direct us in our own pursuit of happiness. From Montag and other characters we will learn how physical, emotional, and spiritual happiness can drastically affect our lives. We must ask ourselves what our lives, words, and actions are worth. We should hope that our words are not meaningless, “as wind in dried grass” (Eliot).
Even with the pain of bearing children, raising them, doing household and even farm chores, their efforts have never been truly appreciated. Mrs. Wright was “…real sweet and pretty, but kind of timid—and fluttery…” as Mrs. Hale, her neighbor, describes her (22). This would all soon change after her wedding day. With Mr. Wright’s insipid character and lack of patience of any joyous sound, Mrs. Wright’s spirit dwindled to nothing. It seems she spent hours at a time focusing on her quilts, preserves, and caring for the only life there was in the house, her canary. Even when Mr. Hale offered to get a party telephone, Mr. Wright responded, “…folks talk too much anyway…”(5). This silence he preferred also applied to his spouse. There were no hugs given out much less a smile. He failed to give her even the most minimal sing of appreciation much less the emotional warmth she hungered for.
There are no differences in the poems themselves as they are both set in the same scene but different centuries one has a negative point on the poem whereas the other has a positive however they tell the same story but in different words.
During the process of growing up, we are taught to believe that life is relatively colorful and rich; however, if this view is right, how can we explain why literature illustrates the negative and painful feeling of life? Thus, sorrow is inescapable; as it increase one cannot hide it. From the moment we are born into the world, people suffer from different kinds of sorrow. Even though we believe there are so many happy things around us, these things are heartbreaking. The poems “Tips from My Father” by Carol Ann Davis, “Not Waving but Drowning” by Stevie Smith, and “The Fish” by Elizabeth Bishop convey the sorrow about growing up, about sorrowful pretending, and even about life itself.
Happiness: an idea so abstract and intangible that it requires one usually a lifetime to discover. Many quantify happiness to their monetary wealth, their materialistic empire, or time spent in relationships. However, others qualify happiness as a humble campaign to escape the squalor and dilapidation of oppressive societies, to educate oneself on the anatomy of the human soul, and to locate oneself in a world where being happy dissolves from a number to spiritual existence. Correspondingly, Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 and Krakauer’s Into the Wild illuminate the struggles of contentment through protagonists which venture against norms in their dystopian or dissatisfying societies to find the virtuous refuge of happiness. Manifestly, societal
The speaker started the poem by desiring the privilege of death through the use of similes, metaphors, and several other forms of language. As the events progress, the speaker gradually changes their mind because of the many complications that death evokes. The speaker is discontent because of human nature; the searching for something better, although there is none. The use of language throughout this poem emphasized these emotions, and allowed the reader the opportunity to understand what the speaker felt.
She encourages readers to find gratefulness present in their lives. The joy of the custodian’s smile latches onto the narrator and permeates in her mind and is inspired by her happiness. In the narrator’s pursuit of happiness, she forgot to simply be happy when seeing the custodian’s life she would be unhappy with full of joy. Because the custodian is grateful for all she is blessed with, the narrator chooses to do so. This is true when the author states at the beginning of the poem, “A person wants to stand in a happy place, in poem.
It is relatively easy to see the repression of blacks by whites in the way in which the little black boy speaks and conveys his thoughts. These racial thoughts almost immediately begin the poem, with the little black boy expressing that he is black as if bereaved of light, and the little English child is as white as an angel. The wonderful part of these verses is the fact that the little black boy knows that his soul is white, illustrating that he knows about God and His love.
Schalkx, Rozemarijn, and Ad Bergsma. "Arthur’s advice: comparing Arthur Schopenhauer’s advice on happiness with contemporary research." Journal Of Happiness Studies 9, no. 3 (September 2008): 379-395. Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost (accessed November 26, 2013).