Plath in Ariel and Larkin in The Whitsun Weddings both explore ideas about love and relationships. The Whitsun Weddings explores the theme of love and relationships by capturing the journey that takes place prior to marriage; the poem was written about Larkin’s observation of marriage parties on whit Sunday (now known as May Day) which was a public holiday and was traditionally the day on which people would get married. The Whitsun Weddings takes on a somewhat cynical tone which is emblematic of Larkin’s negative views regarding marriage and long term relationships. The Applicant by Plath presents the reader with a critique of marriage by depicting the selection process that men and women alike have to go through when it comes to marriage. In the 60’s, marriage was often something that was expected of many individuals and those who did not comply with these views would be often be stigmatised and women were often subjected to this stigma during a time that patriarchy was at its peak. Both The Applicant and The Whitsun Weddings present marriage as a societal norm and a process that is...
Presentation of Family Relationships in Carol Anne Duffy's Poem Before You Were Mine and in One Poem by Simon Armitage
Harwood uses poetry to document her experiences and observations of marriage. She opens her life to the reader as she shares personal and intimate reflections on her choices in life. By this Harwood is able to re-create a vivid image of a life of a married lady during the 1940’s. Gwen Harwood was married during the year 1945 and moved with her husband, William Harwood, to Tasmania and away from her beloved childhood home in Brisbane. This change in Harwood’s life was a struggle as she did not completely agree to the move that will forever be thought of negatively. Harwood’s struggle of acceptance of her new life was evident in her poem “Iris”. In the poem Harwood looks at the positives and negatives of a marital relationship. Harwood uses the word ‘…singularity…’ to describe her relationship, this word makes the point that her and her husband have become one unit in which they walk through life and experience the good and the bad together. As well as having positive co...
Throughout history, the story of womankind has evolved from struggles to achievements, while some aspects of the lives of women have never changed. Poet Dorianne Laux writes about the female condition, and women’s desire to be married and to have a home and children. She also seems to identify through her poetry with the idea that women tend to idealize the concept of marriage and settling down and she uses her poetry to reach out to the reader who may have similar idyllic views of marriage or the married lifestyle. Though Dorianne Laux’s poem “Bird” reads very simply, it is actually a metaphor for an aspect of this female condition.
In the late 1800’s through early 1900’s women and men were did not “tie the knot” like the women and men do in today’s day. In today’s world, women and men get married because they have many things in common, they are in love with each other, and they choose to get married to one another. In many stories written back then, readers can expect to read about how marriages were arranged and how many people were not having the wedded bliss marriage proclaims today.
As the poem progresses, the flower blooms underneath the touch of the man, representing that their passion for each other allows her spirit to bloom just as a flower does. Philip Jason notes the effectiveness of Williams’ metaphor to Queen Anne’s lace, writing, “…it is mainly through metaphor that he transforms his observation, his still life, into a dynamic field of action that reveals the life and energy hidden.” Just as Jason proves, the metaph...
Consequently, the standards of the globalized era during the twentieth century starts to reproduce in Tropic of Orange. Therefore, Karen Yamashita’s Tropic of Orange, attempts to erase our understanding of the geography that is known as “free trade” (Yamashita 160). A “free trade” that forms the origins of environmental racism, and exposes the gender politics of environmental justice as well (160). Given these points, the novel also made connections, between past and present and between global and local struggles for justice between characters. In addition to this, Tropic of Orange, makes the social and environmental costs of corporate globalization clear. What’s more important is that Tropic of Orange, offers different forms of hierarchy and domination, and even addresses the burdens placed not only on women, but on nature, and people of color. The environmental justice within the novel, is complex and multilayered just like the maps of Los
Sylvia Plath has been one of the literary world’s most controversial figures in the past century, celebrated as well as panned by literati for her enigmatic work. She is well known for the brutality and suffering apparent in the morbid world of her poetry. The prominent poet and critic, Al Alvarez, claimed that the Ariel poems “manage to make death and poetry inseparable” and Charles Newton described Plath as “courting experience that kills.”1 However, in spite of the immense scholarship dedicated to her, the examination of the gothic features in her work has been neglected and as such, this essay will focus on the gothic world of Sylvia Plath.
Clifton is noted for saying much with few words. In a Christian Century review of Clifton's work, Peggy Rosenthal commented, "The first thing that strikes us about Lucille Clifton's poetry is what is missing: capitalization, punctuation, long and plentiful lines. We see a poetry so pared down that its spaces take on substance, become a shaping presence as much as the words themselves" In an American Poetry Review article about Clifton's work, Robin Becker commented on Clifton's lean style: "Clifton's poetics of understatement—no capitalization, few strong stresses per line, many poems totaling fewer than twenty lines, the sharp rhetorical question—includes the essential only."
Sylvia Plath’s life was full of disappointment, gloominess and resentment. Her relationship status with her parents was hostile and spiteful, especially with her father. Growing up during World War II did not help the mood of the nation either, which was dark and dreary. At age 8 Plath’s father of German ancestry died of diabetes and even though their relationship was never established nor secure, his death took a toll on her. “For Sylvia, who had been his favorite, it was an emotional holocaust and an experience from which she never fully recovered” (Kehoe 90). Since she was so young she never got to work out her unsettled feelings with him. Even at age eight, she hid when he was around because she was fearful of him. When she was in his presence his strict and authoritarian figure had left an overpowering barrier between their relationship. Sadly enough by age eight Plath instead of making memories with her dad playing in the yard she resented him and wanted nothing to do with him (Kehoe). These deep-seated feelings played a major role in Plath’s poetry writings. Along with his “hilterian figure,” her father’s attitude towards women was egotistical and dismissive, uncondemning. This behavior infuriated Plath; she was enraged about the double standard behavior towards women. Plath felt controlled in male-dominated world (Lant). “Because Plath associates power so exclusively with men, her conviction that femininity is suffocating and inhibiting comes as no surprise” (Lant 631). This idea of a male-dominated world also influenced Plath’s writing. Unfortunately, Plath married a man just like her father Ted Hughes. “Hughes abandonment apparently stirred in her the memories and feelings she had struggled with when her ...
A Wrinkle in Time, Star Wars and The Hunger Games are similar and different in their approach to the Hero’s Journey. Many parts of the Hero’s Journey such as the call to adventure, crossing the threshold, tests/allies/enemies, and the ordeal have many differences as well as similarities.
Sylvia Plath's famous poem "Daddy" seems to refer quite consistently to her deceased father (and obliquely to her then estranged husband Ted Hughes) by use of many references that can clearly be associated with the background of Otto Plath, emphasizing his German heritage. These include the "Polish town" where Otto was born, the atrocities of the German Nazis in the Second World War ("Dachau, Auschwitz, Belsen"), the "Luftwaffe," and even the professorial pose of Dr. Plath "at the blackboard . . . / In the picture I have of you."
Evelyn Waugh’s 1945 novel Brideshead Revisited is a story about an upper class family observed and narrated by a middle class outsider Charles Ryder. The author introduces various motifs and themes throughout the novel, specifically the exploration of sexuality. Sexuality is defined as the expression of sexual receptivity or interest especially when excessive. Waugh successfully portrays homosexuality in this novel through the use of characterization, symbolism, and the nature of the relationship between the protagonist Charles Ryder and his tragic friend Sebastian Flyte. In Brideshead Revisited, homosexuality is the hidden love story concealed through the term friendship between Charles Ryder and Sebastian Flyte.
In “Daddy,” By Sylvia Plath, she expresses her character to have a feeling of love for her father, as well as an obvious sense of hatred and rage towards him. She sets that tone through out the structure of the poem. The poet Sylvia Plath chooses many specific words that demonstrate the characters hatred and hostility towards the men she is living with. In Plath’s “Daddy”, the writer reveals the essential truth of her family relationship, from the control of her father and later in her life her husband. Plath use of certain wordings, metaphors, imagery, repetitions and similes, demonstrated throughout the poem, were phrases worded in a child like manner. There were also many uses of German words, which really help to additionally set the tone of her wishy-washy family relationship. Her figurative language allows for the reader to build connections through what is being conveyed throughout this shady, gloomy family relationship poem.
Death is a prevalent theme in the poetry of both Sylvia Plath and Emily Dickinson. They both examine death from varied angles. There are many similarities as well as differences in the representation of this theme in their poetry. Plath views death as a sinister and intimidating end, while Dickinson depicts death with the endearment of romantic attraction. In the poetry of Plath death is depicted traditionally, while Dickinson attributes some mysticism to the end of life.
Deconstructionism liberates the notion of text from a discernible epistemological center. There is no absolute underlying structure to which a text must be accountable. Language is important, Jacques Derrida asserts, but do not believe for one moment that it is stable; it exists in an infinite "interplay of signification" (961). He also describes writing, rather than speech, as the primary foundation for language. What does this do to textual meaning? Can it even exist? "The concept of centered structure is...the concept of freeplay based upon a fundamental ground" (Derrida 960). Deconstructionist criticism attempts to show that the dynamic "freeplay" of differences in signs (stated and unstated) within a text give rise to meaning without this fundamental ground. Deconstructionist critics hope to reveal the point at which a text collapses in upon itself, the point at which it says something it ostensibly does not mean to say.