Later, Courage Will Find Those Who Need It
People are inherently strong. With grit, will and courage, they file through life in a never ending cycle of living and dying. In “Courage” by Anne Sexton, a human’s life is put into perspective as it ages. Diction is used to pull on the reader’s heart strings. Similes are used to compare mundane objects to the intricacy of living. Ultimately, the poem tells the reader that dying, as well as living, takes courage.
When a person is born, their journey to death begins. This journey starts with growing up and learning to be brave. As a child, trials and tribulations shape a person. The speaker says, “The first spanking when your heart/ Went on a journey all alone” indicates that particular event is a learning experience (Lines 6-7). Life, being a winding road, is travelled alone. Companions can tag along but in the end, there is only one person at the end of the road. This one person has overcome obstacles, especially in the earlier years.
As an example, the speaker accuses, “[They] made you into an alien/ and you drank their acid” which stipulate that the reader is a person who accepts the brutality of bullying (Lines 10-11). The mention of torment makes the reader feel
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sorry for themselves. The lines, “When they called you crybaby/ or poor or fatty or crazy” establish a feeling of nostalgia where the diction is important (Lines 8-9). Arranging the words like the speaker has, causes the reader to feel empathy. But one must remember that, “A child’s first step/ [is] as awesome as an earthquake” and the trials a person overcomes produces a stronger person (Lines 2-3). While being a simile, the speaker is expressing the message that no matter how small, actions matter. Later on in life, these actions will lead us to another stage of life: early adulthood. The second stanza of “Courage” speaks of war. This is made clear in the lines “If you face the death of bombs and bullets/ You did not do it with a banner”, representing the possibility of being a soldier (Lines 14-15). The soldier knows that their early adulthood could be all that they live, yet, they continue to fight. This continuation calls for an heartened will. Whether a soldier dodging bullets or a civilian keeping out of the rain of insults, courage is needed. The speaker says, “Your courage [is] a small coal”, showing that even the smallest amount of courage is a good starting point to becoming stronger (Line 20). Courage, however, is not always simply courage. Courage can be a multitude of actions. Like the speaker observes, “[the] courage was not courage/ it was love; love as simple as shaving soap” (Lines 24-25). Now, love is a complicated creature but soap is simple. Soap clears dirt and sin from the body much like how courage allows people to cleanse themselves of a could-be future. The third stanza introduces a middle-aged time period.
Middle age is often accompanied by sadness. The narrator mentions that “If [they] have endured a great despair/ then [they] did it alone” and if they had then they’d “[pick] the scabs off [their] heart” (Lines 27-28, 30). If the person the speaker is mentioning has suffered, then they’d move on. Moving on is a big part of living and learning that events and time pass; no one can control the hand of an unknown force. Once a person accepts this, they can be reborn. The lines “It woke to the wings of the roses/ and was transformed” indicate that there is another life behind the fragility of an initial life (Lines 36-37). Accepting circumstances as they are will set a person free. This too, take
courage. With this freedom, time continues to age a person. As hair fades and smiles become hard to manage, people begin to bargain to live longer. This can be proven through the line”And [they’ll] bargain with the calender” (Line 43). Another year or a few months are enough to suffice for those who want to live longer. But, the natural conclusion will still be death. The time in which it takes to get there will be of no consequence. This is where courage steps in. After years of lessons, “At the last moment/ when death opens the back door/ [they’ll] put on [their] carpet slippers/ and stride out” (Lines 44-47). Dying takes courage and every age a person has ever been will lend their courage to lay them to rest.
Early in the poem “Marginalia,” Collins explores the emotions of readers and annotators and claims “the notes are ferocious, [including] skirmishes against the author raging along the borders of every page” (Lines 1-3). By describing the annotations as “ferocious” and “raging,” it is more easily conveyed that the annotations are predatory towards the author in defense of one’s own frustration in seeking a nonexistent underlying message. Similarly, in “Introduction to Poetry,” Collins is faced with the challenge of persuading readers, “but all they want to do is tie the poem to a chair with rope and torture a confession out of it.” (Lines 12-14). By choosing the word “torture,” Collins is enforcing that the annotations are aggressive and readers retain that anger and violence which is forcing literature to give up a meaning that it is not willing to give up or supposed to give up. The word choice clearly portrays the emotions being felt by readers and how they use their annotations to support the need for an extensive interpretation of the reading.
... seeing and feeling it’s renewed sense of spring due to all the work she has done, she was not renewed, there she lies died and reader’s find the child basking in her last act of domestication. “Look, Mommy is sleeping, said the boy. She’s tired from doing all out things again. He dawdled in a stream of the last sun for that day and watched his father roll tenderly back her eyelids, lay his ear softly to her breast, test the delicate bones of her wrist. The father put down his face into her fresh-washed hair” (Meyer 43). They both choose death for the life style that they could no longer endure. They both could not look forward to another day leading the life they did not desire and felt that they could not change. The duration of their lifestyles was so pain-staking long and routine they could only seek the option death for their ultimate change of lifestyle.
Jane presents one aspect of woman in The Waking collection (1953): Ross-Bryant views Jane as a young girl who is dead. The poem expresses concern with the coming of death. This poignant elegy is presen...
In literature, themes shape and characterize an author’s writing making each work unique as different points of view are expressed within a writing’s words and sentences. This is the case, for example, of Edgar Allan Poe’s poem “Annabel Lee” and Emily Dickinson’s poem “Because I could not stop for Death.” Both poems focus on the same theme of death, but while Poe’s poem reflects that death is an atrocious event because of the suffering and struggle that it provokes, Dickinson’s poem reflects that death is humane and that it should not be feared as it is inevitable. The two poems have both similarities and differences, and the themes and characteristics of each poem can be explained by the author’s influences and lives.
The entire poem is based on powerful metaphors used to discuss the emotions and feelings through each of the stages. For example, she states “The very bird/grown taller as he sings, steels/ his form straight up. Though he is captive (20-22).” These lines demonstrate the stage of adulthood and the daily challenges that a person is faced with. The allusions in the poem enrich the meaning of the poem and force the reader to become more familiar with all of the meaning hidden behind the words. For example, she uses words such as innocence, imprisonment and captive to capture the feelings experienced in each of the stages.
The two poems, “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night”, by Dylan Thomas and, “Because I Could Not Wait for Death”, by Emily Dickinson, we find two distinct treatments on the same theme, death. Although they both represent death, they also represent it as something other than death. Death brings about a variety of different feelings, because no two people feel the same way or believe the same thing. The fact that our faith is unknown makes the notion of death a common topic, as writers can make sense of their own feelings and emotions and in the process hope to make readers make sense of theirs too. Both Dickinson and Thomas are two well known and revered poets for their eloquent capture of these emotions. The poems both explore death and the
Emily Dickinson expresses her expectations of what happens after death by describing a death scene that is familiar to the living. In the third stanza Dickinson uses familiar imagery to describe the three stages of life. The sequence of scenes the carriage passes on its journey is an allegory for the normal progression of life from beginning to end. From this the read...
Death is a reality that can be interpreted in many ways. Some people fear the possibility of no longer living and others welcome the opportunity for a new life in the afterlife. Many poets have been inspired by death, be it by the approaching death of loved ones or a battle for immortality. Just as each poet is inspired differently, each poem casts a different hue of light on the topic of death giving readers a unique way to look at death.
Kasdano, Michelle. "Poetry: The Legacy of Anne Sexton." Helium (2007). Web. 31 Aug 2011. .
Veronica Roth’s book demonstrates, in a few key ways, how great literature must include life lessons. The story teaches readers to never give up and to push on even in hard and rough times of struggle. Beatrice prior (Tris), the protagonist in the book, leaves her home to live with the danger seeking “Dauntless”. During the evil plot set by the antagonist, Beatrice’s mother gets fatally wounded by a gun shot. Tris watches this horrible moment unfold right next to her as her mother lifelessly crumbles to the ground. Beatrice loves her mother very much and doesn’t want to leave her body there, but knows she has to uncover the strength to move onwards. Not only was Beatrice brave after witnessing the death of her mother but her mother was also brave. Beatrice’s mother was also brave, having to die like that for her people, sacrificing herself for her daughter and family. Beatrice shows how she feels about her mother’s braver when she says,” My mother’s death was brave. I remember how calm she was, how determined. It isn’t just that she died for me; it is brave that she did it without announcing it, wi...
The third decade of the twentieth century brought on more explicit writers than ever before, but none were as expressive as Anne Sexton. Her style of writing, her works, the image that she created, and the crazy life that she led are all prime examples of this. Known as one of the most “confessional” poets of her time, Anne Sexton was also one of the most criticized. She was known to use images of incest, adultery, and madness to reveal the depths of her deeply troubled life, which often brought on much controversy. Despite this, Anne went on to win many awards and go down as one of the best poets of all time.
In Emily Dickinson’s “Because I Could Not Stop for Death,” she uses the structure of her poem and rhetoric as concrete representation of her abstract beliefs about death to comfort and encourage readers into accepting Death when He comes. The underlying theme that can be extracted from this poem is that death is just a new beginning. Dickinson deftly reassures her readers of this with innovative organization and management, life-like rhyme and rhythm, subtle but meaningful use of symbolism, and ironic metaphors.
Death can represent a multitude of things. For example, it can be depicted as a villain that will eventually claim everyone, or it could represent the escape from the world that someone has always been seeking. Regardless, dying is the end to everyone’s life. However, the poem "Sylvia 's Death" by Anne Sexton regards thoughts of death as well as the act of suicide as an escape from reality and the problems the world presents. Sexton utilizes organized couplets to resonate the speaker’s depression in order to emphasize the change in tone throughout the poem, which evolves as the speaker accepts the unfortunate news of Plath’s death.
This poem is a firsthand account of how Anne Bradstreet was feeling when she experienced the loss of her granddaughter, Elizabeth. Although Bradstreet's attitude on Elizabeth's death seems to reflect her belief in God's plan, the diction suggests otherwise.
Many, including I, have heard this statement a thousand times, “I have so much to do and so little time.” This statement explains what two poets were trying to say through their poems. In the poems, Death Be Not Proud by John Donne, and Because I Could Not Stop for Death by Emily Dickinson, the power that death has over one’s life and the power that one has over death becomes a race for time. Both poems explained death in two different perspectives but both still showed the underlying current that death cannot be stopped. With the use of symbolizations and metaphors, both authors show the power of death.