Diction In George Bogin's Poem 'Cottontail'

Have you ever been haunted by something since a kid? In case your afraid to say so, it happens to people all the time. It requires having a severe or not so severe personal experience that traumatized you for a long time. Which you think about almost every day that you can't stop or dispel. In George Bogin’s poem “Cottontail,” George uses Diction, Imagery, Irony, and Symbolism to suggest that he regrets as child a shooting of a rabbit and to today haunts him, hinting that he might have had a personal experience with death.

Bogin uses Diction in his poem to describe and tell the reader about how the old man felt through his fear and scary experience. He applies the words “cornered” and “terrified”, to tell and call attention of how the cottontail rabbit is terrified by the two boys cornering it. The man who is haunted to this day connects to the rabbit at that moment by being haunted and terrified. Which has a sad impact on the feeling of the reader and the theme of the poem. Then George uses word choices such as “spare”, “killed”, “tears”, and “shot” to build the thoughts of the readers attention towards the tone shifting from happy to slowly shifting to sadness which makes this poem

sad towards both the reader and the man who is still haunted. The connects toward the central idea of the poem by stating basic ideas and concepts of how the sadness of the poem’s mood or tone is perceived by the reader. When you read between the lines of this poem, George Bogin’s words are spread out in a special way to symbolize the traumatizing experience the boy went through.
The Imagery describes a more descriptive way for us to understand why the man is still traumatized. The use of Imagery: “He was sitting up--front paws together--supplicating-- trembling” gives the reader a better picture description of how the rabbit felt in the boys point of view during the poem. This connects with the main idea of the rabbit being scared and haunted. After the rabbit was shot; the boy all grown up was haunted for the rabbits death afterward over the rabbit being terrified and they shot it anyway. “Then my friend fired and killed him and burst into tears.” This connects to the whole poem even though it is kind of ironic the way that they were going hunting and were going to kill something anyways but got sad when they shot a rabbit. But the fact that it was scared and terrified gave them a soft spot for it therefore that made the boy terrified and “haunted.” With Imagery in this poem combines with syntax the way there is a longer description towards the way the boy feels and the rabbit feels gives them a similarity character trait except the rabbit doesn't get to live while the boy does, which gives the boy a negative aspect, and gives the rabbit a positive and negative aspect.
George uses Irony to describe the way they went hunting to kill something and they killed something and started crying. Also the fact that the hunter went hunting and became the hunted.
“A little cottontail. A haunter.” This connects to the title of how the title sounds all happy as a rabbit which rabbits are harmless and happy. Then at the end it exemplifies how the Cottontail effects the boy and man: ”A little cottontail. A haunter” which is very ironic if you think that haunter kind of sounds like hunter. Also it turns ironic the way it haunts him to this day, about the rabbit being shot even though he tried to shoot it anyways. This elaborates the way they went hunting didn't find what they were looking for so they saw a rabbit attempted to shoot it and succeeded and cried afterwards which is really really weird and crazy and just doesn't make sense. Unless he was pressured by his friend to shoot it which it doesn't say which you need to infer about which might have happened. All of this give you the understanding that George’s basic idea of this poem uses irony to make this poem sound sad along with that to symbolize the picture and the “think outside the box” kind of thinking of the moral, emotional, experience of the poem.
Bogin used symbolism towards the relation of the boy and the rabbit to compare and contrast of how they felt at that moment in the poem.

The rabbit was scared: “We cornered a terrified little cottontail rabbit, trembling, while we were deciding whether to shoot him or spare him, then my friend fired and killed him and burst into tears. I did too.” This slides towards the main idea of the rabbit being scared and same as the boy. So they both felt sad, the two boys and the rabbit. “A little cottontail. A haunter.” symbolized the boys fear and regret to this day. To this day the man, still haunted towards what he did about fifty years ago. Where were the parents? That is an clue for symbolism. But the overall idea is to make a symbol of how the boys related to the rabbit at the

end.
In Bogin's poem he tells how the boys and the rabbit felt continuously through Diction, Imagery, Irony, and Symbolism towards the theme and mood of this poem. When you read about a time in the man's history: “A couple of kids went hunting fifty years ago” tells you that this is a sentimental memory to the man. Then it describes how the man's personal thought of the Cottontail: ”A little cottontail. A haunter.” All of these elements of voice shine the main point of this poem clearly to tell how the main character felt is affected to this day like a descriptive story. This poem is an important tip. Like if they have the power to end a life with the pull of a trigger and can't take it back, which is why it is important for them to understand. Which the two boys in this poem did. Which whenever you do something that negatively impacts somethings life there will always be a consequence. It may be severe or not, which can “haunt” you forever. Which may be hard to forget. My thought of learning with no supervision around has a better learning experience when you find out its consequences by yourself and not get warned beforehand so you have a scar or something to make you remember.