The poem Edward Hopper and the House by the Railroad by Edward Hirsch extends Edward Hopper’s painting similarly titled The House by the Railroad. In the painting, a desolate, clunky, and gothic style house stands in front of a railroad. The painting’s background is the sky with sunlight, but the sun is not included in the frame. The house has a lot of shadows, its body is white and its slanted roofs are black. But a splash of color is added because the chimney is depicted red. The poem describes the artist’s relationship with the house and the house’s relationship with the artist. The relationship between the painting and the poem is a reflection of the house’s and the artist’s emptiness, sorrow, and awkwardness. The speaker begins by describing the house …show more content…
as “strange”, “gawky”, and “has an expression/ Of someone being stared at” (2-3). The usage of this these words give the reader a sense of awkwardness, solidarity, and eeriness. Then the speaker goes to explain the house is “ashamed of itself, ashamed/ Of its fantastic mansard rooftop/ And its pseudo-Gothic porch, ashamed/ of its shoulders and large, awkward hands” (4-8). The house is personified to have feelings as it “feels ashamed” of all its flaws like humans do. Also, the repetition of the word “ashamed” creates a rhythm and helps emphasize the fact that the house is not proud of itself. Then the artist begins to analyze the house to paint a picture of it. The artist is described “as brutal as sunlight” (10). This simile means that the artist is harsh like the rays of the sun and is revealing all the flaws of the house like sunlight does. Since the house is “desperately empty” (13) the artist infers the house must have done “something horrible/ To the people who once lived here” (11-12) and since the “...sky, too, is utterly vacant” (15) the house must have done something to the sky as well. The artist keeps going and explains why the house’s surroundings are so desolate. The emptiness of the house brings up the feelings of solidarity and eeriness again. Now the house is personified to analyze the artist.
The house identifies the artist as the “stranger who returns to this place daily’’ (21). The house uses the same words like “desolate” (23) “ashamed” (24) and the phrase “Someone holding his breath underwater” (28) to describe the man. The house two is looking at all the flaws of the man. But since the house sees the same flaws in the man as the man does in the house, it shows that they are both reflections of each other and it is the artist who personifying the house to tell this story. Both the house and the artist are empty, awkward, and eerie. Once the painting is finished “the man simply disappears” (29). The metaphor “He is a last afternoon shadow moving...darkening the fields” (31-32) relates back to the sunlight simile in the third stanza. This metaphor means that once the artist has left he is taking all the sunlight away along with him. Then the speaker goes on to explain how it was not the house that was “strange” and “gawky” it was the way that the artist looked at the house. All the other “abandoned mansions” (33) and “poorly letter storefronts” (34) will always have the same expression- “the utterly naked look of someone/ Being stared at”
(37). Edward Hirsch’s poem gives the house a voice. The poem lets the house tell its own story. The relation between the poem and the painting is echoed through the similar descriptions of the artist and house. Each one is desolate, sad, and strange. But they reflect each other because Hopper wanted to tell his story through his artwork.
The author illustrates the “dim, rundown apartment complex,” she walks in, hand and hand with her girlfriend. Using the terms “dim,” and “rundown” portrays the apartment complex as an unsafe, unclean environment; such an environment augments the violence the author anticipates. Continuing to develop a perilous backdrop for the narrative, the author describes the night sky “as the perfect glow that surrounded [them] moments before faded into dark blues and blacks, silently watching.” Descriptions of the dark, watching sky expand upon the eerie setting of the apartment complex by using personification to give the sky a looming, ominous quality. Such a foreboding sky, as well as the dingy apartment complex portrayed by the author, amplify the narrator’s fear of violence due to her sexuality and drive her terror throughout the climax of the
The timeline carries on chronologically, the intense imagery exaggerated to allow the poem to mimic childlike mannerisms. This, subjectively, lets the reader experience the adventure through the young speaker’s eyes. The personification of “sunset”, (5) “shutters”, (8) “shadows”, (19) and “lamplights” (10) makes the world appear alive and allows nothing to be a passing detail, very akin to a child’s imagination. The sunset, alive as it may seem, ordinarily depicts a euphemism for death, similar to the image of the “shutters closing like the eyelids”
His outside actions of touching the wall and looking at all the names are causing him to react internally. He is remembering the past and is attempting to suppress the emotions that are rising within him. The first two lines of the poem set the mood of fear and gloom which is constant throughout the remainder of the poem. The word choice of "black" to describe the speaker's face can convey several messages (502). The most obvious meaning ... ...
“He uses similes such as the breeze that ‘blew curtains in at one end and out the other like pale frogs’ and that also made a shadow on the ‘wine-colored rug’ as ‘wind does on the sea’.”
...ome the dream of attainment slowly became a nightmare. His house has been abandoned, it is empty and dark, the entryway or doors are locked. The sign of age, rust comes off in his hands. His body is cold, and he has deteriorated physically & emotionally. He is weathered just like his house and life. He is damaged poor, homeless, and the abandoned one.
...individual human being, worthy of our own unique individual response” (Weschler, p. 21). As we look at these paintings it is easy for us to connect to the subject matter, they all pertain to ethics. The contemplation of life and death, picking the right path for our highest and best good, forgiveness and taking pride in what you are doing. Each day we are faced with moral dilemmas and for the most part people choose to be good and do the best they can. These four paintings allow us to see the intersubjectivity in others as well as in ourselves.
...physical structure of the poem and the symbolic patterns that it portends. In this case it refers to the resurfacing of the Sun, or symbol of god’s radiant presence, after the speaker’s horrid description of man’s misery and “toil” (a direct result of the loss of devoutness), what is supposed to represent the temporary lack of god’s radiance and thus a symbolic night.
Through metaphors, the speaker proclaims of her longing to be one with the sea. As she notices The mermaids in the basement,(3) and frigates- in the upper floor,(5) it seems as though she is associating these particular daydreams with her house. She becomes entranced with these spectacles and starts to contemplate suicide.
Similarly, the furniture in the house is as sullen as the house itself. What little furniture is in the house is beaten-up; this is a symbol of the dark setting. The oak bed is the most important p...
The author’s objective is to explain what happens “more or less involuntarily” in viewers of a painting when they look at it. (133) This means that his journal entries try to make the reader see what he sees in his year of looking at these particular paintings. In his entry dated March 15, he puts his focus on lighting in
Throughout childhood, parents are thought to be totems of support, someone to cry on, someone who will help to bandage a wounded knee, but not all adults are perfect role models. In Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, the reader is given the opportunity to delve into a developing mind amidst a whirling fervor of confusing role models. Stephen Dedalus' biological father and shifting mother figure are at the center of the aspiring artist's barriers to fulfilling his calling in life. The book is a bildungsroman at its core, and the parental figures represent the obstacles that Stephen conquers to mature and discover himself.
In every idea, object, and person, there are two sides. Especially in people, so many differences can be revealed, but they can all be boiled down to two simplistic elements: good and bad. This philosophy can be discovered in many pieces of literature and art, pieces such as The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson, The Gospel of Matthew, Mark Twain’s Two Ways of Seeing the River, Edvard Munch’s The Scream, and “Vincent” by Don McLean. In order to dissect these works and find the intertwining similarities one must first be aware of the dichotomy of people, objects, and ideas. After doing this, one may see how in all of these works the authors bring to light a similar theme, that one’s perception of a person or thing
Most people spend their entire lives in search of their ideal home. Home has distinctive importance to all. To some; it is a place of their home country and heritage as well as their birthplace. While to others, home is a place where one finds shelter and food, furthermore, a place where they can always return to and feel secure. In order for us, as the reader to, fully comprehend the significance of a home from the perspective of the characters, we must obtain a good understanding of what a home is in and of itself.
Husband goes to work for long hours, leaves his wife at their new home alone, and this cycle occurs time and time again. While at this new home because she does not have a job the wife, in sad emotion, looks at all of the seasoned furniture that was a gift from her mother-in-law. In Sinclair Lewis’ Main Street excerpt, he uses the literary terms symbolism, imagery, and allusion to present his theme of husbands leaving their wife at home alone.
This art, like most, can be applied to the viewer in any way they wish. A person may look at one of the sculptures and see themselves. They may see a man who is going through challenges similar to their own; someone who is trying to free himself from these bounds. Such challenges may include an attempt to escape financial bounds or personal weaknesses. The interpretations are only limited to the comparisons a viewer