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American dream in literature
American dream in literature
American dream in literature
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Love Song for Alex by Margaret Walker is a tribute to the poet’s husband, embodying the beauty of their relationship. The poem begins with a descriptive praise of Walker’s husband and grows into sketch of their relationship that finishes with praise. Consequently, Walker brings to life both the passion and happiness of her and her husband’s love, while also identifying the comfort of time within their relationship. By using metaphor, changing pronoun tense, and creating imagery; Margaret Walker not only defines her husband’s attributes but demonstrates their intimate relationship in Love Song for Alex.
Margaret Walker is able to immediately draw the reader into the context of her poem, beginning it with a descriptive metaphor of her husband, while using singular, possessive pronouns which exemplify her love. By beginning “My monkey-wrench man is my sweet patootie,” Walker evokes not only her personal ties to her husband through the pronoun my, but she also uses the metaphor to demonstrate her husband is hard-working and lovable, which are both necessary components to the “American dream relationship” where both love and hard work are necessary to create a lasting relationship (1). Moreover, Walker reveals a relationship where feelings are reciprocated: “the lover of my life, my youth and age/ My heart belongs to him and to him only” (2-3). Walker demonstrates the permanence of her relationship as she asserts that she has given her heart to her husband, while acknowledging her husband has loved her throughout her life. Therefore, the possessive pronouns take the two individuals away from individuality and bring them together. Walker provides support for this interwoven relationship through her description of their childr...
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... lows of their experiences. Going to “starposts” demonstrates the wonderful experiences, while “creeping through seaweed” reflects the bad days and problems of life (11-12). Thus, Walker is able to cleverly depict her relationship while giving her husband the praise for the continuing relationship.
While it is clear Margaret Walker credited her husband for their relationship in her poem Love Song for Alex, it is clear the relationship would not have been possible without her complete belief and trust in her husband. By giving her heart to him and considering him the only choice for her mate, Walker makes it possible for her husband to care for her through their life during good and bad times. Therefore, Love Song for Alex is not only a reflection of Walker’s husband it is a reflection of Margaret Walker.
References
Walker, Margaret. Love Song for Alex .
Charlotte Lennox’s opinion towards love is expressed clearly in her piece “A Song.” The poem’s female speak...
Fulfilling the roles of both mother and breadwinner creates an assortment of reactions for the narrator. In the poem’s opening lines, she commences her day in the harried role as a mother, and with “too much to do,” (2) expresses her struggle with balancing priorities. After saying goodbye to her children she rushes out the door, transitioning from both, one role to the next, as well as, one emotion to another. As the day continues, when reflecting on
Mimi Khalvati explores the theme of longing in her ten stanza Ghazal, ‘Ghazal.’ Semantic fields of nature and constant refrain help express out the central themes of the poem. Likewise, ‘The Farmer’s Bride’ by Charlotte Mew uses structure and natural imagery to explore the theme of wanting and imbalance in the relationship she presents in her poem.
I have elected to analyze seven poems spoken by a child to its parent. Despite a wide variety of sentiments, all share one theme: the deep and complicated love between child and parent.
The poem “Those Winter Sundays” displays a past relationship between a child and his father. Hayden makes use of past tense phrases such as “I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking” (6) to show the readers that the child is remembering certain events that took place in the past. Although the child’s father did not openly express his love towards him when he was growing up, the child now feels a great amount of guilt for never thanking his father for all the things he actually did for him and his family. This poem proves that love can come in more than one form, and it is not always a completely obvious act.
Ferguson, Margaret W., Salter, Mary J., and Stallworthy, Jon. The Norton Anthology of Poetry. fifth ed. N.p.: W.W. Norton, 2005. 2120-2121. 2 Print.
The poem “Annabel Lee” by Edgar Allen Poe is a beautiful story that outlines events that happened between the speaker and his love. The story paints a mental picture of a love that is so strong that angels become jealous and take Annabel Lee away from the speaker, but even though she is gone, his love for her never ended. The story is full of imagery that leads to the central message of the story, which is love.
For instance in, “ Poem at Thirty-Nine” she describes her father, “ He cooked like a person dancing in a yoga meditation and craved the voluptuous sharing of good food.” (“Poem at Thirty-Nine” 27-33). Walker writes using words with positive connotations to show what could be considered the soul of her character. A character 's soul is how they are perceived by the world, what influence they want to have on the world, what a reader believes said character has in their heart, and how the character expresses their feelings. All in all, their soul is their hopes and dreams and how the character goes about to make them a reality. The theme of the poem above is the deep, meaningful relationship that lies between a father and a daughter along with the idea that within a loving relationship gender roles do not exist She uses her words to paint a picture and uses similes as the paint. For instance, in the quote above she describes the humor in her father and the way that her would conduct himself. She describes him in a loving tone that displays how much she cares about him. She uses the word dancing to indicate how free spirited he was while also illustrates his passion for food or more specifically the sharing of food. Her words take her father and bring his personality and soul appear in the mind of the reader. In the eyes of her father, Alice Walker is just a human who can do anything, and because she is his
The author uses imagery, contrasting diction, tones, and symbols in the poem to show two very different sides of the parent-child relationship. The poem’s theme is that even though parents and teenagers may have their disagreements, there is still an underlying love that binds the family together and helps them bridge their gap that is between them.
The title of this poem makes us think that this is going to be a love story with him and a significant other. But these expectations are not fulfilled by the text starting in the introductory epigraph. The title is completely ironic because this is not a “love song”, yet this story is about a depressed, lonely and weak man. The title makes us think that this poem is going to be a serious love song about J. Alfred Prufrock, but instead it is more of a fake love song. From the third line of the poem he shows a man who is unable to communicate, much less sing, “love songs” to anyone.
She defines her idea of what is right in a relationship by describing how hard and painful it is for her to stray from that ideal in this instance. As the poem evolves, one can begin to see the author having a conflict with values, while simultaneously expressing which values are hers and which are unnatural to her. She accomplishes this accounting of values by personalizing her position in a somewhat unsettling way throughout the poem.
Relationships between two people can have a strong bond and through poetry can have an everlasting life. The relationship can be between a mother and a child, a man and a woman, or of one person reaching out to their love. No matter what kind of relationship there is, the bond between the two people is shown through literary devices to enhance the romantic impression upon the reader. Through Dudley Randall’s “Ballad of Birmingham,” Ben Jonson’s “To Celia,” and William Shakespeare’s “Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day?” relationships are viewed as a powerful bond, an everlasting love, and even a romantic hymn.
Love is a big part of human life. Love in this poem can be described in two different ways. One way is the love of helping people. The other way is the love of a relationship. The love of a relationship is more than a feeling when it is real. It is a sensation, a connection, something that can not be replaced. In the poem the speaker is torn between the two types of love at first. It is shown in the first two stanzas that the speaker does not know what to choose. Either to let the stranger into the house and not make love to his new wife, or not let the stranger in and send him out into the dangerous night and make love to his wife. The last line of the poem shows that the speaker in someway have feelings for the stranger. The speaker wish he knew what would happen to the stranger after he sent him out into the night.
Authors use poetry to creatively present attitudes and opinions. “A Man’s Requirements,” by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and “A Letter to Her Husband, Absent upon Public Employment” are two poems with distinct attitudes about love that contain different literary approaches. In both of the poems, love is addressed from a different perspective, producing the difference in expectation and presentation, but both suggest the women are subservient in the relationships.
Poems have really intricate meanings that can be portrayed in many different ways. They can be used to express feelings and emotions towards someone or something. Poems can be about love, hate, nature, or anything in particular. The poem “Annabel Lee,” by Edgar Allan Poe is a romantic poem, written during the Romanticism period. The poem is about the narrator, a young man, who is dealing with the tragic loss of his fair maiden, whom he fell in love with at a young age. The love between the couple is described as very childlike and innocent. Their love for each other is extremely passionate, for that reason, the angels became jealous and killed Annabel Lee. Although his wife passed away, the narrator does not want to give up on their love and