Gary Soto’s poem, The Red Palm, opens by evoking the dream like quality of the monotony of working in a cotton field, where chopping and swinging a hoe in the hot sun becomes as much a part of you as breathing, “You raise a hoe, swing, and the first weeds / Fall with a sigh. You take another step, / Chop, and the sigh comes again, / Until you yourself are breathing that way.” Red Palm is about a farm laborer whose ability to feed his family is measured in the rows of cotton he chops and weeds he hoes from dawn to dusk. He works for the whole day in the cotton field, the sun shining very brightly, hot and burning like the red blisters emerging on his palms. There are quite a number of figures of speech in this poem, like this metaphor, “The
Sun is a red blister coming up in your palm.” The Red Palm literally means the blister on his hand but by connecting it to the sun, Gary Soto is merging the idea of hard work with the image of blisters, with the image of the sun - a sign of hope that his hard work will bring a brighter future. The American Dream is rooted in a set of ideals that link the opportunity for success and prosperity with hard work. The metaphor of the sun and the blisters is very important since it’s also the title of the poem, but other metaphors in the piece imply that the laboring subject of this poem may not achieve the American Dream himself, and the best he can hope for is that his son will. Gary Soto writes, “Your back is strong / Young, not yet the broken chair in an abandoned school of dry spiders.” These lines with the imagery of a broken chair, an abandoned school, and dry spiders implies that once strength, youth and the ability to work are gone the American Dream may be dead like dry spiders and a broken chair in an abandoned school house. This brings in another side of the American Dream that suggests the idea that hard work may not be enough, since the subject of the poem did not work in school, “You were a fool in school, now look at you.” He must work hard now, but the kind of manual work he can do, however hard he tries, can do no more than put food on the table for his family. However the American Dream is not entirely lost as Gary Soto goes on to illuminate later in the poem. He shows how the laborer’s hard work doesn’t go completely unrewarded. It gives him satisfaction at the end of the day and the thought of his family being able to do better than him through education encourages him to work harder. He works right from the morning till dusk to feed his family and send his children to school. After he gets home he smiles as his son shows him what he has learned in school and, “The wind makes peace with the trees, the stars strike themselves in the dark.” These lines imply that at the end of the day he is a satisfied person, and perhaps while he has not achieved prosperity for himself he may have the other most important aspects of the American Dream right here in the palm of his hand, “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” and through education he has hope his son will achieve the prosperity that has eluded him.
In the essay of Mr.Gary Soto, we learn about his experiences about falling in love with someone of a different race. Ever since he was young, he would be lectured that marrying a Mexican women would be the best option for his life. Gary’s grandmother would always proclaim: “... the virtues of marrying a Mexican girl: first, she could cook,second, she acted like a woman, not a man, in her husband’s home” (pp.219). Being conditioned into the notion that all Mexican woman have been trained to be proper women, Mr. Soto set out on finding his brown eyed girl; however, what love had quite a different plan. This paper will cover three different themes Gary’s essay: The tone, the mindset of the character’s mindsets, and the overall message of the
At the beginning of the poem, the speaker starts by telling the reader the place, time and activity he is doing, stating that he saw something that he will always remember. His description of his view is explained through simile for example “Ripe apples were caught like red fish in the nets of their branches” (Updike), captivating the reader’s attention
The visual imagery through the descriptive language paints an image of crops starting to grow in the shade and suburban areas. The harsh, unforgiving and dangerous Australian environment is illustrated through Henry Lawson’s short story ‘In a Dry Season’ through descriptive language and visual
The poem opens upon comparisons, with lines 3 through 8 reading, “Ripe apples were caught like red fish in the nets/ of their branches. The maples/ were colored like apples,/part orange and red, part green./ The elms, already transparent trees,/ seemed swaying vases full of sky.” The narrator’s surroundings in this poem illustrate him; and the similes suggest that he is not himself, and instead he acts like others. Just as the maples are colored like apples, he
Foulcher’s Summer Rain represents a juxtaposed view of suburbia towards the natural environment throughout his poem, as he explains societies daily repetitive tasks. This idea is expressed through Foulcher’s use of simile, in the stanza “steam rising from ovens and showers like mist across a swampland.” This simile makes the comparison between average tasks completed in the urban world, such as cooking or showering to a natural situation such as a swampland, creating a feeling of bother and discomfort for the readers, as swamplands are generally humid, insect ridden and muddy. This effectively makes the readers feel this way, not of the swamplands that are compared, but of the tasks in the home that are conveyed. Similarly, Foulcher uses simile in “clutter on the highway like abacus beads. No one dares overtake,” to illustrate the lack of free will in society as abacus beads are on a set path, there is no freedom or individuality. This demonstrates how where everything is busy and cramped, there is no room in society to notice the small simplistic divinities in the natural world around them. The complexity and mundanity of society causes the simplistic beauties of nature to be
No more picking wildflowers. Now she is aware of the horror that her people experienced and continually experience. In paragraph 3, another indicator of race struggle is made evident. Toward the end, Maypop notices “the tiny white bubbles disrupt the thin black scale of soil” which is a big color contrast. Notably, between black and
Though in his short life Stephen Crane was never a soldier, his novel The Red Badge of Courage was commended by Civil War veterans as well as veterans from more recent wars not only for its historical accuracy but its ability to capture the psychological evolution of those on the field of battle (Heizberg xvi). Walt Whitman, on the other hand, served as a field medic during the Civil War. He was exposed perhaps to the most gruesome aspect of the war on a daily basis: the primitive medical techniques, the wounded, the diseased, the dying and the dead. Out of his experiences grew a collection of poems, "Drum Taps" , describing the horrors he had witnessed and that America suffered. As literary artists, a wide chasm of structure and style separates Crane and Whitman. The common cultural experience, the heritage of the Civil War connects them, throwing a bridge across the darkness, allowing them, unilaterally, to dispel notions of glorious battles and heroic honorable deaths. By examining Crane's Henry Fleming and the wound dresser from 'Whitman's poem of the same name, both fundamental literary differences and essential thematic consistencies emerge.
His fences were continually falling to pieces; his cow would either go astray, or get among the cabbages; weeds were sure to grow quicker in his fields than anywhere else; the rain had always made a point of setting in just as he had some out-door work to do,”
Bend low, bend low, then bend lower. The wind blow one way, you bow that way. It blow the other way, you do, too. That is the way to survive” (McCormick, 33). The brittle and weak grass represents “survival” in both, literal and metaphoric contexts. Before the reign of the rebel group, Khmer Rouge, Cambodia is described as a close knit ‘village’ of sorts, with children playing freely amongst nature alongside scenic patches of greenery. In a pre-genocide era, this greenery is a representation of safety and survival – whereby the Cambodians had autonomy over their affairs and security matters. Albeit, after the rebellious ‘revolution’, McCormick brilliantly juxtaposes the landscapes. Arn is keen to note the dirt, mud, dry terrain, foul odour and darkness in the fields. Thus, his formula for survival demonstrates a highly aware understanding of the circumstance. ‘Bending like grass’ depicts an erosion of self-will and the fragility of human life. Moreover, Arn’s heightened understanding can also be
Didion paints uneasy and somber images when describing the Santa Ana winds. “There is something uneasy in the Los Angeles air… some unnatural stillness, some tension,” starts the essay off with the image of Los Angeles people in a sense of stillness or tense. She further adds, “Blowing up sandstorms out along Route 66… we will see smoke back in the canyons, and hear sirens in the night,” propagating the uneasy and stark image of Los Angeles. “The baby frets. The maid sulks,” she adds, giving a depressing view into the effects of the Santa Ana winds on people. Didion, in an attempt to show the craziness associated with the Santa Ana winds, points out the Indians who throw themselves into the sea when bad winds came. At any rate, Didion attempts to show the negative effects of the Santa Ana winds through images of stillness, uneasiness, and sobriety.
Figurative Language in used throughout poems so the reader can develop a further understanding of the text. In “The Journey” the author uses rhythm and metaphors throughout the poem. “...as you left their voices behind, the stars began to burn through the sheets of the clouds..”(25-27). The author compares the star burning to finding your voice. Rhythm also develops the theme of the poem because throughout the story rhythm is presented as happy showing growing up and changing for the better is necessary and cheerful. In “The Laughing Heart” the author uses imagery and metaphors to develop the theme throughout the book. “There is a light somewhere. It may not be much light but it beats the darkness”(5-7). Always find the good out of everything, even it
By presenting the competing sets of industrial and rural values, Jewett's "A White Heron" gives us a rich and textured story that privileges nature over industry. I think the significance of this story is that it gives us an urgent and emphatic view about nature and the dangers that industrial values and society can place upon it and the people who live in it. Still, we are led to feel much like Sylvia. I think we are encouraged to protect nature, cherish our new values and freedoms, and resist the temptations of other influences that can tempt us to destroy and question the importance of the sublime gifts that living in a rural world can bestow upon us.
He described the fields of Ohio’s villages in autumn and their beauty. He described the “apples ripe”, the “grapes on the trellis’d vines”, “the sky so calm”. so transparent after the rain”. He made us feel as if we were smelling the grapes, the buckwheat and touch them. He made us hear the buzzing of the bees.
The story opens by embracing the reader with a relaxed setting, giving the anticipation for an optimistic story. “…with the fresh warmth of a full summer day; the flowers were blossoming profusely and the grass was richly green (p.445).”
The sunset was not spectacular that day. The vivid ruby and tangerine streaks that so often caressed the blue brow of the sky were sleeping, hidden behind the heavy mists. There are some days when the sunlight seems to dance, to weave and frolic with tongues of fire between the blades of grass. Not on that day. That evening, the yellow light was sickly. It diffused softly through the gray curtains with a shrouded light that just failed to illuminate. High up in the treetops, the leaves swayed, but on the ground, the grass was silent, limp and unmoving. The sun set and the earth waited.