The poem Facing it has many hidden meaning. First a background on what the poem is about. It is about a man that fought in the Vietnam war. He goes to the vietnam Memorial wall in washington DC. The wall is made out of reflective granite, so when you look at the wall you can see your face looking back at you as if to say you are among the fallen. Quotes like “im stone. Im flesh” reinforce the theme of guilt about his fallen friends. Your friends in war are closer to you than your brother. Putting you life in your fellow soldiers hands creates a bond that can never be broken. Therefore when your friends dies in comdate it creates a feeling of guilt. This guilt has been called survivor's guilt. Even if there was nothing that could have been
As Carter opens the poem, he tells how at this point in his life, he still has this essential want for things his own father presented him growing up. In the beginning, he expresses he has this “…pain [he] mostly hide[s], / but [that] ties of blood, or seed, endure” (lines 1-2). These lines voice how he longs for his father and just how painful it is without him at his side. In addition, he still feels “the hunger for his outstretched hand” (4) and a man’s embrace to take [him] in” (5). Furthermore, Carter explains how this “pain” he “feel[s] inside” (3) are also due to his “need for just a word of pr...
Yusef Komunyakaa's poem, “Facing It” is about him visiting the Vietnam Veterans Memorial after been in the war. The poem talks about his heart wrenching experience visiting the wall for presumably the first time. It took him many year to be able to write about his time in Vietnam and once he did it began to permeate throughout his poetry (Jago). This poem uses personal experiences from the author to show people how to face their fears so they can move on.
It is understandable that some Americans strongly opposed the United States getting involved in the Vietnam War. It had not been a long time since the end of World War II and simply put, most Americans were tired of fighting. Mark Atwood Lawrence is one of the people who opposed our involvement in the Vietnam War. In his essay, “Vietnam: A Mistake of Western Alliance”, Lawrence argues that the Vietnam War was unnecessary and that it went against our democratic policies, but that there were a lot of things that influenced our involvement.
..., the content and form has self-deconstructed, resulting in a meaningless reduction/manifestation of repetition. The primary focus of the poem on the death and memory of a man has been sacrificed, leaving only the skeletal membrane of any sort of focus in the poem. The “Dirge” which initially was meant to reflect on the life of the individual has been completely abstracted. The “Dirge” the reader is left with at the end of the poem is one meant for anyone and no one. Just as the internal contradictions in Kenneth Fearing’s poem have eliminated the substantial significance of each isolated concern, the reader is left without not only a resolution, but any particular tangible meaning at all. The form and content of this poem have quite effectively established a powerful modernist statement, ironically contingent on the absence and not the presence of meaning in life.
In the poem, “Face Down” by Mary Karr, she speaks about how a suicide shook veryone close to her, how this person was basically a ticking bomb set to self destruct, and how he still haunts everyone around her. Karr makes it clear that she is upset by what he did and uses imagery and diction to create and communicate her angry
...onal in the fact that he was in the war and he encountered everything first hand. He could not understand how people back home and the news could talk about how good the war was while the men fighting it were tortured by it. Wall’s photograph was done because it was something he had wanted to do. His photograph is not showing humor in the war but it does not seem to take on the pain felt in the poem.
Dai Viet was the former name of Vietnam. Dai Viet replaced the name of the chinese; Annam and they made political, economic, and cultural progress. Ngo Quyen was the head of the new Vietnamese province. For half a century, independence didn’t bring peace or government stability. In the early 11th century, Vietnam was unified under Ly Thai To. Ly Thai To was the founder of the Ly dynasty. Dai Viet fought against the Islamic and also butted heads with the Cambodian Empire. Because of the wars, Ly dynasty started to decline. The Yuan Dynasty came from China in 1279 and they sent armies more than 30,000 soldiers to take back the Red River Delta to the Chinese. Draining
In the poem "Mending Wall," Robert Frost utilizes the literary devices of imagery, meter, and symbolism to demonstrate the rational and irrational boundaries or metaphoric "walls" humans place on their relationships with others. The precise images, such as the depiction of the mending-time ritual and the dynamic description of his "old-stone savage armed" neighbor, serve to enhance our enjoyment as well as our understanding of the poem (40). The poem is written in blank verse (iambic pentameter); the form that most closely resembles everyday English. Frost deliberately employs this direct, conversational, and easy to understand style of meter which appears simple on the surface. Although symbolism is used throughout, the three most significant symbols are: the wall, his neighbor, and Frost himself as the speaker. Analyzing each of these devices as well as how they harmonize with one another is necessary in order to appreciate what Frost was revealing about human behavior.
Robert Frost was inspired to write Mending Wall after talking with one of his farming friend Napoleon Guay. He learned from talking with his neighbor that writing in the tones of real life is an important factor in his poetic form (Liu,Tam). Henry David Thoreau once stated that, “A true account of the actual is the purest poetry.” Another factor that might have played a role in inspiring Frost to write this poem was his experience of living on a farm as a small boy. Mending Wall was published in 1915 along with a collection of Frost’s poems in North of Boston. Theme Statements Nature dissolves the barriers that humanity erects. The purpose of the wall in this poem was to isolate one’s personality and privacy. In line one and thirty-five, “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall” reveals that nature has no boundaries, and because it, “doesn’t love the wall,” nature attempts destroy that boundary to bring humanity and the environment together in a harmonious bond. Nature has made, “… gaps even two can pass abreast,” shows how nature has made a hole big enough for one person to walk across, and towards another person’s property to talk. But, it also shows how humans are still unknowingly walling one another out from each other’s lives. Tradition undermines the desire for change. As the poem progresses it gradually changes from young ideals to old tradition. The old man in the end, is presenting what he learned from his father through tradition. In line 43, “He will not go behind his father’s saying,” it clearly states that he will not stray from his father’s teachings and the tradition set by his antecedents. Why change something they isn’t broken? Even though the youth has his poin...
This whole overall poem represents the cruelty of war and how in war, identity doesn’t matter. Humans are treated as mere objects, ruthless killing machines. Soldiers are not expected and can’t show mercy or they will be killed. This theme is evident in the last sentence where I state, “Those who have been killed would never know who they killed and whom killed them. But it does it matter?
"Mending Wall" is vintage Robert Frost. Vintage to the degree that Frost has often referred to the work as his second favorite poem. Within its lines are the simplicity of language and subject, realism and imagery, humor and cynicism that combine to reveal the meditative insight that marks the poetry of Robert Frost. An annual ritual of mending a stone wall that divides the adjoining property of two New England neighbors is the setting for a sharp contrast in perceptions. As in most Frost poems, as the ordinariness of the activity is specifically described one quickly perceives that the undertaking has much larger implications. It becomes the setting for Frost, through his speaker, to reflect on the ambivalent nature of walls both physical and psychological. One is then led to explore a deeper question of whether such walls are meant to exist and prevail in nature - whether in the physical or the better angels of our own.
The names are what brings out the sadness in this story. In todays society sadness can be brought out by multiple things but where it shows most is loss of loved ones. In the story the water is what is shown, as tears and is brought out by the names. Individuals today see crying as a sign of weakness brought out by again, mostly loss of loved ones. lastly the the wall brings sadness, the farther you walk the worse it gets. In today's society many things bring sadness, and the more you think about it, or farther you go often it gets worse. Some examples are divorces, deaths, and
Symbolism is used to develop the pessimistic mood and the theme of the poem. “This looming wall” is representative of the seemingly impossible
"Mending Wall" is a narrative of Frost and his neighbor mending the wall between their properties. However simple the poem seems, it serves as a complex argument between the two competing schools of thought. Nature sends Frost signals that the wall is useless, but his neighbor fails to understand. He just blindly follows the words of his father. His neighbor is characterized as being the opposite of Frost and is what reminds him that a purely romantic perception of the world is not entirely accurate. Frost, on the other hand, personified romanticism and contrasts the two. The neighbor is "all pine" while Frost is "apple orchard," and there is no need for a wall because Frost's "apple trees will never get across/ And eat the cones under his pines" (24-26) Frost translates romantic views of nature into characterizations of him and his neighbor. While the neighbor is a cold, prickly grove of pine tre...
Vietnam was a struggle which, in all honesty, the United States should never have been involved in. North Vietnam was battling for ownership of South Vietnam, so that they would be a unified communist nation. To prevent the domino effect and the further spread of communism, the U.S. held on to the Truman Doctrine and stood behind the South Vietnamese leader, Diem.