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Social context of the poem America by Ginsberg
America by Ginsberg, Critical Analysis
America by Ginsberg, Critical Analysis
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Moving forward in stanza one, Ginsberg says he knows what he’s doing. In line twenty-five he uses imagery when saying, “Plum blossoms are falling” (Ginsberg). When plum blossoms fall, it usually means that the beauty of spring is over. Ginsberg feels here that the idea of a wonderful America is fading. No doubt, America is full of violence and that is what seems to be overtaking line twenty-six. Therefore, the speaker continues to tell America that he has sympathy for labors and that he is not sorry that he was a communist. Presently, throughout lines twenty-nine to thirty-one, he is discussing his behavior. To begin, he confessed that he smokes marijuana, does not have ambition to do anything for days, never truly has a good time, and then
The first stanza incorporates a lot of imagery and syntax. “A toad the power mower caught,”(line1). The use of syntax in the very first sentence is to catch the reader’s attention and to paint an image for them. The stanza goes on to talk about how the toad hobbles with it’s wounded leg to the edge of the garden, “Under the cineraria leaves”(line4). The speaker uses the word cineraria, which is similar to a cinerarium, a place where the ashes of the deceased are kept. By using this, the speaker further illustrates the death of the toad. “Low and final glade.”(Line6) this line is like a metaphor for the dying toad, the final rest for the toad could be the final glade. In the first stanza it seems as if the speaker is making fun of the dying toad saying the garden sanctuaries him as if he were a person. The opening line even seems a bit humorous to the reader. The following stanzas also have a tone of sarcasm.
After dinner the husband continues to test Robert and ask him if he would like some marijuana. The narrator is surprised when Robert accepts his offer to smoke. His first smoke was a little awkward because the narrator had to explain to Robert how to smoke it. After a couple puffs, the narrator is impressed on how well Robert smoked the marijuana. This is when the husband starts to see Robert as a person and not a blind man; he is starting to relate to Robert a little bit.
A few cases in which this poem is particularly relevant in today’s society, apart from just the general hipster culture, is the fact that in many ways we’re faced with similar issues of social oppression of certain sects of the population, homophobia, discord amongst different cultures and excessive consumerism – all these being matters than Ginsberg felt strongly about and sought to fight against.
*the narrator is looking back on what he has once witnessed long ago, and it's haunting him, makes him feel guilty and ashamed.
Lines 5-10 present that the majority of the world talking, but over nothing, and nothing worth being heard. As rats feet over broken glass, meaning we hear something but nothing worth paying attention to. As wind in dry grass, indicates there is some sound being made, but it is an unknown sound that can be easily ignored. As hollow men we waste our life away talking and talking, but not doing.
In line 6, the speaker requests that “America be the dream the dreamers dreamed” (Hughes). This sing-songy style coupled with the repetition of the word “dream” underlines the importance of the message of the poem by reiterating the point the author wishes to make: Americans wish America truly was the place where man can seek his fortune. Hughes also plays with rhyme: throughout the poem, the lines often end with an “ee” sound, though no formal structure is employed. The speaker states that America is a place where man is “seeking a home where he himself is free/(America never was America to me)” (Hughes 4-5), and at the end of the poem, the speaker repeats “America never was America to me” shortly followed by “America will be!” (Hughes 92-94). This repetition of rhyme highlights the speaker’s hope that he, along with his fellow countrymen, will one day be free. Hughes’s belief of a better tomorrow is demonstrated in this
In the first stanza, it is established that the poem is written in the first person, when “I” is referring to the speaker, which illustrates this person’s point of view concerning the tragedy of 9/11 during a whole day of events. The speaker begins by setting a tranquil mood as the opening of a long list of last names. In line 1, he says: “Yesterday, I lay awake in the palm of the night.” He describes the night like a tropical tree gently swaying in a peaceful beach setting. He calmly observes the gentle raindrops dripping slowly down his windows until they disappear in “A soft rain stole in, unhelped by any breeze, / And when I saw the silver glaze on the windows,” (2-3). For a brief moment, he enjoys going outside to his garden at sunrise to forget the sorrow that death brings when “In the morning, I walked out barefoot / Among thousands of flowers” (11-12).
The Flowers By Alice Walker Written in the 1970's The Flowers is set in the deep south of America and is about Myop, a small 10-year old African American girl who explores the grounds in which she lives. Walker explores how Myop reacts in different situations. She writes from a third person perspective of Myop's exploration. In the first two paragraph Walker clearly emphasises Myop's purity and young innocence.
The eighth stanza brings us back to the tragedy of Babi Yar. Yevtushenko chooses to personify the trees. They "look sternly" on the murderers in judgement as one by one the Jews were shot down. There is a silent mourning for the martyred Jews. The air around Babi Yar silently screams for the massacre it has
The short story, Spilt Cherry Tree, was written by Jesse Stuart. In the beginning of the story, Dave and his classmates went with Professor Herbert on a field trip for biology class. They were all searching for lizards, bugs, snakes, frogs, flowers, and plants. Dave and five of his classmates had spotted a lizard in the old cherry tree up the hill, so all six of them ran up the tree after it, and the tree broke down. Eif Crabtree, the owner of the tree was plowing when it happened and he ran up and go tall the boys’ names. Dave’s five classmates who broke the tree with him were all able to get the dollar that they owed Mr. Crabtree, but Dave knew he wouldn’t be able to get his. Professor Herbert kept Dave after school and told him that he paid Dave’s dollar, but he would have to work four hours at the school to earn the full dollar, which means he would be getting paid twenty-five cents and hour to help the janitor. Dave really didn’t mind staying after school, but he knew that he would get a whipping from his father if he was two hours late getting home. Dave told Professor Herbert that he would rather have the professor whip him with a switch so he could go on home and help his dad with chores because he knew his dad would whip him if he was two hours late. Dave was also afraid that his father would make him quit school because he was a little old fashioned and didn’t understand the school system of that time.
Ginsberg’s “A Supermarket in California” criticizes America during the midst of the twentieth century in which society had acquired an attitude that heavily valued the materialistic aspects of life. In order to efficiently express the speaker’s discontent with society, he paints images by using vivid detail throughout the entire poem to allow the reader to experience what the speaker experiences himself. He begins by describing the setting on the streets of California, “I walked down the sidestreets under the trees…/… looking at the full moon” (2-3) and had thoughts of Walt Whitman, a nineteenth century poet whom Ginsberg deeply admired. The setting is essential as it describes the two worlds in which the speaker lives in; one represented by the metropolitan landscape of downtown California and another represented by nature, which the speaker longs to be a part of. The speaker describes himself as a lost soul in search of satisfaction in conventional America, a place where he does no...
William Blake's The Sick Rose. "The sick rose" is a very ambiguous poem and open to several interpretations, Blake uses lots of imagery and. effective metaphors. My first impression of the poem was that it?s very negative and includes elements of destruction.
Songs of Innocence and Experience. (1794) by William Blake Songs of Innocence Introduction Piping down the valleys wild Piping songs of pleasant glee, On a cloud I saw a child, And he laughing said to me: Pipe a song about a Lamb:
...use he'd rather get high. In the end, he realizes the affect of drugs on his life and that weed pretty much replaced everything that really mattered to him. Ironically, his apathy and laziness as portrayed at the end of the song is basically what sold this single because there are so many people that can relate to this song in one way or another. It may be a very select crowd, but prominent nonetheless.
The tone in the first 11 stanzas of the poem seems very resigned; the speaker has accepted that the world is moving on without them. They says things like “I don’t reproach the spring for starting up again” and “I don’t resent the view for its vista of a sun-dazzled bay”. By using words like “resent” and “reproach”, the author indirectly implies that the speaker has a reason to dislike beautiful things. The grief that has affected the speaker so much hasn’t affected life itself and they has come to accept that. The author chooses to use phrases like ‘it doesn’t pain me to see” and “I respect their right” which show how the speaker has completely detached themself from the word around them. While everything outside is starting to come back to life, the speaker is anything but lively. “I expect nothing from the depths near the woods.” They don’t expect anything from the world and want the world to do the same thing in return. This detachment proves that the speaker feels resigned about themself and the world around