Juxtaposition In The Violets By Gwen Harwood

302 Words1 Page
bulb-icon

Recommended: The use of symbolism in the novel

Through the use of several poetic devices, Harwood is able to articulate and format her ideas in a way that adds to the appeal of the text. Harwood incorporates juxtaposition in order to depict the binary oppositions and the dualistic nature of human life and experience. "Frail melancholy flowers among ashes and loam." (The Violets) is a given example, with the 'ashes' symbolising death and fragility, contrasted by 'loam' as a symbol of life and growth. "On what flood are they borne, these memories of early childhood/iridescent, fugitive" (At Mornington) juxtaposes the secretive nature of memories that can also be both splendour and colourful. The frequent use of enjambment in 'The Violets', captures the stylistic feature of the train-of-thought

Show More
Related

  • Tone Of Xiv By Derek Walcott

    1069 Words  | 3 Pages

    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”

    Read More

  • Of Nightingales That Weep by Katherine Paterson

    699 Words  | 2 Pages

    Of Nightingales That Weep Chapter 1 This chapter is about Takiko and her first family home. It tells a lot about her family. They talk about the war in this chapter also. Takiko’s mother decides that she will remarry after her father dies.

    Read More

  • Abigail Deutsch's Poem After The Disaster

    512 Words  | 2 Pages

    From the combination of enjambed and end-stopped lines, the reader almost physically feels the emphasis on certain lines, but also feels confusion where a line does not end. Although the poem lacks a rhyme scheme, lines like “…not long after the disaster / as our train was passing Astor” and “…my eyes and ears…I couldn't think or hear,” display internal rhyme. The tone of the narrator changes multiple times throughout the poem. It begins with a seemingly sad train ride, but quickly escalates when “a girl came flying down the aisle.” During the grand entrance, imagery helps show the importance of the girl and how her visit took place in a short period of time. After the girl’s entrance, the narrator describes the girl as a “spector,” or ghost-like figure in a calm, but confused tone. The turning point of the poem occurs when the girl “stopped for me [the narrator]” and then “we [the girl and the narrator] dove under the river.” The narrator speaks in a fast, hectic tone because the girl “squeez[ed] till the birds began to stir” and causes her to not “think or hear / or breathe or see.” Then, the tone dramatically changes, and becomes calm when the narrator says, “so silently I thanked her,” showing the moment of

    Read More

  • Analysis Of I Dreamed I Moved Among The Elysian Fields

    998 Words  | 2 Pages

    The speaker begins the poem an ethereal tone masking the violent nature of her subject matter. The poem is set in the Elysian Fields, a paradise where the souls of the heroic and virtuous were sent (cite). Through her use of the words “dreamed”, “sweet women”, “blossoms” and

    Read More

  • Freudian Analysis of Marigolds

    1296 Words  | 3 Pages

    Freudian Analysis of Marigolds Most of the time there is a moment in life where one realizes they have lost all innocence and gained some compassion. “Marigolds” shows how one young girl transferred from a child to a young adult through her life experiences. Throughout this story, another young, but at the same time old in her prime, lady’s experiences are revealed: the author’s. In this short story, “Marigolds,” Eugenia Collier’s subconscious is unmasked through symbolism, diction, and Elizabeth’s actions.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Backyard Blues By Natasha Trethewey

    822 Words  | 2 Pages

    Part I is particularly anecdotal, with many of the poems relating to the death of Trethewey’s mother. The first part begins with an epitaph from the traditional Wayfaring Stranger, which introduces the movement of the soul after death, and the journey towards the ‘home’ beyond. In “Graveyard Blues”, Trethewey examines the definition of “home” as a place of lament, in contrast to the comforting meaning in the epitaph beginning Part I, and the significance of the soul’s movement after death. The ‘home’ described in the epitaph is a place of comfort and familiarity, where the speaker returns to their mother. In contrast, Trethewey describes the ‘home’ she returns to after her mother’s death as a hollow place, the journey back to which is incredibly

    Read More

  • The Poet With His Face In His Hands By Mary Oliver Analysis

    991 Words  | 2 Pages

    Therefore, Oliver’s incorporation of imagery, setting, and mood to control the perspective of her own poem, as well as to further build the contrast she establishes through the speaker, serves a critical role in creating the lesson of the work. Oliver’s poem essentially gives the poet an ultimatum; either he can go to the “cave behind all that / jubilation” (10-11) produced by a waterfall to “drip with despair” (14) without disturbing the world with his misery, or, instead, he can mimic the thrush who sings its poetry from a “green branch” (15) on which the “passing foil of the water” (16) gently brushes its feathers. The contrast between these two images is quite pronounced, and the intention of such description is to persuade the audience by setting their mood towards the two poets to match that of the speaker. The most apparent difference between these two depictions is the gracelessness of the first versus the gracefulness of the second. Within the poem’s content, the setting has been skillfully intertwined with both imagery and mood to create an understanding of the two poets, whose surroundings characterize them. The poet stands alone in a cave “to cry aloud for [his] / mistakes” while the thrush shares its beautiful and lovely music with the world (1-2). As such, the overall function of these three elements within the poem is to portray the

    Read More

  • The Struggle In Marigolds By Eugenia Collier

    865 Words  | 2 Pages

    “Marigolds”, a short story written by Eugenia Collier, illustrates a very complex struggle,but one almost all of us can relate to. It was set in the Great Depression, yet it has relevance today. It is a struggle all of us must go through, though it may hidden unlike the struggle Collier describes. “Marigolds” conveys the struggle between an aimless and innocent adolescent, and a mature and compassionate adult. The clash of two minds and two consciences. Looking through eyes of a 14 year old girl named Lizabeth, Collier declares a very important and relevant message to the reader. One summer night, Lizabeth learns the same lesson Collier wishes to tell the reader. Her theme in “Marigolds” is living a ignorant life, like that of a child,

    Read More

  • Comparison of Robert Frost's and Seamus Heaney’s poetry,

    983 Words  | 2 Pages

    ...ttachment or emotion. Again, Heaney repeats the use of a discourse marker, to highlight how vividly he remembers the terrible time “Next morning, I went up into the room”. In contrast to the rest of the poem, Heaney finally writes more personally, beginning with the personal pronoun “I”. He describes his memory with an atmosphere that is soft and peaceful “Snowdrops and Candles soothed the bedside” as opposed to the harsh and angry adjectives previously used such as “stanched” and “crying”. With this, Heaney is becoming more and more intimate with his time alone with his brother’s body, and can finally get peace of mind about the death, but still finding the inevitable sadness one feels with the loss of a loved one “A four foot box, a foot for every year”, indirectly telling the reader how young his brother was, and describing that how unfortunate the death was.

    Read More

  • Comparing Sea Rose By H. D And Vague Poem By Elizabeth Bishop

    1322 Words  | 3 Pages

    The poems “Sea Rose” by H.D and “Vague Poem” by Elizabeth Bishop were both written by two women who took over the Victorian era. H.D’s works of writing were best known as experimental reflecting the themes of feminism and modernism from 1911-1961. While Bishop’s works possessed themes of longing to belong and grief. Both poems use imagery, which helps to make the poem more concrete for the reader. Using imagery helps to paint a picture with specific images, so we can understand it better and analyze it more. The poems “Sea Rose” and “Vague Poem” both use the metaphor of a rose to represent something that can harm you, even though it has beauty.

    Read More

  • Loss of Innocence in The Flowers, by Alice Walker

    1007 Words  | 3 Pages

    Innocence is something always expected to be lost sooner or later in life, an inevitable event that comes of growing up and realizing the world for what it truly is. Alice Walker’s “The Flowers” portrays an event in which a ten year old girl’s loss of innocence after unveiling a relatively shocking towards the end of the story. Set in post-Civil War America, the literary piece holds very particular fragments of imagery and symbolism that describe the ultimate maturing of Myop, the young female protagonist of the story. In “The Flowers” by Alice Walker, the literary elements of imagery, symbolism, and setting “The Flowers” help to set up a reasonably surprising unveiling of the gruesome ending, as well as to convey the theme of how innocence disappears as a result of facing the harsh reality of this world.

    Read More

  • Use of Floral Imagery and Symbolism in Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray

    2716 Words  | 6 Pages

    Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray is, at first glance, a novel about a young, handsome man’s demise as he travels into a world of self- indulgence, immorality, and evil. Though the predominant motif of beauty versus ugliness is the main take-away point, Wilde’s use of symbols, particularly flowers cannot go unnoticed. From characterization to depicting religious allusions, flowers are frequently used in The Picture of Dorian Gray. Clearly, the novel’s use of roses, orchids, lilacs, and the like has an underlying meaning, which will be explored and analyzed in this essay.

    Read More

  • Literary Elements in Emily Bronte´s Poem Remembrance

    1047 Words  | 3 Pages

    Emily Bronte was born in 1818 and belonged to the Romantic convention. Although Remembrance is not Bronte’s most famous poem, she did in fact become more famous with her one and only novel, Wuthering Heights and is now considered a classic of English literature. Emily, and her sister Anne were both very imaginative and sometimes their creations were very exaggerative. Bronte was the third youngest of the four surviving siblings. They lived under the strict governance of their religious father in which they grew isolated and lonely, which can be seen in their work. All three sisters are famous for their romantic style of writing. The poem Remembrance is related to Ro...

    Read More

  • Analysis of Birches by Robert Frost

    808 Words  | 2 Pages

    The first half of the poems’ images are of life, coming of age, and death.

    Read More

  • Gothic Elements in The Picture of Dorian Gray

    1161 Words  | 3 Pages

    Wilde begins setting the mood of the text with excessive descriptions of nature, and natural beauty: “The studio was filled with the rich odour of roses, and when the light summer wind stirred amidst the trees of the garden, there came through the open door the heavy scent of the lilac, or the more delicate perfume of the pink-flowering thorn” (Wilde 5). While this description hardly sounds like the language of the gothic, the use of nature sets up a contrast to the darker tones which appear later in the text. The nature theme is also present in the descriptions of Dorian Gray, whom at this point in the text has not been corrupted by the influences of Lord Henry Wotton or his search for pleasure and experience. Not only is Gray described as someone who encompasses flower like beauty, he is a representation of a flower himself. As Lord Henry describes, Gray is “some brainless, beautiful creature, who should be always here in winter when [there are] no flowers to look at” (7). Wilde extends this flower allusion with the metaphor of the aging man, and the beauty which dies with age. Like a flower Dorian’s beauty will fade, wither, a...

    Read More

More about Juxtaposition In The Violets By Gwen Harwood

Open Document