The song, “Skyscraper” by Demi Lovato is a rhythmic canticle that incorporates many forms of literary and figurative language to express heartbreak. The artist sang a melody in which melancholy and pain were shown through personification, rhyme, repetition, symbolism, hyperboles, metaphors, and similes. The lyricist writes, “But I’m closer to the clouds up here,” (Lovato 1). This line in stanza five of the song, is an example of both a metaphor and symbolism. This line symbolized elation by showing that clouds were high in the sky much like the spirit of the songwriter. When clouds come to one’s mind, we picture happiness, heaven, enlightenment, and freedom. The scribe used this to symbolize her new and better life as well as emotions. This
The House on Mango Street is a novel by Sandra Cisneros. It is set in a poor, Latino neighborhood around 1960. The main character, Esperanza, is expected to get married in order to support herself. However, Esperanza strives for independence, and seeks to end the cycle of abusive patriarchy that holds Mango Street in thrall. Through the use of syntax and figurative language, Cisneros establishes that a sense of not belonging can fuel an individual’s desire for a better future.
The poem “Cozy Apologia” by Rita Dove, explores the idea of love, and modern routine, while alluding to the disastrous hurricane Floyd of 1999. This poem was written for her husband, Fred, as mentioned after the title of the poem. In the first stanza of this poem, Rita Dove uses imagery to display her immense love for her husband. Dove writes, “This lamp, the wind-still rain, the glossy blue/ My pen exudes” (Dove 2-3). The imagery in these two lines represent items and things that remind Dove of her husband. She says everything makes her think of him, and in these two lines we can see that even just a lamp, or the ink from her pen bring her thoughts of her husband. Her true love for Fred is shown through this. The second stanza, Rita Dove starts to explain how a hurricane brought back memories of her teenage relationships.
The title of the short story, “Four Directions” is symbolic for Waverly’s inner misconceptions. As she goes about her life, she is pulled in different ways by her past and her present. She is torn between her Chinese heritage and her American life. She never thought that instead of being pulled in four directions, she could take all of her differences and combine them. In the end she realizes this with the help of her mother. “The three of us, leaving our differences behind...moving West to reach East” (184), thought Waverly. Her whole life she misconceived her mother’s intentions. Lindo never wanted Waverly to solely focus on her Chinese heritage, but rather combine it with her new American ways. The idea of being pulled in four
The opening stanza sets the tone for the entire poem. Updike uses symbolism to portray the sad, disappointing life Flick ...
In “Queens, 1963”, the speaker narrates to her audience her observations that she has collected from living in her neighborhood located in Queens, New York in the midst of the Civil Rights Movement. The narrator is a thirteen-year-old female immigrant who moved from the Dominican Republic to America with her family. As she reflects on her past year of living in America, she reveals a superb understanding of the reasons why the people in her neighborhood act the way they do towards other neighbors. In “Queens, 1963” by Julia Alvarez, the poet utilizes diction, figurative language, and irony to effectively display to the readers that segregation is a strong part of the American melting pot.
In “on the Subway” the author Sharon Olds talks about two characters on a subway, by using similes and imagery.
In the Poem Parsley, Rita Dove uses a legion of figurative language to make a point about the political state of the Dominican Republic and to draw attention to the socioeconomic issues in that society. She effectively utilizes a narrator who gives the reader insight into the lives of the migrant workers as well as the life of the wealthy dictator. We can see into both of their lives and gain an understanding of how they perceive their existence. Diction plays a key role in showing the violence that is going to and eventually does occur. The words chosen relate back to war or make the most ordinary, everyday tasks sound violent. Finally, the parrot in the poem is used to signify all of the major themes and provide insight into the two worlds.
Tatiana de Rosnay used different literary tools to assist her writing in order to deepen the story, including figurative language, dramatic irony, and foreshadowing. The use of figurative language helps to clarify a description in order to place an image in the mind of the reader. Similes are the main type of figurative language used throughout Sarah’s Key, allowing the reader to see what is happening. Many images conjured up make comparisons as a child would make them, as much of the story concerns the innocence of a child, such as “[t]he oversized radiators were black with dirt, as scaly as a reptile” (Rosnay 10) and “[t]he bathtub has claws” (Rosnay 11). Other descriptions compare Sarah, and Zoe, to a puppy, a symbol of innocence, as children are known to be
“Oh, mirror in the sky/What is love?” A question many ask when involved in a difficult relationship. “Landslide”, a song written by Stevie Nicks is one that resonates and sends a powerful message to anyone who hears it. This song represents change, love lost, and the feeling of life crashing down around you, ultimately becoming a landslide. Nicks is able to use ethos, pathos, and logos to really connect with her audience, which is one of the reasons this song is so meaningful, though it was not the most popular right away.
Within “Thanatopsis” by William Cullen Bryant, he states “She has a voice of gladness, and a smile/And eloquence of beauty, and she glides/Into his darker musings, with a mild/And healing sympathy (Bryant, 4-6).” The “she” Bryant is referring to is Mother Nature, which makes his statement that nature can take away a man’s pain that much more powerful. By personifying nature, the reader feels as though they can relate to “her” in a different way. A poem that uses powerful metaphors is “The First Snowfall” by James Russell Lowell. Within his poem, he states, “From sheds new-roofed with Carrara/Came Chanticleer’s muffled crow/The stiff rails were softened to swan’s-down/And still fluttered down the snow (Lowell, 9-12).” The line “from sheds new-roofed with Carrara” is referring to how pure and white the snow that had just recently fallen looks. Carrara is an expensive white marble. So, Lowell is comparing expensive items to the snow, which helps put an image of a beautiful snowfall into the reader’s head. By using both personification and metaphors, the reader can relate to the words being said in a completely different way, and thus understand the abstract ideas that the authors are trying to convey in their Romantic
The most prominent example of this is the imagery of the wallpaper and the way the narrator’s opinion on the wallpaper slowly changes throughout the story; this directly reflects what is happening within the narrator’s mind. At the beginning of the story, the narrator describes the wallpaper as “Repellent.revolting. a smoldering unclean yellow” (Gilman 377). As the story continues, the narrator starts to become obsessed with the wallpaper and her opinion of it has completely changed from the beginning. Symbolism plays a big part in “The Yellow Wallpaper” too.
The song “Red” by Taylor Swift includes many literary devices to convey a very strong message. The most important literary devices the artist uses are simile, personification, symbolism and hyperbole. Primarily, the composer uses a simile to represent her relationship. A simile is a figure of speech that involves the comparison between two different things. Artists could use similes to compare to make phrases more understandable to the reader. Taylor Swift writes “loving him is like driving a new Maserati” in line 1. This phrase contains a simile to compare driving a Maserati and her relationship. She thinks that it is amazing to drive a cool sports car, but equivalent to love him. It represents love,
Although not picturesque at first, the grim energy of the urban wind extracts the dreary colors of “the dirt and dust and grime” (Petry) from the city sidewalks and dances around the readers, entrancing their first glimpse of Ann Petry’s 1946 novel, The Street. Throughout the introduction, Petry portrays the wind through personification as a tour guide in the blustery town. She then includes small important details to make the readers accustomed to the town’s characteristics. By following the wind’s guiding hands Petry explores the wind’s relationship with people in the town through figurative language and finally wrestles with imagery as the focus of the story zooms in on Lutie Johnson and her frustration then reluctant approval with the urban setting.
...nment up in the clouds, the airman perceived his life, from beginning to end and how pointless life would be if it was not embedded in the clouds; the airman balanced both the benefits and drawbacks of life outside his impulsive home, the clouds, and realized that life will be a waste of breath, and thus not worth living. The poem consists of sixteen lines, and each four lines represent a different idea, yet all synchronized with the heartbeat pattern from the very beginning. This is the balance, the balance of beats, the balance of devoting an equal amount of heartbeats, which he almost ran out of, to what he believes in, and what he enjoys most, which is flying free and diminishing all the boundaries. The last line is the death he was prophesying, in which the heartbeat stops and his reality collapses upon him, releasing him from the chains of life.
Figurative Language in a Work of Artifice by Marge Piercy. "A clever trick, crafty device, or stratagem" is how Webster's Encyclopedia of Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language defines Artifice. Marge Piercy definitely used "crafty" techniques in writing "A Work of Artifice. "