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Literary critical thesis of a & p updike
Literary critical thesis of a & p updike
A&p john updike literary devices
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“Player Piano,” by John Updike is an example of light verse poetry focusing specifically upon the thoughts of a player piano. Updike effectively allows the reader to explore 'player piano's thoughts through personification, meter, rhyme, and diction. The poem commences with assonance which is the lack of vowel sounds in order to create rhyming phrases or sentences. The three-stanza poem, mostly in dactylic tetrameter, describes the player piano in creative diction, allowing the reader to experience the ‘mind’ of this mechanical device. The speaker of the poem is the player piano itself, tracing the steps of a player piano while playing tunes already recorded on its paper rolls. Equally cheerful and entertaining the poem gives the reader a fascinating perspective into the humanistic qualities of this machine. Although the player piano is performing a normally human type task without the assistance of a human, the playing of piano composition is usually composed and played by a physical human. Therefore, the machine’s perception of its tasks are unique in comparison to an actual human musician.
By using diction to communicate his ideas, Updike successfully introduces the reader to the essence of a "Player Piano”. I the first line of the poem Updike replicates musical instruments with repetition. Particularly the ‘ick’ sound in "stick", "click", and "snicker" eluding to the sharpness of the piano. Also notable is the use of the word click which is often a noise associated with mechanical machines.
The meter emphasizes the sharpness of the actual note the player piano is playing, making the pronunciation precise especially when read aloud:
”My stick fingers click with a snicker” (l. 1).
Careful pronunciation of the f...
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...” encompasses the piano’s ability to produce softer sounds but can also be of reference to the brightness of the keys. The word “moon” often considered the light or brightness illuminating the sky in the evening hours gives reference to the vibrant, stimulating tunes produced by this musical instrument.
Updike’s use of rhythm is steady throughout making this poem one of the more favorable poems I have read. By engaging the reader’s senses with the use of sound and sight, the poet is able to draw the reader into the picture with stimulating language. In addition, being a piano player this poem was particularly enjoyable as I could relate to the poems form. The expression of each musical note is precise, and the melody replicates the piano instrument itself with the only difference being the player piano can never alter any aspect of its playing unlike a human.
Billy Jo finds some of her hope when she can by playing her mother’s piano. The piano is a big part because it was a way Billy Jo and her mother connected. The piano was a wedding gift from Billy Jo’s father. She learns to play at a young age with her mother she describes it as “heaven” (page 22). But there is a time where that seems to line up in a time where Billy Jo was sad when she could not play the piano because of her hurt hands. This old dust filled piano has segmental value to Billy
The most noticeable aspect of the structure of the entire poem is the lack of capital letters and periods. There is only one part in the entire forty lines, which is at the very end, and this intentional punctuation brings readers to question the speaker’s literacy. In fact, the speaker is very young, and the use of punctuation and hyphens brings to attention the speaker’s innocence, and because of that innocence, the
Throughout the poem Updike relies on the use of vivid imagery to clearly allude to the complex relationship that he’s attempting to highlight between the novelist and his characters. His use of diction, such as “trench warfare,” “unraveling bandages,” and “a harsh taskmaster” result in producing a very gloomy imagery for the reader which results in the poem developing a very dark and negative mood which
Sound Devices help convey the poet’s message by appealing to the reader’s ears and dr...
Boy Willie is the protagonist in the play The Piano Lesson, which is written by August Wilson. He is a foil character to his sister Berniece. He wants to sell the family piano. His biggest obstacle is his past, and his sister. Berniece wants to salvage the piano and keep it as a namesake. The quarrels revolving around legacies is the central conflict of the play. Boy Willie’s “Super-objective” contains two parts: fear and legacy resulting in memory.
Roethke’s poem has a regular rhyme scheme that can be expressed as “abab”. The only exception to this scheme would be the first stanza as the words “dizzy” (2) and “easy” (4) are slant rhymes. Only the end syllables of the two words sound the same. As a result, the use of a consistent “abab” rhyme scheme allows the poem to reflect the
In the Piano Lesson the main symbol is the piano in Berniece’s home. The piano has a lot of meaning behind it and has been through a lot. This piano has made it all the way from the South to the North, which wasn’t easy. Berniece brought the piano miles from where it was because it meant so much to her. The carvings on this piano are magnificent they represent all of her ancestors. The blood and sweat that were put into making this piano means so much more than just something you play is amazing: “ Willie Boy carved all this. He got a picture of his mama… Mamma Esther… and his daddy, Boy Charles. He got all kinds of things that happened with our family” (1183). Instead of carving what Sutter asked he made the whole piano about the history of his family. After the carving was done, the piano became a monument to his family’s
The constant rhythm throughout the poem gives it a light beat, like a waltz; the reader feels like s/he is dancing. The rhyme pattern of...
The piano held symbolic significance in the story of the family and their struggle to move forward. The piano represents the importance and value of slaves during slavery. Slaves were traded for objects during slavery. Slaves were of no importance to their slave owners. As Doaker says in the story “now she had her piano and her niggas too”, meaning slaves were nothing more than an accessory to their slave owners (Wilson 395). Doaker sarcastically speaks of how slaves were not considered humans but property. As Sandy Alexandre states in her work, “Property and Inheritance in August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson”, “Doaker sees greed where there should be something like repulsion or at least a semblance of hesitation to accept such an ill-begotten gift”(77). Alexandre argues slaves are not given the proper respect and are not considered equal. This specific event from the story shows how little to ...
Language is the bearer of meaning and is a universal medium of communication (Evans, 1973; p. 42; Stenlund, 1990; p. 14). With in electroacoustic music, language is used as a 'tool for establishing an aesthetic' (Keane, 1986; p. 118). Pierre Schaeffer considers it as being 'presupposed' (Windsor, 1995; 1.1.1). Although, both talking about language they talk about different aspects of language in relation with electroacoustic music. Schaeffer talks about the creation of music, Keane talks about the process before making music. Schaeffer's theory of language may mask the communication between composer and liste...
The two poems I have chosen to explain are Piano by D H Lawrence and
Basic terms are often confused when describing an individuals musical sense. Microsoft Encarta World English Dictionary defines an artist as somebody who does something with great skill and creativity, and a musician is a music maker who plays, performs, conducts, or composes music, either as a hobby or a profession. The focus of this essay is not the plausible crime of a solely techno creator, or in contrast, the soaring melodies of a humans voice. Technology has tarnished the value of pure talent of music's original creation for the sake of popularity, riches and unnatural perfection.
Every person has a past, every race has a heritage, and every family has a legacy. In Wilson’s play, four protagonists, Boy Willie, Berniece, Doaker and Wining Boy are all wounded by their traumatic pasts’ and have only have one reminder of their family history – the piano. During the beginning of the play, Wilson describes the setting and illustrates a piano that is dominating the parlor and gathering dust in the Charles’ home. The piano is covered with carvings of events and “mask-like figures resembling totems.” Wilson then begins to describe the carvings as “graceful” and rendering a “power of invention that lifts them out of the realm of craftsmanship and into the realm of art.” Nevertheless, to the Charles’ family, the piano is not just an ornately carved piano but rather the only symbol of their family legacy; the only way to understand the piano is to go back to the period of slavery. In the play, Doaker begins to reveal the family history to Boy Willie and explains the significance of the piano. During the slave period, Boy Willie and Bernice’s' grandfather's (Willie Boy) was owned by a man named Robert Sutter. Sutter had traded their grandmother and uncle for the piano as a present for his wife, Miss Ophelia. After getting tired of the piano, Miss Ophelia missed her slaves so much, Sutter made Willie Boy hand-carve the faces of his wife and son's faces all over the piano. However, Willie Boy didn't end there; he carved all of his ancestors onto the piano and “all kinds of things that happened with [the] family.” Miss Ophelia became ecstatic when she saw the piano, because “now she had her piano and her niggers too.” When she looked at the carvings in the piano, she could see all the faces of the slaves she missed and the...
Adding notes, increasing the already-rich sound, and going from taking up lots of space to scientists now working on making pianos on your phone that don’t sacrifice anything, the piano has changed greatly yet not too many changes have been made. Though the piano is one of the world’s most popular instruments, not many people know it’s origins and the changes it had to go through to continue to keep us entertained. Although the piano has gone through so many changes it has still always kept one thing, and that’s the endless possibilities it
“Mary had a little lamb, little lamb, little lamb; Mary had a little lamb, whose fleece was white as snow.” For centuries “Mary had a little lamb” has become one of the most universally recognized nursery rhythms since being published in 1830. Centuries later it is still one of the most popular songs of the world. Merriam Dictionary defines music as “the science or art of ordering tones or sounds in succession, in combination, and in temporal relationships to produce a composition having unity and continuity.” With that in mind, music is found everywhere. Whether it’s in the Great Wall of China to the jungles in Africa, music is found everywhere. The main purpose of this paper is to show that music is in fact a universal language by comparing music with other official languages, showing how music influences emotions and how music literacy and emotions helps people understand music as a language. In order to fully execute my purpose of proving that music is a universal language, I will be focusing on using personal experiences, researching articles and specific musical examples from class.