In this poem, I think that one example of symbolism is “the Ivy green” (stanza 1). I believe it represents all the social issues and bad in the world taking over. The other possibility is that as the Ivy good, and is simply holding the world up straight while everything else crumbles and falls. Another word in the poem is “the huge Oak Tree” (stanza 2). I guess that the Oak Tree portrays the world. I say this because the Ivy is slowly creeping up the tree until it’s completely enrobed. This would mean that the issues and everything are gradually taking over the world until everything is complete chaos, or that as the world is crumbling and the little bit of good is growing to try to stop the world from corruption. I see imagery in this poem
Kim Addonizio’s “First Poem for You” portrays a speaker who contemplates the state of their romantic relationship though reflections of their partner’s tattoos. Addressing their partner, the speaker ambivalence towards the merits of the relationship, the speaker unhappily remains with their partner. Through the usage of contrasting visual and kinesthetic imagery, the speaker revels the reasons of their inability to embrace the relationship and showcases the extent of their paralysis. Exploring this theme, the poem discusses how inner conflicts can be powerful paralyzers.
The poem A Certain Kind of Eden by Kay Ryan describes a country that creates a disbalance in the “garden”. The garden is used by Ryan to describe the Earth, and another subject. Russia is that country that makes the garden become a place of strife and unbalance. The poem also describes various temptations in the garden, that not even the strongest vine can resist.
In the world of teenagers everything seems to come and pass by so quickly. For instance the beginning of senior year. In Spite of being happy and excited were also generally nervous and anxious to see what our future holds. As senior year comes to an end, It then becomes as temporary as the summer sun but also the boundary of our life before we enter adulthood. Even then our future is still undefined.
One example of symbolism is the water and canal itself. The water is a representation of freedom because it flows out of town going where it wants to. In the last two lines of the poem, the author says “ our eyes followed the water, white-tipped but dark underneath, racing out of town.” (Soto 1). When the poem mentions the water racing out of town that’s the narrator’s way of alluding to the water’s seeming independence from the town. Another symbol that represents freedom in the poem is the postcard of San Francisco. This is the most obvious, yet one of the most powerful symbols. The reason for this is because to the narrator San Francisco is where he belongs, it represents a lifelong goal for him, and is the epitome of pursuing life’s journey. San Francisco is known for having an artistic atmosphere and for being a place where one can be themselves, and it seems as though this is what draws the author to the city. As he states in the lines 13-14 “And to be with people who knew more than three chords on a guitar”( Soto 1), this tells the reader that he views San Francisco as a place where talented people flock to, and he wants to be apart of that. The last use of symbolism in the poem is the reference to the narrator’s hair. The lines 15-16 describe the hair as “ shoulder
Symbolism is strongly represented through Kaplan’s short story. The symbols represented are the ocean, the killing of the doe and the woods. Visiting the ocean for the first time at the Jersey Shore was new for Andy. Since then she had been awfully frightened of the ocean. She believes the ocean to be a huge, vast that constantly moved, keeps shifting
Along with the imagery we get from the title, there is a lot of imagery within this poem. Let us start with the first three lines:
Fire, ash, and the “red branch of the slow autumn” are all mentioned in his first thought about how their relationship currently is as if to describe it as dangerous, and out of control. However, it’s contrasted to water at the end of the second stanza through words like “boats,” “sail” and “isles.” Even though there is a wind flame-like element, there is still a water-like calmness because everything reminds him of her. The third symbol of wind is mentioned in the fifth stanza. Wind blows freely and provides descriptive imagery as he explains what would happen if she left the place where roots are. This leads to the fourth symbol of Earth which is depicted through roots and, oater, flowers. Plants contrast with wind because they can’t leave like the wind does. They also symbolize how their love would grow if she stayed and loved him as described in the last
The main image is the “house of gold”, which the speaker mentions throughout the poem. Although it may be a metaphor, it’s easy to picture a huge house made of gold and glistening in the sun. Another vivid image is when the speaker says “I will make you queen of everything you see”, which provides an image of a huge landscape as far as the eye can see. There isn’t a copious amount of personification in the poem, but life and dreams are both personified. Life is turning plans upside down and dreams are dead, according to the speaker. There were a few metaphors present in the poem. “When your father turns to stone” means when the father dies. When the speaker says he will make his mother “queen of everything”, he can’t literally make her a queen, but it refers to spoiling her and taking very good care of her. A symbol in the poem is the house of gold, which symbolizes how much the speaker cares about his mother and how he wants to give her everything he
The general symbolism relating to nature assumes a common base of knowledge from which symbolism can be built. The poem opens with a description of Arkansas: "Old crimes like moss pend/ from poplar trees./ The sullen earth/ is much too/ red for comfort." The first example of general symbolism in this passage is the reference to moss. Moss is considered the base of the forest, the lowest level from which all of the other plants grow. Although moss is vital to a forest, it is often thought of as slimy and dirty. The moss "pend(s) from poplar trees," our second natural symbol. The poplar tree is weak and useless. Nothing can be built from its wood, and it often bends and breaks during storms. The visual image of the moss clinging to the poplar tree shows the slimy moss as "old crimes" and the poplar tree as the frail attempt at growth and a new but weak beginning. The reader gets a clear sense of the struggle toward a new life that is hindered and held back by the old, dependable moss that has been and always will be present. The second part of the passage discusses the "sullen earth" that is "much too red." Red earth can be symbolic in two ...
The Yellow Wallpaper is overflowed with symbolism. Symbols are images that have a meaning beyond them selves in a short story, a symbol is a detail, a character, or an incident that has a meaning beyond its literal role in the narrative. Gilman uses symbols to tell her story of a woman's mental state of being diminishes throughout the story. The following paragraphs tell just some of the symbols and how I interpreted them, they could be read in many different ways.
One of the most repeated symbols in this poem is the image of the hill. It is repeated in four stanzas. In the first stanza of the poem, the hill is mentioned as “the ideal of Virginia brochured with goldenrod and loblolly” (2-3). This hill is specifically in Virginia and is the image looks like something that is on a brochure with beautiful nature. The hill is mentioned again in the second stanza: “It is a certain hill the one I imagine when I hear the word “hill”...and this hill would be still beautiful” (1-2, 5-7). There is an obvious image of a hill that the persona is depicting. Hills in general have a top and a bottom. I believe that the hill in this poem represents the ups and downs of the persona’s life and how the persona depicts the hill as beautiful lends to him being optimistic about life. Berman writes about the hill again in the fifth part of the poem: “The hill out my window is still looking beautiful suffused in a kind of gold national park light” (300-301). The last mention of the hill is in the twenty third stanza the first two lines read: “I walked out of the hill behind our house which looks positively Alaskan today”. The hill is now mostly covered with snow due to the Alaskan mention. You cannot tell what the hill looks like with the snow covering it, which represents how the persona feels about his life. Another symbol is the persona’s dogs. Dogs are normally symbolized as being kind and loving animals, a man’s best friend. The second stanza of part five is: “I’m watching my dog have nightmares, twitching and whining on the office floor and I try to imagine what beast has cornered him in the meadow where his dreams are set”. This stanza represents that the persona as a young person. The persona feels that he has not lived out his dreams yet, but he cannot achieve them because he is not happy. The dog is again mentioned: “but I was with our young dog and he was running through the tall grass like running
I felt that as a reader you could sense the growth and hope that came from the poplar. H.D. turns around the piece when she talks about, “The poplar is bright on the hill. The poplar spreads out, deep rooted among trees.” This is showing how in another place there is growth and what I believe could represent positivity and hope. There is different words that are used in the second half of the piece, there is “bright on the hill”, “the poplar spreads outs”. This word choice is more positive when the poet is using “bright” instead of “black seeds”. Also we can see the difference between in the first part H.D. uses “shriveled” and the second part there is “spreads out”. All of these are opposites from the beginning to the end. When I was reading this poem I thought that maybe H.D. is trying to represent someone or something in a dark place, but can see still see the good. The reason why I feel that it would be someone that is already in a bad place is because she says, “yet far beyond the spent fruit-pods and the blackened stalks of mint” showing that she is already in that dark place looking toward that poplar that is growing. Also another example would be in the last two stanzas when she says, “While I perish on the path among the crevices of the rocks”. The rocks are a hard, dull, and a cold object in my opinion, so I could see that this would represent the bad place that the poet could be
William Blake’s “A Poison Tree” is a vengeful poem that demonstrates the importance of releasing your emotions. The author creates a scenario about an augmenting anger towards an enemy that continually grows, and it eventually grows beyond anger. Throughout the poem, the reader recognizes the hatred toward the adversary. The rage and loathe felt converts to a plot for revenge. He establishes the theme that suppressing your feelings can cause you to make irrational decisions. Blake uses a wide range of literary devices such as symbolism, rhyme scheme, form, imagery, and allusions to establish a moralistic tone in this narrative poem.
“Letters to a Young Poet” by Rainer Maria and “Black Swan Green” by David Mitchell are similar stories in which two poets seek out advice from experienced people in the poetry community. The advice that the poets receive, refer to the need of having an individual perspective rather than having a multitude of perspectives from numerous outside opinions. This leads to a creation of a central idea within both passages that develop further into the conclusion of the advice both poets receive. The advice of both passages draws on the idea that beauty is naturally present within the poet and the poet's nature in relationship with his work and not in an abomination of outside opinions.
The best example of symbolism in the poem “The Tyger” is in the last line of stanza five. William Blake writes “Did he who made the Lamb make thee?” (Blake 1). What Blake is asking here is: Did the God who made Jesus also make you? From this stanza one can start to get a picture that the poem uses the Tiger and the Forest as symbolism for a deeper meaning. With this understanding one can now dive deeper into the poem to understand the poem from a different