Poem Analysis: 'The Red Wheelbarrow'

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The poem “The Red Wheelbarrow” is a poem that does not really have a set pattern, and that is known as being free verse. The first two lines of this poem have a trochaic meter, which means that it begins as stressed, has an unstressed, and then finishes with a stressed syllable type pattern, that is demonstrated in, “SO much DEpends / UPon” (1-2). This is as if the “so” has the long “O” sound which is stressed, then has “much” which is not, then “depends” has two syllables but starts out with a stressed. The third and fourth lines have anapestic meter, which is two unstressed followed by a stressed syllable, suggested in, “a red WHEEl / barrow” (3-4). I have capitalized “WHEEl” because is demonstrating how I read the line in this poem, giving an example of how I concluded that these lines were in anapestic meter. …show more content…

The same type of break occurs again in the third stanza in lines five and six in the word “rain water”. I believe this break in it makes the reader have to read it slow and pause, which I think it gives the reader a sense of description of the wheelbarrow possibly emphasizing on the wheelbarrow being old or weather, which is suggested in, “glazed with rain / water” (5-6). These two lines can be considered to have dactylic meter because it has a stressed syllable followed by two unstressed. In the last stanza, I think the meter used in this is iambic because it alternates between unstressed and stressed syllables, demonstrated in, “beside the white / chickens” (7-8). The enjambed usage in this poem and different meters used in each stanza leaves the reader wondering what the speakers is actually meaning behind what the speaker is saying or if there is a hidden message in what they are saying, using the ends of each line to draw the reader of the poem in to want to keep reading

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