Both of the pieces included in this portfolio are inspired by my outside reading book, My Seneca Village by Marilyn Nelson. While not much is known about Seneca Village, Nelson creates her own image of Seneca Village based on the information she has gathered. I decided to replicate the process with “Breaking Free,” where I try to answer why the Columbia student ran away with the information that I can gather in the news. While I was not able to gather much information, I used my own experience and thoughts to reflect the inner thoughts of the girl. Nelson prefaces her work with an introduction about Seneca Village that will give readers enough knowledge to understand the time period. Unlike Nelson, I did not preface “Breaking Free” because …show more content…
However, the piece resembled a diary entry that explains one’s frustrations instead of a poem that reflect the individual's inner thought. As a result, I decided to change the format complete so that readers could understand the critique that the narrator has of the institution and ultimately of herself in the establishment. For example, I framed the first stanza with “Trapped inside an institution that/ is meant to produce, cultivate, and breed society’s greatest” because I wanted readers to understand that society labels the institution as an elite school, yet the reputation that the establishment holds does not necessarily translate into the lives of the students enrolled. In fact, I emphasize “produce, cultivate, and breed” to reduce students’ autonomy to one of abused cattle that are whipped into shape by farmers. My first two stanza critiques two statements that most institution would claim by providing a counterexample from the narrator's perspective. In addition, I written the last two stanzas like a stream of consciousness, which best depicted the narrator's frustration. For example, the narrator expresses her impatience and resentment by trivializing a diploma to a “8x11 paper” that does not guarantee a “9 to 5” job. These last to two stanza are meant to build momentum for when the narrator decides to run
The repetition of the words “waited” (13), and “watched” (14), throughout the stanzas adds anaphora and mystery to the vivid disapproval surrounding the family. Moreover, the use of repetition deepens the focus on the shame and guilt the young girl and her family are experiencing. The anaphora used throughout the poem intends that there is something being waited for. Therefore, the colonialist settlers are continuously waiting and watching for something to happen. In the last stanza Dumont states, “Or wait until a fight broke out” (55), suggesting that this is the action being waited for. As a result, the negative action causes the family to feel shame and regret. Overall, the use of musicality and anaphora successfully allows the reader to experience the pressure of
“..infinite perils to the rock thrower” (line 10), signals the shift from excited to angry. The style of the passage of the best characterized as Colloquial Expressions. Colloquial Expressions are Nonstandard, usually regional ways of using language, she says things such as “The moon looks larger coming over the horizon than it does when it has fully risen in the heavens” (line 34-35), that only the certain people there would understand. The diction creates the mood for the writing. Her word choice delegates sophistication. She proves her point in a professional manner while still proving she's
The first stanza describes the depth of despair that the speaker is feeling, without further explanation on its causes. The short length of the lines add a sense of incompleteness and hesitance the speaker feels towards his/ her emotions. This is successful in sparking the interest of the readers, as it makes the readers wonder about the events that lead to these emotions. The second and third stanza describe the agony the speaker is in, and the long lines work to add a sense of longing and the outpouring emotion the speaker is struggling with. The last stanza, again structured with short lines, finally reveals the speaker 's innermost desire to "make love" to the person the speaker is in love
The award-winning book of poems, Brown Girl Dreaming, by Jacqueline Woodson, is an eye-opening story. Told in first person with memories from the author’s own life, it depicts the differences between South Carolina and New York City in the 1960s as understood by a child. The book begins in Ohio, but soon progresses to South Carolina where the author spends a considerable amount of her childhood. She and her older siblings, Hope and Odella (Dell), spend much of their pupilage with their grandparents and absorb the southern way of life before their mother (and new baby brother) whisk them away to New York, where there were more opportunities for people of color in the ‘60s. The conflict here is really more of an internal one, where Jacqueline struggles with the fact that it’s dangerous to be a part of the change, but she can’t subdue the fact that she wants to. She also wrestles with the issue of where she belongs, “The city is settling around me….(but) my eyes fill up with the missing of everything and everyone I’ve ever known” (Woodson 184). The conflict is never explicitly resolved, but the author makes it clear towards the end
Through vivid yet subtle symbols, the author weaves a complex web with which to showcase the narrator's oppressive upbringing. Two literary
Each line of the poem reads as an incomplete thought, except for lines 1 and 10, which read: “I am choking /.../ I was not well” (Nave). Even though these lines can be considered complete thoughts, they are still choppy and short in content. These two lines introduce us early on to the student’s internal conflict versus the setting that the student is currently in. Besides the fragmented thoughts, the poem as a whole appears as one large stanza and there are not clear breaks where a new stanza begins or ends; or in other words the syntax of the poem is difficult to cipher through. In order to help piece things together, I broke it up into four stanzas for each sentence of the poem. Three out of four of the sentences begin with “I,” while the other begins with “my algebra teacher.” This is important to note because the student, 75% of the time, is thinking about his personal situation rather than the subject of class. The disjointed thoughts throughout the lines of the poem standout in the last couple of lines of the poem. Evan Nave writes: “my thoughts are not / math.” (lines 19-20). These two lines exemplify how our educational system is focused on what a student can bring as a statistic. It exemplifies this because math is a black and white subject, and one can infer that these lines are saying
Stating “Write It” ( line 19) , “ And Look!” ( line 10) are climactic points in which the speaker wishes to believe herself, that losing really is no disaster, so she must see it, and write it. In the beginning, the poem seems bubbly and unremorseful but as it develops, the speaker shows her real passion for something lost, “.
I believe that the structure of this poem allows for the speaker to tell a narrative which further allows him to convey his point. The use of enjambment emphasizes this idea as well as provides a sense of flow throughout the entirety of a poem, giving it the look and feel of reading a story. Overall, I believe this piece is very simplistic when it comes to poetic devices, due to the fact that it is written as a prose poem, this piece lacks many of the common poetic devices such as rhyme, repetition, alliteration, and metaphors. However, the tone, symbolism, allusion and imagery presented in the poem, give way to an extremely deep and complicated
I am going to analyze this text using the intrinsic and feminist literary theory analysis. With the intrinsic analysis, I will brood mostly on the style and characterization of the text. According to Eaglestone, 2009, intrinsic analysis is a look into the text for meaning and understanding, assuming it has no connection, whatsoever, to the outside world. “Style is said to be the way one writes as opposed to what one writes about and is that voice that your readers hear when they read your work” (Wiehardt, n.d). The text uses mostly colors, poems and songs to deliver its messages. The main characters in the...
To begin, the episodic shifts in scenes in this ballad enhance the speaker’s emotional confusion. Almost every stanza has its own time and place in the speaker’s memory, which sparks different emotions with each. For example, the first stanza is her memory of herself at her house and it has a mocking, carefree mood. She says, “I cut my lungs with laughter,” meaning that...
The society in question is refuses to reciprocate the equality envisioned by the narrator and without any intention of compliance continually uses this man to their own advantage. It is not only this exploitation, b...
The construction of the poem is in regular four-line stanzas, of which the first two stanzas provide the exposition, setting the scene; the next three stanzas encompass the major action; and the final two stanzas present the poet's reflection on the meaning of her experience.
The speaker reflects on the teenage girl’s childhood as she recalls the girl played with “dolls that did pee-pee” (2). This childish description allows the speaker to explain the innocence of the little girl. As a result, the reader immediately feels connected to this cute and innocent young girl. However, the speaker’s diction evolves as the girl grew into a teenager as she proclaims: “She was healthy, tested intelligent, / possessed strong arms and back, / abundant sexual drive and manual dexterity” (7-9). The speaker applies polished language to illustrate the teen. This causes the reader not only to see the girl as an adult, but also to begin to grasp the importance of her situation. The speaker expresses what the bullies told this girl as she explains: “She was advised to play coy, / exhorted to come on hearty” (12-13). The sophisticated diction shifts towards the girl’s oppressors and their cruel demands of her. Because of this, the reader is aware of the extent of the girl’s abuse. The speaker utilizes an intriguing simile as she announces: “Her good nature wore out / like a fan belt” (15-16). The maturity of the speaker’s word choice becomes evident as she uses a simile a young reader would not understand. This keeps the mature reader focused and allows him to fully understand the somberness of this poem. The speaker concludes the poem as she depicts the teenage girl’s appearance at her funeral: “In the casket displayed on satin she lay / with the undertaker’s cosmetics painted on” (19-20). The speaker elects not to describe the dead girl in an unclear and ingenuous manner. Rather, she is very clear and
As a housewife and a mother, Godwin's protagonist leads a fairly structured life. Her activities are mostly confined to caring for her husband and child and caring for their home. Though she is obviously unsatisfied with this, as shown by her attempts to discard this role, she is not comfortable without such a structure. Even when she has moved into the white room, she develops a routine of brushing her hair in the sun each day. When she decides to write a poem, she shies away from the project once she realizes how many options are open to her; the idea of so much freedom seems to distress her. Even when she thinks that "her poem could be six, eight, ten, thirteen lines, it could be any number of lines, and it did not even have to rhyme," the words themselves are rushed, the pacing of the sentence communicating her nervousness and discomfort.
The ABAB rhyme scheme is a pattern that can be recognized by many individuals; therefore, it relates to the message that motivation is needed by everybody. Two ABAB rhyme schemes make up each stanza, which symbolizes the positivity and negativity that battle throughout the poem. Guest breaks the rhyme scheme once by rhyming “failure” with “you”. This strategic action emphasizes the different methods that negative individuals use to destroy a person’s ambition. Internal rhyme is included in many lines of the poem to create fluidity and sound pleasing to an audience. The poem is composed of a qualitative iambic meter, giving the syllables a sound of da DUM. A pleasing flow is observed through the fairly consistent line length and line syllable number. The lines throughout the poem end in both stressed and unstressed syllables, referencing the battle between discouragement and