“Resurrection of the Errand Girl: An Introduction” establishes the entire collection of poems. The reason for the title, Head off and Split, is introduced, and the themes of social justice, sexuality, and family are presented. This poem enhances the themes and their overall meaning through imagery, historical references, and various literary devices. These, in turn, encourage deeper thought into what is really being said. The introduction of the title seems to come out of left field. The girl is at the fish market, ready to purchase her fish, and fishmonger replies with, “Head off and split?” This is when it all begins to click. You see where the title came from and get a glimpse of how the idea can be manipulated throughout the poem. …show more content…
women. This poem shows just that. After the fish monger asks her if she wants the fish cut, she immediately says no. She is “Not a girl and longer, she is capable of her own knife work now. She understands sharpness and duty.” This quote, in itself, not only shows that she believes she is capable of doing things herself, but that she can be a force in the world. She understands what she is supposed to do, but realizes that because of her sharpness, she can do more that her duty. The use of the word sharpness here is key. She is not just clear on what she wants, but she will do anything she has to to get it. She goes on to say, “She knows what a blade can reveal and destroy… She would rather be the one deciding what she keeps and what she throws away.” This again points out the feminist side of the women. She understands how she is supposed to act, but she gets to decide what she is going to keep of that idea and what she is going to discard. She gets to decide how she can use the little power she has to reveal and destroy. Reveal here implies a much deeper meaning than to uncover, but that with her determination she can expose social injustice in the world and has the power to demolish it entirely. She is not just a girl, she is a person with a voice to be heard. This idea is also mirrored with
In Tim Seibles' poem, The Case, he reviews the problematic situations of how white people are naturally born with an unfair privilege. Throughout the poem, he goes into detail about how colored people become uncomfortable when they realize that their skin color is different. Not only does it affect them in an everyday aspect, but also in emotional ways as well. He starts off with stating how white people are beautiful and continues on with how people enjoy their presence. Then he transitions into how people of color actually feel when they encounter a white person. After, he ends with the accusation of the white people in today's world that are still racist and hateful towards people of color.
The title “Head Off & Split” is a phrase used when one goes to the fish market. When the fisherman cleans the fish; he then ask, “Head Off & Split.” Finney explains. Finney is from the South, therefore, every Friday was Fish Friday. The book opens up as whole fish, then it splits into three sections. The head, the body, and the tail are the parts of the fish. In addition, Finney split the book into the three sections, The Hard Headed (head), The Head over Heels (body), and The Head Waters (tail). Finney teaches on the idea that life is the process of splitting off from childhood and growing into adulthood. Life is about splitting off and finding your own. “What it means to learn is something from the beginning to end.” Finney stated. When teaching one how to build an object, learn about life, or general they need to be taught from the beginning. On the cover, the photo is a fish with its head off and split wrapped in newspaper. Finney left the fish as a whole with the guts, scales, and head, to look closely into someone. One has to accept the parts they cannot deny because it is the parts one
Memories of the past hold a high level of importance in shaping who we are as people. Whether it be the memories of your first time trying to swim or learning how to read, certain memories stick with us for life. The poem “The Heroes You Had as a Girl", by Bronwen Wallace, has the speaker recalling a fond memory that presents itself again later in life when a significant figure from her youth reappears. The short story “Snow", by Ann Beattie, features the writer reminiscing upon a specific memory of a winter with her past lover, despite her memory being different from her lovers. These texts both contribute to the idea that an individual's memories are significant in shaping one’s perspective because memories serve as a way to reflect on the
In Drea Knufken’s essay entitled “Help, We’re Drowning!: Please Pay Attention to Our Disaster,” the horrific Colorado flood is experienced and the reactions of worldly citizens are examined (510-512). The author’s tone for this formal essay seems to be quite reflective, shifting to a tone of frustration and even disappointment. Knufken has a reflective tone especially during the first few paragraphs of the essay. According to Drea Knufken, a freelance writer, ghostwriter and editor, “when many of my out-of-town friends, family and colleagues reacted to the flood with a torrent of indifference, I realized something. As a society, we’ve acquired an immunity to crisis. We scan through headlines without understanding how stories impact people,
The title of the poem itself dictates the simplicity Bishop wishes to convey regarding the narrator's view of his catch. A fish is a creature that has preceded the creation of man on this planet. Therefore, Bishop supplies the reader with a subject that is essentially constant and eternal, like life itself. In further examination of this idea the narrator is, in relation to the fish, very young, which helps introduce the theme of deceptive appearances in conjunction with age by building off the notion that youth is ignorant and quick to judge.
The purpose of this essay is to analyze and compare and contrast the two paired poems “My Last Duchess” by Robert Browning and “My Ex-Husband” by Gabriel Spera to find the similarities presented within the pairs. Despite the monumental time difference between “My Last Duchess” and “My Ex-Husband”, throughout both poems you will see that somebody is wronged by someone they thought was a respectable person and this all comes about by viewing a painting on the wall or picture on a shelf.
She was free in her wildness. She was a wanderess, a drop of free water. She belonged to no man and to no city”
Although the little girl doesn’t listen to the mother the first time she eventually listens in the end. For example, in stanzas 1-4, the little girl asks if she can go to the Freedom March not once, but twice even after her mother had already denied her the first time. These stanzas show how the daughter is a little disobedient at first, but then is able to respect her mother’s wishes. In stanzas 5 and 6, as the little girl is getting ready the mother is happy and smiling because she knows that her little girl is going to be safe, or so she thinks. By these stanzas the reader is able to tell how happy the mother was because she thought her daughter would be safe by listening to her and not going to the March. The last two stanzas, 7 and 8, show that the mother senses something is wrong, she runs to the church to find nothing, but her daughter’s shoe. At this moment she realizes that her baby is gone. These stanzas symbolize that even though her daughter listened to her she still wasn’t safe and is now dead. The Shoe symbolizes the loss the mother is going through and her loss of hope as well. This poem shows how elastic the bond between the daughter and her mother is because the daughter respected her mother’s wish by not going to the March and although the daughter is now dead her mother will always have her in her heart. By her having her
The poet seems to share the same pain with the fish, observing the scene and enjoying the detail just like enjoying an artwork. The poet lets the fish go because she is totally touched by the process between life and death; she loves life but, meanwhile, is deeply hurt by the life. In the poem, the fish has no fear towards her; the desire to live is in the moving and tragic details when she faces the death.
Helen of Troy, known as the most beautiful woman of ancient Greek culture, is the catalyst for the Trojan War. As such, she is the subject of both Edgar Allen Poe’s “To Helen” and H.D.’s “Helen”; however, their perceptions of Helen are opposites. Many poets and authors have written about Helen in regards to her beauty and her treacherous actions. There is a tremendous contrast between the views of Helen in both poems by Poe and Doolittle. The reader may ascertain the contrast in the speakers’ views of Helen through their incorporation of diction, imagery, and tone that help convey the meaning of the work.
A poem without any complications can force an author to say more with much less. Although that may sound quite cliché, it rings true when one examines “The Fish” by Elizabeth Bishop. Elizabeth’s Bishop’s poem is on an exceedingly straightforward topic about the act of catching a fish. However, her ability to utilize thematic elements such as figurative language, imagery and tone allows for “The Fish” to be about something greater. These three elements weave themselves together to create a work of art that goes beyond its simple subject.
...autiful creatures and deserve everything life has to offer. When gathered together, nothing can destroy the strength of a woman. Guidance from parents, at a very young age, can help mold the minds of the young children in today’s society. This world has become overpopulated with greed and hate. The only way to get past the hatred and violence is to love thy neighbor, and protect our young from the unnecessary violence that can be eliminated with love for one another.
...a and her response to it at the beginning of the fifth stanza. The speaker being “followed” by the sea shows its hunt after her. Repeating the pronoun “He” alerts us to her continuing terror after she escapes the immediate site of the vulnerability. The sexualized motions of the sea follows the speaker’s that signal a transformation from the sexual aggressor to just a responsive partner from the sea’s part. When the speaker’s sexual urges and energies awakened or started, they outstrip those of the previous aggressive sea and exceed them in enjoinment. The repetition of “he” serves to discriminate the speaker’s state of arousal from the sea. When the speaker defines herself in terms “ankle” and “shoes,” she domesticates limits the irresistible sea with only these two phrases “his Silver Heel” and “ Pearl” because she restricts the sea to rise higher that her ankle.
Sylvia Plath was known as an American Poet, Novelist and Shorty story writer. However, Plath lived a melancholic life. After Plath graduated from Smith College, Plath moved to Cambridge, England on a full scholarship. While Plath was Studying in England, she married Ted Hughes, an English poet. Shortly after, Plath returned to Massachusetts and began her first collection of poems, “Colossus”, which was published first in England and later the United States. Due to depression built up inside, Plath committed suicide leaving her family behind. Sylvia Plath was a gifted and troubled poet, known for the confessional style of her work, which is how “Mirror” came to be. Although this poem may seem like the reader is reading from first person point of view, there is a much deeper meaning behind Plath’s message throughout the poem. Plath uses several elements of terror and darkness to show change to the minds of the readers.
The narrator speaks about the fish in terms of commercial, where every part of the fish can be sale for different purposes, but as the speaker look in the fish eyes, starts to compare the human life through the existence of the fish. What the speaker found beautiful about the fish is that as the speaker looks into the fish eyes and start looking in a different way to the creature, she starts to identify a living creature instead of a creature that will die imminently. The speaker starts seeing the beauty of the fish when she start to compare the fish to a soldier, when she sees through the eyes of the fish the victories over death that this creature has won, and I believe that the speaker compares her own battles and victories to the one of this creature in order to survive. I believe that the “ personality” of the fish is humble, brave and that this fish have been battling for a long time for his life, that he has been involved in some sort of violence many times in order to exist. I also feel that this fish is tired of fighting and that he is venerable to the speaker