In the poem “Crab-boil” by Rita Dove represents racism. They use crabs as a metaphor to show what the racism they go through. What I do not understand is why the writer used crabs as the metaphor to foreshadow her experience with racism. There are other animals that go through the same thing and could have been related to how the narrator is feeling, which was trapped and weak. One reason I believe the narrator used crabs to present her feelings toward racism is because of how they are cooked and eaten. Crabs are pulled apart, which causes them to become weaker as they are pulled apart and pulled away from the rest of the other crabs. It is a metaphor to show that once one of their people is pulled away from them, they as a group become
weaker. There are more than one narrator in poem. One is a little girl and the other is Aunt Helen. I do not understand why there are two narrators in the poem. There are various questions being asked throughout the poem which are asked by the little girl. In response to the questions, Aunt Helen answers the questions being asked by the little girl. The little girl asks these questions because she is clueless about racism and she is from the North. The questions she ask shows that she does not want racism to exist. On the other hand, Aunt Helen is from the south . She is more experienced about what is going on in reality. There are two narrators to present the differences between them. Connections are being made between the crabs and the African Americans which represents the struggles the two are going through. What I do not understand in the poem is the killing. The crabs are being killed but the African Americans are not being killed. It is confusing because I do not understand what they are trying to say about the African Americans in this line. The crabs are helpless, and so are the African Americans. They have no control of what is going on in their life because it is being controlled by others. Is Dove trying to say that humanity of the African Americans is being killed?
Don’t you wish you could go back in time to change those bad memories? That’s what Lionel Sherbousekis going through in a short story called “Goin’ Fishin’”. Chris Crutcher wrote Athletic Shorts and the story “Goin’ Fishin’” is about a boy whose father loved fishing and while their family was fishing one day a boat full of drunk kids smashing into them but Lionel luckily save the boat before it hit and jumped off. This is what the main character in “Goin Fishin” was feeling when his family died in a boating accident.
Wallace uses Pathos as an persuasive device in his article as he describes the catching and cooking process of the lobster. Using his words, he gives the audience the idea that the lobster is not just an item for consumption, but also a live creature. “They come up alive in the traps, are placed in containers of seawater, and can, so long as the water’s aerated and the animals’ claws are pegged or banded to keep them from tearing one another up under the stresses of captivity, survive right up until they’re boiled (Wallace, 60). He mentions that the lobster is in fact boiled alive to maintain it’s freshness and describes the boiling process. “[The lobster] comes alarmingly to life when placed in boiling water. The lobster will sometimes try to cling to the container’s sides or even hook its claws over the kettle’s rim like a person trying to keep from going over the edge of a roof” (Wallace 62). He compares the lobster during the cooking process to a human in terror of falling to their death. This gives the audience something to relate to on an emotional level based on the simile he presents to us. Based on this evidence and the words the author chooses to present to the reader, it is suggested that
In “One Crazy Summer” by Rita Williams-Garcia, the topic, African-American Civil Right Movement is taught to the readers by the setting. As the main character, Delphine and her sisters, Vonetta and Fern travel to Oakland, California in the 1960's. There they visit their mother and see the Black Panthers, a group who fought for black rights. Delphine and her sisters go to the center, run by the Black Panthers, daily. This new setting causes the girls become involved in their Civil Rights and the Black Panthers.
In this poem called “Creatures” by the author Billy Collins there is a literary device called a metaphor when the reader is reading this poem. A metaphor is a comparison of two unlike things without using the words like or as. In lines one (1) through...
The fundamental characteristic of magical realism is its duality, which enables the reader to experience both the character’s past and the present. In the novel, Monkey Beach, Eden Robinson uses this literary device to address the the trauma and mistreatment of the Haisla community in Canada by unveiling the intimate memories of the protagonist, Lisamarie, and the resulting consequences of this oppression. Monkey Beach illustrates how abuse in the past leads to another form of self-medication in the future - a neverending, vicious cycle for the members of the Haisla community. Many characters in Monkey Beach are scarred from childhood sexual abuse and family neglect, and resort to drug and alcohol abuse as a coping mechanism. These appalling memories are an account of the impact of colonization on the Haisla territory which continues to haunt the Aboriginal community throughout generations.
In the short story “Brownies,” author ZZ Packer uses the narrator, Laurel, to explore the tensions that exist between belonging to a community and maintaining individuality. While away at camp with her brownie troop, she finds herself torn between achieving group inclusion and sustaining her own individualism. Although the events of the short story occur at Camp Crescendo, Packer is able to expand (and parallel) this struggle for identity beyond the camp’s walls and into the racially segregated society that both the girls and their families come from. Packer is exploring how an individual’s inherent need for group inclusion consequently fuels segregation and prejudice against those outside the group across various social and societal stratums.
Bishop's initial description of the fish is meant to further develop this theme by presenting the reader with a fish that is "battered," "venerable," and "homely." Bishop compares the fish to "ancient wallpaper." Even without the word ancient preceding it, the general conception of wallpaper is something that fades into the background. One is not supposed to take much notice of it. To add to this impartial picture, the fish is brown, the signature color of dullness. "Shapes like full-blown roses stained and lost through age" (lines 14-15) further cement the image of something with little time left. Fully bloomed roses conjure the image of a flower whose petals are at t...
Many times when reading a novel, the reader connects with one of the characters and begins to sympathize with them. This could be because the reader understands what the character is going through or because we get to see things from the character’s perspective and their emotions and that in return allows a bond to form for the reader. The character that is the most intriguing for me and the one I found comparing to every book that I read during school was Stacey from the book “Ravensong” Lee Maracle. The character Stacey goes through a lot of internal battle with herself and it’s on her path to discovery that she begins to understand herself and what she’s capable of. Throughout the novel, Stacey has a few issues she tries to work through. This is emphasized through her village and in her school that is located across the bridge in white town. Stacey begins dealing with the loss of Nora, and elder in her town. And this in return begins the chain of events that Stacey begins on the path of self-discovery not only on herself but everyone around her. She begins to see things differently and clearly. Stacey is a very complex and confused character, and she begins to work through these complexities through her thoughts, statements and actions.
In I Know why the Caged Bird Sings the author uses many different literary devices and various figurative language examples. The use of metaphors, imagery, similes, and Symbolism has a great effect. They’re effective due to the fact in how they inform the reader of various important details needed to understand the story completely. The use of specific, different, and various types of language illustrate to the reader the effect of racism on many characters in the novel.
I believe David Foster Wallace’s aim for writing this piece was to explain his reasoning for killing and eating animals and to understand other people’s views on the issue as well. This is apparent throughout the writing. Wallace starts out by giving his personal description of the Maine Lobster Festival. He describes how it takes place July 30th through August 3rd, thousands of people come to the festival every year, its broadcasted on live television by CNN, and about 25,000 fresh lobsters are eaten over the course of the festival. Additionally, he goes into the biology of the lobster such as the scientific name and evolution. Leading up to this, he states the question for writing this piece, “Is it alright to boil a sentient creature alive for our gustatory pleasure” (p.9 Wallace)?
Throughout the first half of the poem, Bishop describes the fish as an inanimate object, as reflected in her comparisons, which uses objects to describe the fish as shown when she says, “Here and there his brown skin hung in strips like ancient wallpaper…”. (9-11) She chooses a wallpaper to describe the skin of the fish in order to accurately portray its battered and worn state; her decision to compare the fish to an inorganic ...
The poet uses examples of imagery in this poem. The poet uses a simile in the first line of the first stanza to start off the poem. The simile she uses is ''the skin cracks like a pod''. The opening of the poem gives a clear message that something is severely wrong. A pod cracks with barely any resistance so the comparison to the skin is a unreserved statement outlining how easily the skin is. There is obviously a drought or a vast undersupply of water. The opening surprises the reader and gives an indication of what is to come. The poet uses a short and abrupt line which is effective
To what extent does Carol Ann Duffy’s poem ‘Medusa’ challenge stereotypical masculine and feminine attributes?
Florence by Alice Childress This 1950 play by Alice Childress takes place in a train station waiting room in a very small town in the south. The play describes how Miss Whitney, an old black woman, discovers that her premonition of the success of her daughter, Florence, as a black actress is undesirably similar to that of a racist, white society. This troubling discovery has just as strong an impact on the reader as it does on Miss Whitney. This drama teaches the reader how the views and opinions of individuals or groups can influence other individuals or groups to approach situations with the same reaction, although their views and opinions may be opposite. Marge, Miss Whitney's other daughter, first introduces this frame of mind to as she accompanies Miss Whitney at the train station.
“Boiling lobsters will fly like wet birds.” (26-27: 965). Evidence of the trauma is now clear and the choice for self would be to take any and every opportunity to get out. Yet, herein lies the tension as this is her father, a struggle of familial attachment becomes apparent as Young returns to the checkers game near the conclusion of the poem. “I wait for him to make his move and I would gladly wait forever, deaf to the screams, the scarlet tails that will one day scatter. “(29-33: 965). After describing the events in the traumatic second photo, Young returns to the time before things spiral completely downwards. Back in the checkers game, locked in the house with her father she decides that she would wait for him to make his move and not only then but forever. She “would gladly wait forever” (31: 965), with this salient traumatic image in her head she still decides that she will wait. Essentially equating the incident to the inevitable and not something thing she will take control