What is your worst fear? Have you overcome it? In Shane Koyczan's poem, "Turn On a Light," as a child his grandfather fights the monsters that he fears. He then continues to yell for his grandfather night after night. Koyczan then sees that this effects his granddad and tries to overcome these fears. Since the author uses senses, structure, and diction he makes it clear that he believes family is something that will always be there for you. The author's use of the senses to enhance the imagery helps convey what he felt and the way his family members looked. Koyczan writes "My granddad used to wear a red polo shirt to bed. he said it used to be white." The author wants you to be apart of the story to get you to understand what was really going on. Another example, "He'd wake and thunder down the hall doing the very best he could...the kicks against the bedroom wall made thunder storm down the hall." Koyczan uses these words to show you how extreme the kicks were and how loud his grandfather was. …show more content…
Throughout the poem Koyczan uses structure to keep a steady flow and emphasize parts of the poem.
For example, the poem is set up to be more like a story since it has no stanzas but it does still flow like a poem. "Turn On a Light" also uses a lot of repetition to represent importance. For example he uses the word "granddad" eight times. "... constantly how my granddad had..." His repetition of this word lets you know how relevant this man was at the time. He also negative words like screaming and kicking to show how much he loathed the monsters. An example, "... 'cause I was
screaming." Diction is used often to portray all the emotions in Koyczan's poem. For example, " My grandmother used to say he was one half hurricane, and one half volcano, a handful of excuses and a gut full of pain." This sentence shows you how he behaved and maybe that he had a bad temper. Battle cry, dragged, terrifying are words used to describe how thrilling the battles between monsters could be. In Koyczan's poem, "Turn On a light," senses, structure, and diction are used to show your family will always look out for you no matter what. When he was little he had a huge fear that his granddad fought away for him.
One of the ways the author does this is by using enjambment to make the title and the first line of the poem flow into one single line. This symbolizes how when you are in jail there is no real beginning; one day flows to the next. His extensive use of figurative language, allows for the reader to paint a picture in his or her mind. “... to a dark stage, I lie there awake in my prison bunk.” This line can be interpreted literally and figuratively; he is really in prison in his bunk or it feels so much like a dream that it is as if he were on a stage. However, his diction shows that he has does this often. “...through illimitable tun...
The first aspect of language, which he uses is metaphor in the beginning of the poem when he is describing the dwarf sitting outside the church. He uses metaphor as he says, “The dwarf with his hands on backwards Sat, slumped like a half – filled sack On tiny twisted legs from which Sawdust might run.” The metaphor here of the dwarf sitting like a ‘half filled sack’ is describing the dwarf and how he has a deformed body. He is being compared to looking like a sack, which is slumped and half empty. This is effective as it seems as though the dwarf cannot help himself
“ The horizon was the color of milk. Cold and fresh. Poured out among the bodies” (Zusak 175). The device is used in the evidence of the quote by using descriptives words that create a mental image. The text gives the reader that opportunity to use their senses when reading the story. “Somehow, between the sadness and loss, Max Vandenburg, who was now a teenager with hard hands, blackened eyes, and a sore tooth, was also a little disappointed” (Zusak 188). This quote demonstrates how the author uses descriptive words to create a mental image which gives the text more of an appeal to the reader's sense such as vision. “She could see his face now, in the tired light. His mouth was open and his skin was the color of eggshells. Whisker coated his jaw and chin, and his ears were hard and flat. He had a small but misshapen nose” (Zusak 201). The quotes allows the reader to visualize what the characters facial features looked like through the use of descriptive words. Imagery helps bring the story to life and to make the text more exciting. The reader's senses can be used to determine the observations that the author is making about its characters. The literary device changes the text by letting the reader interact with the text by using their observation skills. The author is using imagery by creating images that engages the reader to know exactly what's going on in the story which allows them to
He uses personifications specifically in this poem to write about what is going on and to describe things. “It's a hard life where the sun looks”(19)...”And its black strip of highway, big eyed/with rabbits that won’t get across ”(2)...”A pot bangs and water runs in the kitchen” (13) None of these are really human body parts on things such as the sun, a pot, or a highway, but they help describe what something does or what something looks like. In the first instance, the sun cannot actually look at something, but it could mean that the sun is visible to the humans, and if humans are out for a long time in the sun, they can get hot and exhausted. For the second line, the big-eyed highway could mean that the highway has many cars with bright headlights that are dangerous for the rabbits, the immigrants, to get across. For the third and final line, pots are not able to bang things on their own, and it could have possibly been a human who made the pot bang, preparing the meal of beans and brown soup that they survive on. There is also a simile in this poem, “Papa's field that wavered like a mirage” (24). This simile could suggest that the wind is moving the grass or crops on his father’s field and looked like an optical illusion. According to Gale Virtual Reference Library, the literary device, “tone” is used to convey the significant change of the author’s feeling in the poem. In the beginning lines, the tone is happy. The poem talks about nostalgia of when he was little, “They leap barefoot to the store. Sweetness on their tongues, red stain of laughter (5-6). (GVRL) These lines illustrate the nostalgia and happy times of Gary Soto’s life when he was probably a child. However, after line 11, the tone becomes more of a negative one. Soto later talks about Farm Laborers and how the job was not a great one. After line 19, a brighter
The novel has confused many critics and readers because it reads like poetry, yet in actuality it is a narrative. Cisneros admits that many of the vignettes are "lazy poems." This means that they could be poems if she had taken the time to finish them (Olivares 145). At many times throughout the novel the words rhyme and can almost be put to a catchy tune. For example, the chapter "Geraldo No Last Name" reads like a poem with end rhyme and a structured pattern. "Pretty too, and young. Said he worked in a restaurant, but she can't remember which one" (Cisneros 65).
The poet begins by describing the scene to paint a picture in the reader’s mind and elaborates on how the sky and the ground work in harmony. This is almost a story like layout with a beginning a complication and an ending. Thus the poem has a story like feel to it. At first it may not be clear why the poem is broken up into three- five line stanzas. The poet deliberately used this line stanzas as the most appropriate way to separate scenes and emotions to create a story like format.
Figurative Language in used throughout poems so the reader can develop a further understanding of the text. In “The Journey” the author uses rhythm and metaphors throughout the poem. “...as you left their voices behind, the stars began to burn through the sheets of the clouds..”(25-27). The author compares the star burning to finding your voice. Rhythm also develops the theme of the poem because throughout the story rhythm is presented as happy showing growing up and changing for the better is necessary and cheerful. In “The Laughing Heart” the author uses imagery and metaphors to develop the theme throughout the book. “There is a light somewhere. It may not be much light but it beats the darkness”(5-7). Always find the good out of everything, even it
Since the character is illiterate, he has no ability to determine his true feelings for the loved one. Additionally, this use of repetitive words in the poem also shows the lack of diction by the character. When words are repeated, it typically tells someone that they are either confused or have a weak vocabulary. Since it is implied that the man had a small lexicon because of his illiteracy, the poem reveals his ideas in a simplistic and repetitive wording
Throughout one’s life, he or she will experience many situations where a lesson is learned, or a fear is amassed. One person may be able to deal with such terrors easily, while another will suffer because of the dread and panic that now haunts them. The poem ‘My Fear’ by Lawrence Raab discusses the haunting situation of fear following someone, and the personification, imagery, and tone of the speaker all provide depth to this seemingly innocent poem and allow one to truly appreciate how fear and troubles affect him or her.
The story is about a 10-year-old Jewish boy’s journey escaping from an orphanage to find his parents. The author “Morris Gleitzman” uses different figurative language like personification and onomatopoeia to create a mood and a better image in the reader’s mind. Figurative language is a language that’s used by authors to create a special effect in the novel to express phrases that don't mean as they first appear to mean. Examples of figurative languages are similes, metaphors, onomatopoeias, personifications etc. Personification is when the author gives an unhuman object human characteristics. It has an effect of creating an image in the reader's mind. An example of personification in the novel is: “a few thin needles of daylight are stabbing through the dark.” (p.86) In this sentence, the needles are personified to stab. And it doesn’t mean that thin needles are actually stabbing Felix, but it means that it is almost morning and the light is shining through the curtains like a thin needle. As the author used personification in the novel, he also used onomatopoeia to create a mood. Onomatopoeia is when the author expresses sounds using words like: Boom, Bam etc. An example of onomatopoeia in the novel is: “Bang, the bedroom door is kicked open.” In this sentence, the example of onomatopoeia is “bang.” Onomatopoeia is used here by the author is because the author wants to create a mood to the story. The mood of being nervous and worried. The author used both personification and onomatopoeia in the novel to create an image in the reader’s mind and to create a
The first literary device that can be found throughout the poem is couplet, which is when two lines in a stanza rhyme successfully. For instance, lines 1-2 state, “At midnight, in the month of June / I stand beneath the mystic moon.” This is evidence that couplet is being used as both June and moon rhyme, which can suggest that these details are important, thus leading the reader to become aware of the speaker’s thoughts and actions. Another example of this device can be found in lines 16-17, “All Beauty sleeps!—and lo! where lies / (Her casement open to the skies).” These lines not only successfully rhyme, but they also describe a woman who
Another example is when he describes him sleeping as Wendy 'holds him as he drifts to dreamland' like a Christmas angel guiding him through troubled times. Once he meets Wendy, everything seems to turn into fantasy, 'Fairies, pinewood elf and larch tree gnome', which shows his childlike mind. However, the whole poem changes its feel after you read the last phrase, 'slumber-wear'. This gives the poem a very strange quality, knowing that the boy is still very young and already up to no good.
Robert Browning frequently wrote dramatic monologues to enhance the dark and avaricious qualities in his works. Browning's use of this particular style is to "evoke the unconstrained reaction of a person in aparticular situation or crisis" (Napierkowski 170). A poem may say one thing, but when mixed with dramatic monologue, it may "present a meaning at odds with the speaker's intention"(Napierkowski 170). This change may show the reader more insight into the poem without directly stating the underlying facts. The reader is allowed to "isolate a single moment in which the character reveals himself more starkly" (Napierkowski 171). Browning's use of dramatic monologue "disposes the reader to suspend moral judgement" (Napierkowski 171) causing a haughtiness to hover over many of his works.
Repetition of certain words such as 'tongue', 'grows', 'bud' and 'mouth' works powerfully to emphasise the ideas of the poem:
The words become a symbol of a slow moving river and as the reader travels along the river, they are also traveling through each stanza. This creates a scene where the viewer can turn words into symbols while in reality they are just reading text. Coleridge is also able to illustrate a suspension of the mind through imagery; done so by producing images that are unfixed to the reader.... ... middle of paper ...