Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
The definition of happiness essay english 101
Happiness definition 451
Happiness in fahrenheit 451
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
One of my favorite poems is “Happy Ending?” By Shel Silverstein, and the poem is published in his book “Falling Up.” The reason why this is my favorite poem is because it makes a lot of sense to me. I find it naïve to think that everything must have a happy ending, but in this poem Silverstein states the opposite of that. In this poem he admits that endings are very sad, but then states that a beginning and middle should be happy to compensate for the sad ending. The poem makes sense to me, the reason for it being my favorite, because in it he is surrendering to the fact that endings can be sad, but he hopes to make the beginning and the middle of the situation a pleasant one.
“A poem is true if it hangs together. Information points to something else. A poem points to nothing but itself” this quote by E.M. Forster alludes to the concept of metafiction in poetry as a whole. According to the Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms, “Metafiction is a kind of fiction that self-consciously addresses the devices of fiction…[M]etafiction does not let the readers forget they are reading a work of fiction.” Some common metafictive strategies include a story about someone writing a story, a piece of fiction that references specific conventions of a story, or characters that are aware they are in a story or work of fiction. The poems, “Functional Poem by Mark Halliday and “The Poem You Asked For” by Larry Levis, embody various conceptions metafiction.
The places in which we live are an integral and inescapable aspect of who we are, as they largely determine culture, community, and determine the outlook that one has on the rest of the world. In the American South, physical and cultural geography has played a particularly important role in the historical and modern contexts of racial relations. The dynamic between enslaved peoples and the natural landscape is a complex one that offers innumerable interpretations, but inarguably serves as a marker of the wounds created by institutional racism and human enslavement. In her collection of poems entitled Native Guard, Natasha Trethewey utilizes external features of the natural environment in the South in order to communicate the repressed grief, both personal and collective, which can arise as a result of inflicted systemic violence. Through comparing part one of Native Guard, which focuses on
If I was able to add an element to this poem I’d add another individual being asked by The Clock Man so we could see the comparison of opinions. This is because I would like to see others opinions, not just one. With this element in play, the poem will change, but not for the best. For one, the poem will be significantly longer, caused by the Clock Man asking two children/adults instead of one. They might or might not have similar opinions, I would want to witness what Shel Silverstein would decide to write with his ingenious imagination. Being able to see different opinions and compare them would cause the poem to be much more interesting and therefore making the poem much more entertaining. However, there will be unfortunate downfalls.
Some people never get satisfied with what they have. In the stories, "Amir", and, "Gold Mountain Poems", The life lesson is to be happy for what you have. In both stories the main characters are immigrants coming to America. In the story, Amir just moved here from India and is upset with the people. In the poem the speaker is taken to an immigrant island instead of being released to go live in America. In both stories they are grateful for what they have.
“On the Subway,” by Sharon Olds as she contrasts the two worlds of a wealthy Caucasian and a indigent African-American. The Caucasian narrator, a female, describes how this black man appears to her as she fears for her life as if he is ready to prey on her. She brings two worlds from different backgrounds together through the use of imagery and fearful and hopeful tones.
The death camp was a terrible place where people where killed. Hitler is who created the death camp for Jews. The death camp was used for extermination on Jews. This occurred on 1939 – 1945. The death camps were in the country of Europe. Hitler did all this because he didn’t like Jews and the religions. The book Night is a autobiography written by Elie Wiesel. The poem called First they came for the communist written by Martin Neimoller is a autobiography.
During the process of growing up, we are taught to believe that life is relatively colorful and rich; however, if this view is right, how can we explain why literature illustrates the negative and painful feeling of life? Thus, sorrow is inescapable; as it increase one cannot hide it. From the moment we are born into the world, people suffer from different kinds of sorrow. Even though we believe there are so many happy things around us, these things are heartbreaking. The poems “Tips from My Father” by Carol Ann Davis, “Not Waving but Drowning” by Stevie Smith, and “The Fish” by Elizabeth Bishop convey the sorrow about growing up, about sorrowful pretending, and even about life itself.
When sorting through the Poems of Dorothy Parker you will seldom find a poem tha¬t you could describe as uplifting or cheerful. She speaks with a voice that doesn’t romanticize reality and some may even call her as pessimistic. Though she doesn’t have a buoyant writing style, I can empathize with her views on the challenges of life and love. We have all had experiences where a first bad impression can change how we view an opportunity to do the same thing again. Parker mostly writes in a satirical or sarcastic tone, which can be very entertaining to read and analyze.
"Poetry is the revelation of a feeling that the poet believes to be interior and personal [but] which the reader recognizes as his own." (Salvatore Quasimodo). There is something about the human spirit that causes us to rejoice in shared experience. We can connect on a deep level with our fellow man when we believe that somehow someone else understands us as they relate their own joys and hardships; and perhaps nowhere better is this relationship expressed than in that of the poet and his reader. For the current assignment I had the privilege (and challenge) of writing an imitation of William Shakespeare’s "Sonnet 87". This poem touched a place in my heart because I have actually given this sonnet to someone before as it then communicated my thoughts and feelings far better than I could. For this reason, Sonnet 87 was an easy choice for this project, although not quite so easy an undertaking as I endeavored to match Shakespeare’s structure and bring out his themes through similar word choice.
Walt Whitman’s poem Time to Come explores Whitman’s curiosity of what happens when people die. Rather than taking a pessimistic approach, his writing is more insightful about the experience. The title alone introduces an aspect of his purpose; to point out that dying is inevitable. With Whitman captures the reader’s attention and shares his curiosity with vivid images, sophisticated diction, and his use of metaphor and personification in Time to Come.
Discuss how intertextuality allows Dobson’s poetry to resonate across time and place. In a society determined to identify and correct every one of the never ending inequalities and injustices of life, Rosemary Dobson provides an alternate perspective. Dobson’s poetry creates the concept of equal opportunity. This is the idea that in fact, everyone on Earth that has ever existed has been born into their lives with an equal and proportionate chance at achieving success and happiness, within their given circumstances.
Death is inevitable; if you want happiness in life, try A. Margaret Atwood, the author of “Happy Endings,” uses six separate short stories to depict outcomes with different scenarios. The author practices the use of flash fiction, which adds to the entirety of each version. Though this short story has portions of unusual context, the content can teach a reflection on life. As the reader analyzes all six versions, the gender roles are evident as the story progresses. Atwood starts the short story by introducing the two main characters, John and Mary, and then proceeds to tell a variety of options as to who they are and what happens to them.
Edgar Lee Master’s Spoon River Anthology is a collection of free verse poems, each one told by a resident of the town of Spoon River. The style of these poems is significant because the lives of the residents intertwine, and each poem gives more insight into the next. There is a present theme of “Things are not always what they seem.” Additionally, the poems take on a dark tone in that all the residents are dead and telling their stories from the grave. This dark tone is also relevant in the messages from the residents, and it present from the first poem, “Petit, the Poet.” “And what is love but a rose that fades?” (Masters 8). This dark tone is again present in “Elsa Wertman.” Elsa gives up her baby to the wife of the man she had an affair
Elizabeth confuses me with her emotional roller coaster. At the last four lines of her poem, she becomes happy or pleased once again to find that what was at the end wasn’t “Death” at all, but love
Today many people think they need various things to be happy. They think they need a significant other, a lot of friends, success in a career, a certain amount of money, the list goes on and on. The poem Cloony the Clown shows that in most cases, these desires cause more harm than good. Shel Silverstein uses significant repetition, visual imagery, and situational irony to express the fact that people shouldn’t depend on certain factors to be happy.