Summary Of Janet Waking

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Norman Cousins once said, “Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live.” In his poem “Janet Waking”, John Crowe Ransom invites us to experience death through the eyes of a young girl who misunderstands the situation and does not want to be informed. In this poem Janet wakes from sleep. She runs to Chucky’s hen house, only to discover that her beloved pet had passed on. She begs her parents to bring Chucky back, but they tell her that they can’t. She then has to live not only with the loss of her pet, but the loss that has taken place inside of her. Ransom, through the use of diction and imagery, shows the reader that death causes us to blow the smallest details out of proportion. Diction is used in this poem to describe and point out the grotesque features of the knot on Chucky’s head. This is proven when the narrator states, “It scarcely bled, but how exceedingly and purply did the knot swell with the venom and communicate its rigour!” These lines describe the knot by calling it purply, large, and swelling. The author helps the reader understand what had happened to Chucky …show more content…

Evidence provided from the poem is suggested when the narrator states, “...purply did the not swell with the venom,” and, “So there was Janet kneeling on the wet grass, crying her brown hen to rise and walk upon it.” These two lines help the reader get a better look at the knot by describing how it looks “purply” and “swelling”, and also saying that the knot sticks off of the top of Chucky’s head. The last two lines help the reader visualize how Janet reacted by explaining how she fell into the wet grass and kneeled, crying, holding her hen, and begging for Chucky to still remain alive. The author helps the reader understand both the situation and Janet’s character throughout his use of

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