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Critical decision making
Critical decision making
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In life, many are forced to make critical decisions. The poems The Laughing Heart by Charles Bukowski and The Journey by Mary Oliver demonstrate the importance of making those difficult choices for the benefit of oneself. The two poems have similar tones and word choice but differ in the tone and approach to the theme. Through the use of figurative language, such as word choice, tone, sentence structure and voice, Oliver and Bukowski develop the theme of their story in ways that are both similar and different. In The Laughing Heart, Bukowski employs a candid and direct tone when he suggests that one should “be on the watch. / the gods will offer you chances” (9). This tone tells the reader that the narrator is implying something important and truthful. The reader can tell from the tone and the including of the word, “god” that life is about seizing opportunities, which is the overall theme of the …show more content…
For example, Bukowski often uses the line “be on the watch” (3,8) to imply that people should look for opportunities to seize and take advantage of. Bukowski also used the word, “it” in lines 6, 7. The use of it multiple times implies that something is of high value to a specific person. Also, Bukowski employs specific word choice to influence the reader, and ultimately, the theme. On line 9, Bukowski says that “the gods will offer you chances”, the word chances translates into opportunities, and the use of god implies that the opportunity must be momentous and has to be seized. In The Journey, Oliver uses word choice to develop the theme. For instance, the usage of the word “voice” on lines 3, 11, 24, and 27, imply to the reader that there are many distractions and influential people when making difficult decisions. The word choice is directly related the the theme, as strength is needed to ignore the influences and distractions when making personal
In dire situations, it is common for people to seek moral guidance. William Wordsworth and Paul Laurence Dunbar did this through poetry. The two poems, “London, 1802” and “Douglass,” share a similar underlying cause, sentence formation, and the conditions of their particular country, but differ drastically in tone, use of comparisons, structure, and the author’s goals.
Both awe-inspiring and indescribable is life, the defined “state of being” that historians and scholars alike have been trying to put into words ever since written language was first created. And in the words of one such intellectual, Joshua J. Marine, “Challenges are what make life interesting; overcoming them is what makes life meaningful”. Essentially, he is comparing life to a bowl of soup. Without challenges or hardship into which we can put forth effort and show our potential, it becomes a dull and flavorless broth. But for characters in novels like Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, and Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, the difficulties and trials that we all must face can transfigure the mundane liquid mixture of existence into a vibrant and fulfilling gumbo. The protagonists of these works are two strong-willed and highly admirable women, who prevail in the face of overwhelming odds stacked in everyone’s favor but theirs. In their trying periods of isolation brought about by cold and unwelcoming peers, particularly men, they give their lives meaning by simply pushing forward, and living to tell the tale.
Therefore, Oliver’s incorporation of imagery, setting, and mood to control the perspective of her own poem, as well as to further build the contrast she establishes through the speaker, serves a critical role in creating the lesson of the work. Oliver’s poem essentially gives the poet an ultimatum; either he can go to the “cave behind all that / jubilation” (10-11) produced by a waterfall to “drip with despair” (14) without disturbing the world with his misery, or, instead, he can mimic the thrush who sings its poetry from a “green branch” (15) on which the “passing foil of the water” (16) gently brushes its feathers. The contrast between these two images is quite pronounced, and the intention of such description is to persuade the audience by setting their mood towards the two poets to match that of the speaker. The most apparent difference between these two depictions is the gracelessness of the first versus the gracefulness of the second. Within the poem’s content, the setting has been skillfully intertwined with both imagery and mood to create an understanding of the two poets, whose surroundings characterize them. The poet stands alone in a cave “to cry aloud for [his] / mistakes” while the thrush shares its beautiful and lovely music with the world (1-2). As such, the overall function of these three elements within the poem is to portray the
Through imagery, diction, and the personification of poetry, Ruth Forman reveals her personal connection and love for poetry and how poetry represents human need in “Poetry Should Ride the Bus”. The images of young girl cartwheeling and a woman dropping off a sweet potato pie bring you closer to the story, while the diction creates a connection between you and the people, this poem is a girl growing up realizing and seeking different things in her life and you realize that as Forman personifies the poem.
...oices that approach in life for his extended metaphor throughout his poem. The lives’ of the speakers are evident in each poem whether there are faults or decidable opportunities for that speaker. Along with the continued use of the metaphors to create the extended metaphors, there were also several uses of personification and imagery. The speakers and authors had different yet comparable themes. As extended metaphors they shared slightly similar themes of life from Anne Bradstreet’s idea of flaws in writing during one's life and Robert Frost’s theme of deciding which path to take in life.
Every choice you take with ultimately impact your life. In “The Laughing Heart” by Charles Bukowski the author creates a theme of; your not living until you seize opportunities in life. In “The Journey” by Mary Oliver the author creates a theme of; you have to take the journey to find yourself. In each of these poems the authors use tone and figurative language to develop the overall message.
Our world is not a pleasant one. Our everyday lives are punctured with graphic images of sex, violence and apathy. Unfortunately, people tend to ignore the holes in the social fabric all around them. As Bukowski wrote the poems that were compiled into Betting on the Muse, he realized this, and incorporated it into his poetry. In his narrative works he creates a living, breathing world. He tends to concentrate on the low points of life, though. The world is a dark one, where personal rotting begins with an all-too-early maturation. Bukowski's collection should be read by those who want to experience the lives of people in a decaying, violent world.
After Oliver’s first statement, she transitions to an example to explain the topic better as she talks about distractions, such as a call from the dentist, a lack of supply of mustard, or an uncle’s birthday, providing readers with a better understanding of how distracted one can get. (1). Another example Oliver uses is that of a pilot and the fact that the passenger wants nothing special from the pilot, just that the flight is safe and that they pilots work as they do normally ,and work with confidence (3). Helping in her explaining of that we do not think about the ordinary, because it is just the regular, but when it comes to the extraordinary we must dedicate more time and power because it is what leads us to the future (3). Oliver also uses an example of a knight, and how they have little creativity and adventure in their life, but just being a knight is an adventure (5). Which shows her readers that they cannot separate their life from their work, but must go at their work with a large amount of energy and concentration to make it extraordinary. Throughout Oliver’s work, the reader can see the true power and effectiveness of these examples and the effectiveness they accomplish. The lack of examples in Oliver’s writing would lead to a writing that is confusing and difficult to read. With using these, Oliver can deliver her message with an easier context that the reader
In Part Two of the poem, Williams questions grief as an emotion. He tries to indicate what exactly the emotion of grief entails, and maybe even what it should be. He comes to the conclusion that grief is not clear-cut, but rather like a roller coaster ride, up and down, coming and going in unexpected waves. Readers can identify with this, as we all know that grief is not an appare...
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.
In the “Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe, the narrator is extremely uncanny due to the reader’s inability to trust him. Right from the beggining the reader can tell that the narrator is crazy although the narrator does proclaim that he is sane. Since a person cannot trust a crazy person, the narrator himself is unreliable and therefore uncanny. Also as the story progress the narrator falls deeper and deeper into lunacy making him more and more unreliable, until the end of the story where the narrator gives in to his insanity, and the reader loses all ability to believe him.
Poet, Blanche Farley in his parody poem “A Lover Not Taken” published in 1984 address the topic of how the mind is influenced by emotions. He molds his poem after Robert Frost’s famous “A Road Not Taken” and incorporates a modern take to take the audience through the uneasy journey of the woman deciding between two different lovers. Through the use of diction, style, and imagery molded after Robert Frost, Blanche Farley demonstrates in her modernized parody “A Lover Not Taken” how emotions blur logic.
The poem, “After Great Pain”, by Emily Dickinson, is one that conveys an inner struggle of emotion and the process that a person goes through after experiencing suffering or pain. Through this poem, Dickinson utilizes physical reactions to allude to the emotional pain that can make people feel numb and empty. Included in this poem is an array of literary devices, such as oxymorons, similes, and personification. These devices help show how death and grief can be confronted, whether it be by giving into the pain or by regaining emotional strength, letting go, and moving on with life. As we work on the project, we discuss multiple aspects of the poem and how the structure and diction alludes the meaning of the poem.
McDowell, Deborah E. "Philosophy of the Heart." Women's Review of Books 21.3 (Dec. 2003): 8-9. Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Jeffrey W. Hunter. Vol. 194. Detroit: Gale,2005.Literature Resource Center.Web. 13March. 2011