The Use of Similes in Auto Wreck
In his poem Auto Wreck (p. 1002), Karl Shapiro uses carefully constructed similes to cause the events he relates to become very vivid and also to create the mood for the poem. To describe the aftermath, especially in people's emotions, of an automobile accident, he uses almost exclusively medical or physiological imagery. This keeps the reader focused and allows the similes used to closely relate to the subject of the poem. Three main similes used are arterial blood, tourniquets and cancer. These images all follow the same idea, and thus add more to the poem than other rhetorical figures might.
The first simile used, "Pulsing out red light like an artery," serves two purposes. First and most obviously, it describes the light of a flare in vivid detail. A picture of a ruptured artery, pumping out deep, red blood in steady, rhythmic pulses, easily conjures up a vision of an emergency flare's crimson beam. Second, and much more subtle, the simile is a portent of the events about to occur, a pierced artery is frequently a mortal w...
Authors use many different types of imagery in order to better portray their point of view to a reader. This imagery can depict many different things and often enhances the reader’s ability to picture what is occurring in a literary work, and therefore is more able to connect to the writing. An example of imagery used to enhance the quality of a story can be found in Leyvik Yehoash’s poem “Lynching.” In this poem, the imagery that repeatably appears is related to the body of the person who was lynched, and the various ways to describe different parts of his person. The repetition of these description serves as a textual echo, and the variation in description over the course of the poem helps to portray the events that occurred and their importance from the author to the reader. The repeated anatomic imagery and vivid description of various body parts is a textual echo used by Leyvik Yehoash and helps make his poem more powerful and effective for the reader and expand on its message about the hardship for African Americans living
“Car Crash While Hitchhiking” and “Work” both follow the stream of consciousness of the narrator, which shows the influence of drug on people’s mentality. Both stories are confusing with the narrator moving around the time and place; it seems as if the narrator is talking about whatever comes into his mind without specific plot or message. In “Car Crash While Hitchhiking,” the narrator talks about the family that picked him up, and suddenly switches to the story of him and salesman by saying “…But before any of this, that afternoon, the salesman and I …” (4) In “Work,” narrator says “And then came one of those moments,” (52) when he recalls a memory about his wife while talking about Wayne. Both stories shift abruptly without proper conjunction. In everyday lives, people think of numerous things. However, what they say are limited, as they talk consistently with a specific purpose, considering factors such as time, place, and appropriateness before they speak. On the other ha...
This poem is divided into six stanzas with four lines each. The poem opens with “When the black snake flashed on the morning road” (1-2). The narrator uses “when” to signify the beginning of the story and introduces the snake as the main character. Labeling the snake as “black” gives it a dark and sinister appeal. The word “flashed” is used to demonstrate how fast the snake moved, and how quickly this event occurred. “Morning” is applied to the time of day that this event occurred. The narrator sees the snake quickly flash across the road. This sets up the scene in our minds. The “truck could not swerve” (3) implies that this was an accidental death. The poet uses “truck” to suggest a big vehicle that is unable to make quick moves or sudden stops. The narrator sees the snake flash across the road, into the path of a big truck that is unable to stop or swerve. “Death, that is how it happens” (4). The word “death” is italicized, emphasizing its importance. The p...
One prominent flub that is witnessed throughout the duration of the film, besides the fact that most of the dinosaurs are from the cretaceous period, is the fact that it remains impossible to bring dinosaurs back to life. Dinosaurs are extinct! They have been extinct for 65 million years. True, one would need dinosaur DNA to recreate dinosaurs, and it is indeed possible for mosquitoes with the DNA of dinosaurs to have been trapped in hardening amber, as seen in the film. However, it is impossible for scientists today to find hardened amber with dinosaur DNA in it, simply because DNA does not last; it degrades over time (even in preserved amber). Just the tiniest bit of degradation would ruin its value (UCMP 1995). Therefore, you would not have the starting point for proceeding with such an endeavor as the scientists inaccurately accomplish in Spielberg's film: the breeding of dinosaurs.
Larsons’s use of similes from beginning to end of the novel authorizes the reader to see facts in the novel in a different light. During the trial Larson writes that “so many handkerchiefs appeared among the men and women in the gallery that the courtroom looked as if it had just experienced a sudden snowfall.” This simile molds the reader’s mind to take pity Mrs.Pitezel while she sits widowed at the stand. Snowfall can be heavy and incredibly benumbing, an abundantly harsh condition to be under. The reader is able to see how much damage Holmes manufactured with his cruel murders. The comparison with snowfall could also be describing how cold the courtroom itself felt.
In June of 1875, William Ernest Henley was told that he was going to die due to tuberculosis. Against all odds, Henley survived, not only recovering from tuberculosis, but also avoiding amputation on both his legs. While in the infirmary, Henley was inspired to write the verses that soon became the poem Invictus. With simple form and rhyme, Invictus is a poem that demands deep analysis to determine its true meaning. When analyzing Henley’s work, one notices how the use of literary elements such as metaphor, imagery, and personification convey the poem’s central ideas: suffering, resilience, and spiritual fortitude.
In the early 2000’s, Universal released the ending of the Jurassic Park trilogy, Jurassic Park III. The Tyrannosauruses rex, commonly known as T-rex, played the main antagonist in earlier movies, but was changed to the long, aggressive Spinosaurus for the final installment. This bipedal carrier of terror quickly killed the almighty T-rex and dominated the rest of the movie. Later in Jurassic World, Colin Trevorrow, the director, references
In this poem, Dickenson depicts the particular word Despair through contrasting similes. The difference between Despair and Fear is like the difference between a wreck and its aftermath. The reader must expend thought on the wreck and its aftermath to determine how to assign Despair and Fear for she introduces one set in seemingly the reverse order of the other. This reverse is shown in the difference between how Despair and Fear is like that between “the instant of a Wreck” and “when the Wreck has been.” However, this poem brings up the peculiarity of the key word choice of “between:” because how can anything be “between” the instant and when something “has been?” Since the “instant of a Wreck” and “when the Wreck has been” are in two separate
The asteroid was approximately 6 miles across and it caused a lot of changes that affected the dinosaurs. Some of these were temperature changes, acid rain, air borne debris, regional wildfires, and months or even years of darkness. The resulting plume of the debris from the asteroid impact could have caused the sun to become temporarily blocked. Therefore, this could have caused the plants to die, causing the herbivores that ate them to die, resulting in the carnivores also dying. (J. David Archibald, 1034)
The cause of the mass extinction is not known for certain, but the lineage of animals that led to the dinosaurs, along with some other groups, survived. This great extinction marked the end of the Paleozoic, one of the great geological divisions of time. The Mesozoic era that followed it was to see the evolution of the dinosaurs themselves. The Mesozoic is divided into three 'periods' of geological time when the dinosaurs lived. These periods are the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous. (Boulton,
Dr Horner is well-known to be a pioneer in dinosaur research, with his theories on birds evolving from small dinosaurs, dinosaurs being endothermic and dinosaurs caring for their young all being generally accepted as fact by this stage and supported by most. He became well known, following his originally ‘radical’ theories being supported by emerging evidence, so much so that director Steven Spielberg enlisted his help as chief technical adviser for his film Jurassic Park, to allow the dinosaurs to appear as realistic as possible (Sogard,
The title, “Ambulances,” emblematizes death. Larkin uses language that is straightforward and creates a bleak, depressing mood for his audience. He uses the simile, “closed like confessionals,” to represent the ill submitting him or herself to God (line 1). The speaker contrast the silence of death with the “loud noons of cities” (line 2). He symbolizes the color of the ambulance to the stages of life: “light” represents infancy, “glossy” symbolizes
Reptiles had overcome the evolutionary hurdles of support and reproduction and reproduction that limited the amphibians. Reptiles had strong ossified muscular systems supported by advanced muscular systems for body support and locomotion. Some of the largest animals ever to roam the earth where dinosaurs of the jurassic period. Reptiles were also capable of laying animatonic eggs, which kept the developing young moist and nourished during gestation. This allowed for the first fully terrestrial animal life cycles. Sauropods, the “lizard hipped” dinosaurs, were herbivorous quadrupeds with long necks balanced by heavy tails. Many, such as the Brachiosaurus, were huge. Some genera obtained lengths greater than 100 feet and 100 tons, making them the largest land animals to walk on the earth. Their skulls were relatively small, with nostrils carried highly beside their eyes. Such small skulls meant that they had very small brains as well. Despite the small brains, this group was very successful during the jurassic period and had a wide geographic distribution. Sauropod fossils have been found on every continent except Antarctica.Other well known dinosaurs of the jurassic era include
Regardless of the details, most of these theories shared the common thought that dinosaurs were a group of animals that had reached the end of their evolutionary life. Their extinction was seen as inevitable, the product of having evolved for too long. In most extinction scenarios, the dinosaurs were simply unable to cope with competition from mammals and the changing climate, and so they all went
Under the definition of Jones & Kamil (1973), “tool” in this case refers to an intentional extension of the animal’s body using physical object. Therefore, the act of a theropod dinosaur simply dropping the prey item onto a sharp rock to kill it, much as modern eagles and vultures drop bones and tortoise shells onto hard surfaces to crack them upon, does not qualify as direct tool use. If, however, the dinosaur were to fashion a stick into a spear to impale its victim, then it would qualify as a tool use (Alcock, 1972). Various forms of simple spears, blades, ropes, and lures are used by a plethora of modern birds, including birds of prey, herons, owls, parrots, and passerines (van Lawick-Goodall & van Lawick-Goodall, 1966; Higuchi, 1986; Levey et al., 2004). The later group, particularly the families Corvidae (crows, magpies, jays, etc.) and Fringillidae (true finches), demonstrates the most advanced examples of tool-making culture, in which younglings are taught the crafts by their elders and are encouraged to seek out more efficient materials (Millikan & Bowman, 1967; Hunt, 1996; Tebbich et al., 2004). Many tool-using birds exhibit the ability to count up to six using true numerical ability, as well as limited conceptualizations of self-awareness, language, object permanence, and theory of mind that pave the way for the evolution of comprehension and empathy (Hoh, 1998; Smirnova et al., 2000; Watye et al., 2002; Tebbich & Bshary, 2004; Emery, 2006; Pepperberg, 2006; Clayton et al., 2007; Raby et al.,