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Symbolism of the awakening poetry
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Theodore Roethke and The Waking
In describing the way he receives life's lessons and learned experiences, Theodore Roethke uses repetition of two different sentences and a simple rhyme scheme to help the reader understand his outlook on how to endure life. The two sentences repeated throughout the poem are "I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow" and "I learn by going where I have to go" [with slight variation in the latter]. "I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow" shows up in stanzas 1, 2, 4, and 6 and figuratively means that Roethke awakens in the morning and learns from the day's experiences. Unlike most people, Roethke does not rush through the day as if he expected another. He lives through the day in a calm and slow manner so that he learns about life without missing anything along the way. At night, he falls asleep content with the day's experiences and awakens the next morning in the same slow manner. When Roethke states "I learn by going where I have to go" in stanzas 1, 3, 5, and 6, he declares that he goes anywhere and everywhere to experience all that he can. He observes rare things throughout his journeys and makes mistakes along the way, but wherever he goes, he locks the experiences in his memory and repeats the cycle. The repetition of the sentences in the poem set a tone of determination and perseverance to enjoy all of life's experiences that come Roethke's way. The emotion portrayed by the sentences is an uplifting feeling because Roethke observes and enjoys even the most trivial aspects of life such as when "the lowly worm climbs up a winding stair." The rhyme scheme initiated by the author follows the rhyme scheme ABA in the first two stanzas, CDA in the third through fifth stanzas, and ABAA in the final stanza. This particular rhyme scheme creates a comfortable flow of overt rhyming. In the first two stanzas, the rhyming is the same (ABA) as Roethke talks about how to experience life by feeling. The rhyme scheme changes in the third through fifth stanzas as the focus in the topic changes to how Roethke epitomizes his "experience by feeling" idea by sharing the specific examples of the worm and the ground. The last stanza returns to an ABAA rhyme scheme much like that of the first two stanzas.
At the beginning of the poem, the speaker starts by telling the reader the place, time and activity he is doing, stating that he saw something that he will always remember. His description of his view is explained through simile for example “Ripe apples were caught like red fish in the nets of their branches” (Updike), captivating the reader’s attention
In Elie Wiesel’s Night, he recounts his horrifying experiences as a Jewish boy under Nazi control. His words are strong and his message clear. Wiesel uses themes such as hunger and death to vividly display his days during World War II. Wiesel’s main purpose is to describe to the reader the horrifying scenes and feelings he suffered through as a repressed Jew. His tone and diction are powerful for this subject and envelope the reader. Young readers today find the actions of Nazis almost unimaginable. This book more than sufficiently portrays the era in the words of a victim himself.
The major themes of the poem reflect the poet's own inner life and his struggle with the loss of his father. Through this complicated and intricate poem the inner feelings of the poet are made manifest through the speaker's tone towards the father. The exchange between father and son represents a magical moment in the speaker's childhood: dancing the waltz with his father. In the second stanza, the poet comments “My mother's countenance / could not unfrown itself (Roethke 7-8).” Here the poet seems to regret the fact that he hoarded his father's time after a long day at work, when his father could have been s...
In the poem “To an Athlete Dying Young” the author uses rhyme to show the readers how the glory of the runner came and went in a dramatic way. By having rhyme in “To an Athlete Dying Young” it allows the irony in the poem and the meaning that poet A. E. Housman is trying to convey, really stick with the readers. In stanza three, “away” and “stay” and “grows” and “rose” make that stanza really stay put in the mind of the readers.
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
The Great Awaking was a time that was supposed to bring people closer to God, but instead the New Light ministers made Christianity more of a worldly idea. People are taught to feel God more emotionally through prayer but instead left people acting like deranged animals. At night, many of the villages meet up in log cabins to discuss reading and by the end of the night, one can hear the screams of cries from the people. As Charles Chauncy explained in his letter, “it is in the evening, or more late in the night, with only a few candles in a meetinghouse, that there is the screaming and shrieking to the greatest degree; and the persons thus affected are generally children, young people, and women.” It is not the older generation that are being
In the first line, the alliteration of the letter w in the words weak and weary adds to the tired drained feeling the narrator is experiencing. The sound w flows through your lips with little effort, almost as easily as a vowel would. The second line repeats the phonetic k sound in quaint and curious which helps make the items he is reading seem peculiar. The hard aspiration draws attention to the words letting us know what the narrator is reading should not to be overlooked. In the third line, the n-n-n in nodded, nearly napping sound feels ominous. The repetition of the n sound feels drawn out and tired but with a little force. Not quite as hard as a d, it feels like someone trying to stay awake.
enable us to understand the moral of the poem. Which is work hard and you will receive you goals and never give up.
Dylan Thomas wrote the poem “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night.” It is about a son’s plea to his father who is approaching death. Two lines are repeated in the poem and addressed directly to the father. These lines structure the first stanza and collaborate as a couplet in the last. They are repeated a lot but each time, they have different meanings: statements, pleas, commands, or petitions. Repetition and rhyme scheme are parts of prosody in poetry. The rhyme scheme is built on two rhymes and forms of a pattern. The two rhymes are night and day and the pattern is aba, and in the last stanza, abaa. Even though the poem seems to have too much repetition, the fascinating imagery is more important and readers pay more attention to that instead.
In the end, the journey the speaker embarked on throughout the poem was one of learning, especially as the reader was taken through the evolution of the speakers thoughts, demonstrated by the tone, and experienced the images that were seen in the speaker’s nightmare of the personified fear. As the journey commenced, the reader learned how the speaker dealt with the terrors and fears that were accompanied by some experience in the speaker’s life, and optimistically the reader learned just how they themselves deal with the consequences and troubles that are a result of the various situations they face in their
The structure of Hughes’ poem “As I Grew Older,” is unique in a way that it incorporates both complete sentences as well as incomplete sentences with a distinct rhyme scheme. Since there is no rhyme scheme, Hughes uses repetition to help create a rhythm is the poem. In Carrie Perles’ article, she asserts that “The rhythmic repetition of the words ‘rose’ and ‘slowly’ in the lines “And then the wall rose, / Rose slowly, / Slowly / ... Rose slowly, slowly...” help the reader feel the sluggish pace of the wall's rising.” Repetition ties everything together, whether it is the theme or the speaker’s emotions. Repetition also shows how time has gone by, which explains why the poem’s title is “As I Grew Older.” The begi...
4)Stomach: The stomach squeezes and mixes food with enzymes for hours before it releases the mixture into the small intestine.
“Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, that turned my life into one long night seven times sealed”(Wiesel 32). Wiesel uses the symbolism of night to convey the death, the darkness, and the evils that started with the first night. In the memoir Night, Wiesel uses a distinct writing style to express what he went through, how he changed and how it affected the rest of his life, while in the concentration camps, during the Holocaust. He uses techniques like irony, imagery, symbolism, and a poetic syntax to describe his story of surviving the Holocaust. By applying these techniques, Wiesel projects a tone of bitterness, confusion and grief into his story. Through his writing Wiesel gives us a window into the complete abandonment of reason he adopted and lived in during the Holocaust.
Rachel Donadio writes: “‘The Story of Night’ by Elie Wiesel was rejected by fifteen publishers, before it was picked up by a small firm Hill & Wang and it turned out to be the publishing phenomenon. It led to the creation of a genre. The writer becomes an American icon and attained worldwide fame. An estimated 10 million copies have been sold” (20-1-2008). As a matter of fact, quality of writing is not the only variable for rejection. Perhaps
A short story and poem, are two literary pieces where a rich story is embedded. Readers are drawn towards these scripts by means of rhythm, characterization, or a fictional setting in their respective narratives. The script would not make it entertaining enough to hold the reader’s attention. It would depend on the imagination of the readers as they are reading the story as to what they take from it. Every reader has their own way of visualizing the descriptions and symbolism used by the author. It is through imagination that the readers are able to interpret what the author is trying to depict within the symbolism and other descriptive languages. The beauty of stories and poems is that they are generated and created through the readers own imagination which consequently allows each individual reader to build their own personal connection with the literary piece. The two literary pieces “The Road Not Taken” (poem) and the short story “A Worn Path” are different in terms of actual writing styles, however they both share the same theme which is every person’s journey is greatly governed by their decisions and no matter how many paths there may be, it is still the choices that the person makes that determine the ending of his or her journey. Each one conveys a theme of life journeys and the challenges and struggles that go along with those journeys. In “The Road Not Taken” it is the journey one must make while trying to choose the right path in life. One path seemingly offers a more familiar road and perhaps the easier of the two. The other path is clearly been less traveled upon, yet yearns to be. In “A Worn Path” the journey that one woman takes on in order to care for her sick grandchild is unfolded. It is described to the reader ...