Important Comprehension of the Studied Poems
(analysis of three messages in To a Mouse and To a Louse by Robert Burns)
It is easy to tell people’s social or economic class by the clothes that they wear or the location at which they live. You can get a pretty clear idea of how much money they make and how they are ranked in class system by looking at them. However, could you tell all that about somebody with your eyes closed? That’s where Robert Burns, the author of To a Mouse and To a Louse, puts an edge on his poetry. He uses dialect that the common folk could understand, making his writings more accessible to a larger crowd. This also brings some authenticity to his work, which he infuses in his poems. Robert Burns expresses three philosophical
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In this poem, a wealthy lady walks into church late and sits in front of the speaker. Her name is Jenny and she is wearing extravagant clothes that pull people attentions. While sitting behind her, the speaker notices a louse sitting upon her bonnet. This little creature makes the speaker realize that even the wealthy have faults, and if Jenny were to know about the louse she would throw a fit! He then begins to wonder what it would be like to look at yourself from somebody else’s eyes. He says, “O wad some Pow’r the giftie gie us to see oursels as ithers see us! (lines 43-44) What would Jenny think if she could see the bug on her? She would be mortified and realize what a fool she is making of herself with such a bold entrance, when really she isn’t any better than the rest of the congregation. She is not aware of these faults that she possess, but if she could see herself from another's perspective, this would change her outlook on herself and life.
In perspective, both of Robert Burns's poems, To a Mouse and To a Louse, have interesting messages, however these three are the ones that stood out to me. The dialect used by Burns adds a certain type of freshness to the readings and helps the reader have a fuller understanding of the text’s meanings. Comprehending these poems can give the readers a better idea of the messages trying to be conveyed by Robert Burns. Although these poems were written many centuries ago, their meanings are still relevant in today’s society and should be
reacts to the crosser. At the beginning of the poem, the speaker’s first impression of the swamp
The narrator who saw the woman cleaning in the airport did not like the scene due to the fact that she believes that there are better jobs and options out there. However, we do not know whether or not the lady actually cleaning feels the same way. Oliver states in the poem, “Her beauty and her embarrassment struggled together, and neither could win”. (Line 13). Even though this situation seems to be very sad Oliver tries to turn a sad situation into a hopeful and joyful situation. The speaker sees how the woman is struggling, but she thinks she is beautiful. Furthermore, the perspective of the speaker shows that the cleaning woman has a right to “stand in a happy place”, which means everyone deserves a good job. Oliver mentions, “Yes, a person wants to stand in a happy place, in a poem, but first we must watch her as she stares down at her labor, which is dull enough” (line 16). This quote shows that the narrator dislikes the fact that she is doing such a low job and yet she thinks she is beautiful. The author did not understand her perspective, she has to do this job for a
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
It is not told from the mouse’s perspective, but from the destructive man’s point of view, which becomes apparent when the man refers to himself in one line of the poem, stating, “ But oh! I backward cast my eye.” When a work of literature is told in first person, the reader does not get to see the whole story. The view is very limited.
Sociologists often employ intersectionality theory to describe and explain facets of human interactions. This particular methodology operates on the notion that sociologically defining characteristics, such as that of race, gender, and class, are not independent of one another but function simultaneously to determine our individual social experiences. This is evident in poetry as well. The combination of one poet’s work that expresses issues on class with another poet’s work that voices issues on race, and so forth, can be analyzed through a literary lens, and collectively embody the sociological intersectionality theory.
Burns, Robert. “To A Mouse.” Poets.org. The Academy of American Poets, Inc., n.d. Web. 14
has the mental age of a child and does not see the reason why George
In Burn’s poem about To a Louse, Burns is sitting in the church. This girl, who is very wealthy as noted by her clothing, shows up to the service late. This was probably done to draw attention to herself and she sits down in front of Burns. Burns notices something, this absurdly rich woman in this church has lice! Here is what Burns had to say to that, “It wad frae monie a blunder freeus and foolish notion: What airs in dress an’ gait was lea’e us and ev’n devotion!” (Lines 45-48, Page 739). What we can pull out from this is a sense of pride in knowing how a rich person was able to get an annoying pest such as
Robert Burns was an influential Scottish writer who connected with the people of Scotland. The four main things that influenced his poetry and songs were: his family which includes school, his farming work, the church as an institution and the common Scottish person’s life. This paper will show how these four things influenced his life and writing. For this writer, personally the influences on Robert Burns are interesting since he is my several times great-grandfather. Both my maternal grandfather`s family and my maternal grandmother`s family are from Ayrshire, Scotland, in the lowlands-the place where Burns was born and grew up.
At first, this poem seems to be simply about a young, sexually hungry man who is trying to convince a girl to give into his sexual wishes. She denies the ?wanna be? lover because she believes that the act of intercourse before marriage is a dishonorable sin in the eyes of the church. The lady ends up killing the flea and symbolically killing the false world the man had constructed in the flea. She then says that neither of them are any worse by killing the flea, which the male agrees with. The man concludes his point by granting that the death of the flea does not really have any consequences, just like her fears to loose her respectability and honor. His main point in all his talk about the flea is to show her that her honor will not be ruined if she yields to him.
Although these poems do not say much about the era that they are in or the social class that these people come from a person could tell a lot just by the poem.
“Yet thou triumph’st and say'st that thou/ Find’st not thy self, nor me the weaker now." The woman retaliates, celebrating her success in killing the flea, makes neither him, nor her any less noble. The writer responds, “Tis true, then learn how false, fears be;” it is true, and learn how false your fears are. The writer closes with, “Just so much honor, when you yield’st to me. Will waste, as this flea’s death took life from thee.” When she surrenders to him, she will lose no
In many novels, the society created by the author is surrounded by wealth and corruption. Numerous amount of times these settings are produced based on the life in which the author lives. Charles Dickens is no different. In the midst of most of his novels, Dickens exposes the deception of Victorian England and the strict society that holds everything together. In Dickens' novel Our Mutual Friend, a satire is created where the basis of the novel is the mockery against money and morals. Throughout this novel, multiple symbols and depictions of the characters display the corruption of the mind that surrounds social classes in Victorian England.
...e feminine population. In this poem the speaker does not seem to be very respectful of the female he is pursuing. Of course that is conducive to the time but it also says something about the validity of the message of the poem. In synopsis the flea, blood and death of the flea are all used as metaphors for sex, the exchange of life force (a very important thing) within the act of sex (represented as something as insignificant as a flea) and then orgasm, which can feel important and significant for a period of time but is really only as important as the death of a flea. The speaker in this poem hopes to convince his lady to sleep with him by trivializing sex and comparing it to something as insignificant as a flea. Meanwhile I say lady, screw the speaker and the flea you would get more of a commitment from a machine than a guy as afraid of human contact as this one.
The short story, “Unlighted Lamps,” by author Sherwood Anderson is about a relationship between a father and his daughter. Their relationship is a stressful one because neither of them talk to each other, nor show their emotions. Throughout the story, you find out why their relationship is the way that it is, and why it is hard for her father to talk to her. The unlighted lamps in the story represent flashbacks of memories wherever light dances across something.