The poems Pietà by James McAuley and November by Simon Armitage are confrontational as they revolve around the theme of life. Life, death and grief are all something that every person will experience here on earth. Life… Death… Grief…The existing themes are already confronting but with the poets application of poetic techniques the two poems are able to be effective. The confronting theme of life is shown through poetic techniques in the poems, Pieta and November. The cycle of life is shown through Pietà and November in two different ways. The child’s life is unfortunately cut short as it, ‘only [lives] one day.’ Whilst in November, the subject of the poem is about a Grandmother who is at the end of the cycle of life. This is unlike the baby in Pietà who is not able to live, or have a chance of living a long life. This may cause the audience to ponder about the purpose of life. Armitage uses consonantal alliteration and visual imagery, in ‘sun spangles,’ to symbolise that, ‘the only thing you can get, out of this life,’ is the beautiful happy moments. This logic is true for many non-believers as the purpose of life is unknown to them and the only positive reason for life is by creating happy memories.In November,the last moments of life are shown through the enjambment and flow. The audience is involved with the journey of bringing the woman to the hospital as if you are, ‘with your grandma taking four short steps to [your] two.’ This is effective as the audience can put themselves in the place of the narrator in the story.This is unlike Pieta which is written in past tense and is not able to put themselves in the place of mother but the audience is more sympathetic towards the mother and her loss of her child. The theme of death ... ... middle of paper ... ...hild once. Pieta also uses repetition of ‘touch,’ and repeats ‘cannot’ to reiterate the inequitable death of the mother’s baby. As the mother is confusedand does not know how to react to this situation.Armitage uses structure to reflect the tone of the poem as it has five stanzas of three lines which have a depressing tone. The couplet at the end shows an elevated tone as the rest is in a depressed tone.In November it uses visual imagery to display the severity of grief, John and the narrator ‘numb [themselves] with alcohol to,’ to help them with their grief. Pieta and Novemberare both different in the way they approach writing and how they illustrate life, death and grief through their poetry. Poetic techniques of symbolism, enjambment, alliteration and visual imagery are key techniques in the success of their poetry as they often provoke and confront the audience.
As the first poem in the book it sums up the primary focus of the works in its exploration of loss, grieving, and recovery. The questions posed about the nature of God become recurring themes in the following sections, especially One and Four. The symbolism includes the image of earthly possessions sprawled out like gangly dolls, a reference possibly meant to bring about a sense of nostalgia which this poem does quite well. The final lines cement the message that this is about loss and life, the idea that once something is lost, it can no longer belong to anyone anymore brings a sense...
The next theme used by the author to inspire a feeling of despair in this story is the randomness of persecution. By making the villagers draw these slips of paper once a year would provoke a feeling of hopelessness. Because they know that no matter what they do one day they may be subjected to this brutal death. And it woul...
The short story “The Moths,” written by Helena Maria Viramontes, tells a story between a granddaughter and a grandmother who both share a symbolic connection between each other. The story is in a first person narrative, told by the author, and her experience taking care of her ill grandmother while facing gender and religious oppression in her own home. The author is very distant from her own family mainly because she does not meet the expectations that her parents have embedded for her. There is a motif of rebirth throughout the story told by the author by symbolizing the significance of the gray moths. The vivid imagery of moths in Helena Maria Viramontes’ short story “The Moths” symbolizes the connection between life and death.
The speakers and audience in poem are crucial elements of the poem and is also the case in these poems. In the poem Untitled, it can be argued that the poem is being written by Peter based on what his father might say to him...
The last poem “The Fish” illustrates the sorrow of life itself. The skin, the blood, the entrails, everything of the fish depicts vividly and dramatically. The poet seems to share the same pain with the fish observing the scene and enjoys the detail just like enjoying an artwork. The poet lets the fish go because she is totally touched by the process between life and death; she loves life but meanwhile, is deeply hurt by the life. In the poem, the fish has no fear towards her; the desire to life is in the moving and tragic details when faces the
Helen of Troy, known as the most beautiful woman of ancient Greek culture, is the catalyst for the Trojan War. As such, she is the subject of both Edgar Allen Poe’s “To Helen” and H.D.’s “Helen”; however, their perceptions of Helen are opposites. Many poets and authors have written about Helen in regards to her beauty and her treacherous actions. There is a tremendous contrast between the views of Helen in both poems by Poe and Doolittle. The reader may ascertain the contrast in the speakers’ views of Helen through their incorporation of diction, imagery, and tone that help convey the meaning of the work.
The poem, “Field of Autumn”, by Laurie Lee exposes the languorous passage of time along with the unavoidability of closure, more precisely; death, by describing a shift of seasons. In six stanzas, with four sentences each, the author also contrasts two different branches of time; past and future. Death and slowness are the main motifs of this literary work, and are efficiently portrayed through the overall assonance of the letter “o”, which helps the reader understand the tranquility of the poem by creating an equally calmed atmosphere. This poem is to be analyzed by stanzas, one per paragraph, with the exception of the third and fourth stanzas, which will be analyzed as one for a better understanding of Lee’s poem.
This follows Rossetti’s value of acceptance of human mortality, as she understands “how long ago” their “love” was in the past but still desires them in her “dreams”. The use of personal language such as “my love” and imagery of “Speak low, lean low” give a feeling of intimacy that is missed by the narrator that endorsed Rossetti’s desire of a psychological need for love but also that the emotional nature of the poem is influenced by romanticism. The rhythmic imagery of the wording “pulse for pulse, breath for breath” is symbolic of a heartbeat showing the focus on the living memories rather than the bodily “death” of her lover. Rossetti uses the ideal of reliving her memories through her “dreams” as a Band-Aid approach as she has come to terms with the physical death of her lover but not the “death” of her “dream”. Christina portrays this attitude, as this could be seen as her coping mechanism for the deaths that occur in her life such as her father 's death which occurred the year she wrote the poem or could be seen symbolically as the death of her past
I will discuss the similarities by which these poems explore themes of death and violence through the language, structure and imagery used. In some of the poems I will explore the characters’ motivation for targeting their anger and need to kill towards individuals they know personally whereas others take out their frustration on innocent strangers. On the other hand, the remaining poems I will consider view death in a completely different way by exploring the raw emotions that come with losing a loved one.
The poem begins with a childlike tone, misleading the reader on the upcoming subject matter. The first line echoes a nursery rhyme, feeling like a charm against some brooding curse. “You do not do, you do not do/ anymore black shoe” (lines 1-2). Metaphorically, the shoe is a trap, smothering the foot. The adjective “black” suggests the idea of death, thus it can relate to a coffin. The speaker feels a submissiveness and entrapment by her father. In an attempt to rid herself of the restriction in her own life, she must destroy the memory of her father. “Daddy, I have to kill you” (line 3). However, the description of the father as “marble-heavy” and “ghastly statue” reveals the ambivalence of her attitude, for he is also associated with the beauty of the sea. The speaker reacts with hate to her father who had made her suffer by dying at such a point in her development.
The poem “The Onset” presents a meditation of the realities of life and death through the change of seasons, coldness and warmth, revealing several basic conceptual metaphors that acquire subsequent logical characteristics: LIFE IS SPRING (LIFE IS HEAT), DEATH IS WINTER (DEATH IS COLDNESS), DEATH IS SLEEP (DEATH IS NIGHT). These conceptual metaphors are interconnected because they have emerged from the same experimental basis, together they build up the image scheme of Life and
The speaker started the poem by desiring the privilege of death through the use of similes, metaphors, and several other forms of language. As the events progress, the speaker gradually changes their mind because of the many complications that death evokes. The speaker is discontent because of human nature; the searching for something better, although there is none. The use of language throughout this poem emphasized these emotions, and allowed the reader the opportunity to understand what the speaker felt.
No poet does a better job of stressing the abruptness of death as Frost in his poem, “Out, out –”. Death is the one of the more central themes among most works of art and normally befalls on the speaker’s loved one. In this case, “Out, out –” is about an innocent boy who accidentally severs his hand with a buzz saw; the entire scene and the family’s reactions described by an observer. Throughout the poem, Frost finds creative ways to intensify the boy’s death and readers may wonder why he focuses on such a heavy and distressing issue. Every verse builds up upon one another, sometimes enjambed together with a variety of figurative language, until the boy succumbs to his injury. By combining an irregular form of iambic pentameter with dark symbolism, Frost captures the inevitability of death and its cruel, unpredictable appearances.
The first half of the poems’ images are of life, coming of age, and death.
Contemporary female poets are a very powerful group of female poets that with their poems shows major events and issues in society. Contemporary female poets usually all have an underlying theme of politics, women rights, life events, and sexuality. Contemporary means living or occurring at the same time and some contemporary female poets are, Adrienne Rich, Nikki Giovanni, and Gwendolyn Brooks. Adrienne Rich, Nikki Giovanni, and Gwendolyn Brooks were all writing in the late 1900s. The Women Rights movement and the Civil Rights movement were two events that occurred during the time of the late 1900s. These two movements was heavily incorporated in each Brooks’, Rich’s, and Giovanni’s life and influenced their writings. Each of these women put their personal feelings about political issues in their poems, which makes the theme of their work politics. The theme of these three women work is different aspects of politics, such as women empowerment and women rights, and racial pride. “Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers” by Adrienne Rich, “Nikki-Rosa” by Nikki Giovanni, and “The Mother” by Gwendolyn Brooks are the three poems that each represent the theme of politics regarding women rights and empowerment, and racial pride.