William Butler Yeats' "Adam's Curse"
The poem "Adam's Curse" (William Butler Yeats, reprinted in Richard Ellmann and Robert O'Clair. The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry, 2nd ed. [W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. 1988] 147-148) carries the theme of a curse throughout the poem, and ties it in with experiences in the text. "Adam's Curse" can make connections with three situations that are central to the poem, and they are the following: first, the "pain and hard work" (footnote 6 p147) of deciphering poetry; next, the "pain and hard work" (p147) of being a woman, and finally the "pain and hard work" (p147) of making love work. These connections create and support the central story of the poem, and give the poem its unique feel. The feel of the poem is helped immensely by the form which is unassuming, as
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Even though the three characters deem this kind of work important, "For to articulate sweet sounds together/ Is to work harder than all these…"(10-11), they understand that many of their peers have a different opinion of them. The narrator knows that he is "…thought an idler by the noisy set…"(12), but he and his colleagues keep practicing their profession. This represents a strong conviction and belief in his profession, because it is very difficult to "go against the flow" of the majority, especially when "The martyrs call the world,"(14). In this case these martyrs are the "bankers, schoolmasters, and clergymen,"(13) and the narrator expresses that these men call things as they see them while they promote themselves as martyrs since they have the deserving and honorable professions. The narrator does not actually come out and say this directly, but there is a sense of contempt in his choice of words that it is not hard to infer this explanation. The poem also depicts the difficulty of being a woman, and how she is more than just a pretty face. "…To be born a woman is to know-Although they do not talk of it at
“I believe there are monsters born in the world . . . misshapen and horrible . . . accidents and no one’s fault . . . punishments for concealed sins . . . [their] face and body may be perfect . . . ” but they are the product of “a twisted gene or a malformed egg . . . ” (71). Literature, throughout history, has conveyed a plethora of themes, ranging from the struggle to understand divine intervention, to adversity, to the dramatization of life and death. One of the most prestigious and conventional of these themes is the conflict betwixt good and evil. Demonstrated through many works of literary merit, this divergence intensely sears the pages of history dating as far back as the Biblical story of Adam and Eve. Although this idea is deeply rooted in the past, its relevancy is not depleted, still serving as one of the most controversial topics known to man. Author John Steinbeck procured a fascination with this controversy, and ultimately produced his most ambitious work, East of Eden, to create a symbolic history that would possess significance for all. John Steinbeck’s East of Eden fundamentally captures the essence of the battle between good and evil through the dramatic use of symbolism, which insinuates the Biblical story of Adam and Eve, and the poisonous rivalry between their sons, Cain and Abel.
Not only the words, but the figures of speech and other such elements are important to analyzing the poem. Alliteration is seen throughout the entire poem, as in lines one through four, and seven through eight. The alliteration in one through four (whisky, waltzing, was) flows nicely, contrasting to the negativity of the first stanza, while seven through eight (countenance, could) sound unpleasing to the ear, emphasizing the mother’s disapproval. The imagery of the father beating time on the child’s head with his palm sounds harmful, as well as the image of the father’s bruised hands holding the child’s wrists. It portrays the dad as having an ultimate power over the child, instead of holding his hands, he grabs his wrists.
There is very apparent shift in tone nearly half way through the passage. The tone shifts from a more descriptive and objective description tone to a more subjective Freudian or sexual tone. He starts by describing Alice and the negative consequences of losing his birth mother to a women with little to no emotion. Adam states, “Alice never complained, quarreled, laughed, or cried.” He includes this line to present the reader with a simple yet powerful description of his step mother Alice’s inattentiveness those around her. This allows the reader to understand that from a young age Adam was not given the basic love and attention needed to flourish. The passage then promptly shifts to a Freudian description of his sexual thoughts and reasons for them. He describes his promiscuous thoughts involving Alice after seeing her naked. He says, “He ached toward her with a wanting that was passionate and hot.” He continues by saying, “He did not know what it was about, but all the lack of holding, caressing, breat and bipple, and a soft voice- all of these were in his passion, and he did not know it.” Adam does not even know why he feels the way he does in this instant but is backed up by the reasoning that he never experienced love as a baby and therefore does not know any
Desire is constantly channeled into another concept instead of naming it directly. This is done so by Sidney to turn an abstract sensation into a solid, concrete object that the audience can better understand. The use of numerous metaphors throughout the poem, including “band of all evils,” cradle of causeless care,” and “web of will, whose end is never wrought,” contributes to a larger metaphor that is in turn greater than the individual. These metaphors contribute to the speaker’s negative view of desire by comparing it to sources of evil and destruction. Through the use of apostrophe in the poem, desire is portrayed as another person, and the reader comes to realize desire’s detrimental nature through what seems to be a negatively impactful relationship between two people with desire playing the role of the manipulator as shown in the line, “But yet in vain thou hast my ruin sought.” Desire does nothing but seek to destroy lives while not revealing its true intentions. Yet, the speaker knows better now after becoming a victim of the concept. By the use of this poetic device, the reader is better able to sympathize with the speaker, assuming he has also gone through a similar situation whether with desire itself or a person whose behaviors mirror that of what desire is described to be in the poem. Desire is an abstract concept that is so different from a person, yet by continuing it through the poem, it serves to draw comparison between the two unlike
John Keats’s illness caused him to write about his unfulfillment as a writer. In an analysis of Keats’s works, Cody Brotter states that Keats’s poems are “conscious of itself as the poem[s] of a poet.” The poems are written in the context of Keats tragically short and painful life. In his ...
Which basically, pheromones are natural substances segregated by our own body's chemistry to attract the opposite sex though a scent.
...the sort of group therapy/public humiliation that fundamentalist Christians today sometimes use to try to 'cure' gay people. Adam gets her to admit that she is bad and by the end she is begging him to kill her or cut off her arm to rid herself of her own evil. Very allegorical. Very distasteful.
Key Ideas: “Pheromones are chemical signals that have evolved for communication with other members of the same species” (Wyatt). There have been several successful studies of pheromones in other animals closely related to humans. This research has shown that pheromones create a signal that causes a specific reaction, an “innate” psychological response (Wyatt). These reactions to male and female pheromones are very prevalent in other animals. Therefore, I believe we can assume pheromones are also prevalent
To begin, the poem, “Eve’s Apology,” uses many different poetic devices such as alliteration, assonance, rhyme scheme, and simile. The author uses a great number of alliteration, which is the repetition of constant sounds generally at the beginnings of words. Alliteration can be seen in the words “what” and “weakness” in line 3. Some more examples of alliteration throughout the poem are “subtle serpent’s” (23), “he had him” (24), and “with words which” (30). Assonance, the repetition of the same or similar vowel sounds in stressed syllables that end with different consonant sounds, is another poetic device that the author uses greatly. Some examples of assonance are found in lines 10 “ The ‘p...
In the end, Enron could not keep itself afloat once it turned to fraud. Shareholders lost $74 billion, thousands of employees and investors lost their retirement accounts, and many employees lost their jobs. Lives were ruined. Lay died before serving time. Skilling got 24 years in prison. Fastow agreed to become an informant and therefore got less time in prison. The company filed for bankruptcy. Arthur Andersen was found guilty of falsifying Enron’s account and destroying evidence, and the firm failed. People still talk about the Enron scandal today, and accounting practices are now held to a higher standard in order to avoid a catastrophe like this again.
Though written only two years after the first version of "The Shadowy Waters", W.B. Yeats' poem "Adam's Curse" can be seen as an example of a dramatic transformation of Yeats' poetic works: a movement away from the rich mythology of Ireland's Celtic past and towards a more accessible poesy focused on the external world. Despite this turn in focus towards the world around him, Yeats retains his interest in symbolism, and one aspect of his change in style is internalization of the symbolic scheme that underlies his poetry. Whereas more mythological works like "The Shadowy Waters" betray a spiritual syncretism not unlike that of the Golden Dawn, "Adam's Curse" and its more realistic fellows offer a view of the world in which symbolic systems are submerged, creating an undercurrent of meaning which lends depth to the outward circumstances, but which is itself not immediately accessible to the lay or academic reader. In a metaphorical sense, then, Yeats seems in these later poems to achieve a doubling of audience, an equivocation which addresses the initiate and the lay reader simultaneously.
So let's start with what are pheromones? Pheromones are the chemicals an organism releases to communicate with other members of that organism. These pheromones have been the oldest way animals have communicated with each other, before asking someone out on a date, before googling the nearest restaurant, there where pheromones guiding the way. Almost all of nature uses pheromones, even humans although we might not be conscious of when we do it! Different organisms have different ways of putting these signals out
...se of accounting fraud. Even ones that got involved in any type of accounting fraud are still suffering from the consequences, such as, fines, as well as losing reputation in their name, such as, Waste Management Inc. The passing of the Sarbanes Oxley Act of 2002 has decreased the amount of fraud that is taking place today and has put their main interest in protecting the investors. A company being honest and showing integrity in their financial statements has helped investors by giving them the correct information before they invest, and understanding the amount of risk they are taking by investing in each particular company. The laws have evolved with the fraud in accounting, but will the laws keep up with the revolution of the criminal mind? In the past the laws were one step behind, but as for now they are holding their ground to protect people from fraud.
Public transportation in cities was created to make it easy and cheap for people to get from point A to point B without the use of a car of their own. However, in many U.S. cities, the public transportation that is active is failing to do its job for many of the people who need it the most. Public transportation is not necessarily unavailable in a sense that it is not there, but unavailable because of poor maintenance and lack of funding. This is negatively impacting underserved communities within these cities. To narrow down the grand scale of public transportation issues, I have taken a closer look at the public transportation problems that we