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literature as a reflection
English literature reflection
English literature reflection
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The Meaning of Home in The Seafarer
It is important to consider the meaning of home when analyzing The Seafarer. The narrator of this poem seems to feel a sense of belonging while traveling the sea despite the fact that he is obviously disillusioned with its hardships .The main character undergoes a transformation in what he considers home and this dramatically affects his life and lifestyle. Towards the end of The Seafarer the poet forces us to consider our mortality, and seems to push the notion that life is just a journey and that we will not truly be at home until we are with God.
The first instance of a sense of home in this poem comes with the description of the former life of the narrator in his pre-seafaring days. He leaves his old life for some unspecified reason, telling us that he was "cut off from his kinsmen", and he talks about this with a definite sense of regret and loss. Winter on the sea is presented as an "exile" or "wræcan"1 , a form of punishment where someone is forced to leave their homeland, the place where they belong. It seems that in the early stages of the poem the seafarer identifies his life with his kinsmen on land as his home, the place that he belongs.
At first he does not seem content with his seafaring life. During the early descriptions of his time there, it is painted as a life of hardship and penance. Images and adjectives of the sea and life there are harsh and foreboding-"ice cold", "hung round with icicles" , "fettered with frost". The sea is seen as cold, and not just in the physical sense .It is remote, a place of despair , an earthly purgatory, where there is "always anxiety …. as to what the Lord will bestow on him"2. The narrator is cut away from the comforts ...
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... angels"6.What ever home we make for ourselves on Earth, we must keep in perspective that it is only temporary.
To conclude, there are two main opposing representations and aspects of home presented in this poem, from what is seen as the "norm", the narrators life on land, to the "favoured", the narrators life at sea. Home is irrevocably linked to lifestyle and should not just be where the heart is,(though there is a sense that our "Heart's fulfilment" is important) but should more importantly be a place where we can live a life that will bring us towards heaven, which the poem portrays as our eternal home. The Seafarer is a poem which urges us to carefully "consider where we possess our home, and then think how we com thither."
Works Cited
Mitchell, Bruce and Robinson, Michael A Guide To Old English, fifth edition 1992 , Blackwell Publishers , Oxford .
Richards, Neil M. The Dangers of Surveillance. Harvard Law Review. N.p, 20 May 2013. Web. 3 Apr 2014.
... that 10 percent to 15 percent of the usage of these cameras were to spy and peep on women. That’s highly disgusting and disrespectful. Even worse in New York City, on average people recorded 43 to 75 times a day, according to a rough calculation, in 2000. That number could very well have increased because of the increase of cameras being placed in public since then. Professor Richards is hesitant to increase cameras on the streets because with the technology, “such a system could give conceivably give the government increased power over us, in some cases, potentially to blackmail and discriminate.”(Maverick, 1 of 4) Of course that would be resulting in less privacy. America’s safety is at risk.
Surveillance cameras have helped hundreds of law enforcement agencies solve thousands of crimes throughout the nation. They have become so helpful that most law enforcement agencies are planning on setting them up on street corners, buildings, publication parks, and on their own officers. There are many cities across the nation that have began to use surveillance cameras. Setting up cameras is a pivotal technique to solving and preventing crimes. Although, it is often argued that having law enforcement surveillance cameras set up throughout the nations communities is an invasion of privacy, citizens should sacrifice a little bit of privacy in return for their safety and protection of civil rights against criminals and police officers.
Still attending college Oprah got offered a job as a co-anchor on the CBS television station. She thought that having a job and going to college could intervene with her college education, so she confined in her speech communications teacher, he told her “that it may be the ultimate step to launch her career” (Imbd 33). Oprah stuck with this job till the end of her college career. She wanted to reach out to somewhere other than Nashville. In 1976 Oprah took a risk and moved to Baltimore. She eventually found a job in 1978, and became a cohost of the station’s “people are talking” talk show.
Kelly, Heather. "After Boston: The Pros and Cons of Surveillance Cameras." CNN. Cable News Network, 26 Apr. 2013. Web. 14 May 2014.
...He is still anchored to his past and transmits the message that one makes their own choices and should be satisfied with their lives. Moreover, the story shows that one should not be extremely rigid and refuse to change their beliefs and that people should be willing to adapt to new customs in order to prevent isolation. Lastly, reader is able to understand that sacrifice is an important part of life and that nothing can be achieved without it. Boats are often used as symbols to represent a journey through life, and like a captain of a boat which is setting sail, the narrator feels that his journey is only just beginning and realizes that everyone is in charge of their own life. Despite the wind that can sometimes blow feverishly and the waves that may slow the journey, the boat should not change its course and is ultimately responsible for completing its voyage.
Through metaphors, the speaker proclaims of her longing to be one with the sea. As she notices The mermaids in the basement,(3) and frigates- in the upper floor,(5) it seems as though she is associating these particular daydreams with her house. She becomes entranced with these spectacles and starts to contemplate suicide.
Second of all, in the poem “Lake Isle of Innisfree”, the reader sometimes fails to understand what is really happening. “I will arise and go now, for always night and day I hear lake water...
Warson Shire says “No one leaves home unless home is the mouth of a shark”. The quote is part of a poem called “home” explaining how a person becomes a refugee by finding sanctuary in another country due to war, persecution, religion or political opinion in his/her’s home country. But being a refugee can be worse for kids and adolescence for they may lack the foundation they need to thrive in a new country. Kids and adolescents will suffer if they go to the new country alone, for he/she might have a problem with new life, climate, and language. Because of this kids and adolescence might become isolated or lonely, that might cause them to lose their identity and self-esteem and lead to long term consequences. In the story, Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi loosely
The narrator continues with describing his resentment towards his home life, 'Coming home was not easy anymore. It was never a cinch, but it had become a torture (2).'; This excerpt provides the reader with an understanding of the sorrow that the protagonist feels at the beginning of the novel and throughout the first half. Further narration includes the protagonists feelings of distance from the land and blame that he places upon himself, 'But the distance I felt came not from country or people; it came from within me (2).'; Thus, as the reader, we understand that the narrator has removed himself from the land and his culture.
Home is considered to be this place where you live permanently with your family, a place of comfort. When a character or a human for that matter embarks on a journey all they really long for is to return home to their family and loved ones. Thus, their homecoming is an important aspect to heroes in a fantastic journey. In the Epic poem The Odyssey performed by Homer and in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey we are able to obtain these very different notions of home. The main protagonists of each work have a different approach towards this notion of home. The protagonist Odysseus is constantly urging to return home to his family. In contrast, Dave, the protagonist is embarking on a journey in which he knows there is a big chance that he won’t return home.
The fear of being sent, either by force or self enforced, into exile was a common fear of the Anglo-Saxon society. This exile could be interpreted both as an exile on Earth and exile from Heaven to Earth. To be exiled means to be utterly alone with only thoughts to accompany a person. The possibility of exile was terrifying to the Anglo-Saxon people because they were so dependant on the village or town they lived in along with the people in it. A warrior would live to serve his lord in battles. Without a lord or community, there was nowhere to go and nothing to do. As the Christian religion crept into Anglo-Saxon culture, religious metaphors also began to show in the ancient text. The exile these people feared could also be interpreted as being banished from heaven to live on earth. From this interpretation, it was thought that if one lived a good life, he or she would be reunited with God eventually.
Towers, J., Martin, L., & Pirie, S. (2000). Growing mathematical understanding: Layered observations. In M.L. Fernandez (Ed.), Proceedings of the Annual Meetings of North American Chapter of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education, Tucson, AZ, 225-230.
At the beginning of the novel the reader is informed that Marlow is “not typical”, that he, contrary to stay-at-home-minded seamen, is a “wanderer”. He has no home, in a psychological sense of the word. He simply “follows the sea”. This may evoke an interpretation that the man is disturbed, that he attempts to find out about the secrets of his soul, to get to know himself. Since boyhood he had been interested in unexplored lands and especially in a long winding snake-like river with the “head” in the sea and the “tail” plunging deeply into the land, which, as Marlow admits, “charmed” him. This image resembles a map of a journey from the dark lands of the soul, the unconstrained, uncivilised core, which may be called a Freudian Id, towards light, that is Superego. Marlow desires to follow this path in the opposite di...
The poem begins with the speaker calling out his captain that they have finally made it home after their “fearful trip”. The boat is in sight of land and the people in the shore watch as it approaches, cheering and ringing church bells. However, as it approaches the shore, the boat is described as “grim and daring”, as if the speaker warns that something terrible is going to happen. And terrible as it is, the captain on deck is dead. The speaker knees on the captain’s side and begs him to rise again. He can’t seem to accept the fact that his captain is dead and feels like as if he is dreaming. The ship eventually arrives safely in the harbor and its dangerous and tough journey is done. Despite the dead captain, the speaker still wants the shore to keep celebrating for ...