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Recommended: An essay of rape
Paula Bohince grew up in rural Pennsylvania town and still resides there. (Bohince, Paula). The theme and setting reflects a young innocent girl raped in a Pennsylvania town. The poet writes the poem from the victim’s perspective. The words give a creepy feeling of what has happened. The poem describes a young girl who was brutally taken advantage of and relays the devastating affect it had on her. The diction is very fitting for the poem. It creates a very vivid picture of the devastating affect the attack had on the girl. The diction creates a gruesome picture and tone for the reader. The use of words like transparency, black lamb and maggots generates a rejected feeling in the girl. There is no place she can hide and her feelings are constantly being eaten away.
The poem “Black Lamb” is about a person who has experienced the horrible reality of being raped. It creates a person who is extremely dissatisfied with herself. She feels that everyone thinks she is different or bad. Her life has been turned completely around in such a short time. Trying to live a normal life has been destroyed by an evil act she had no control over.
The attack consisted of many misleading gestures. The first experience was like a burning ember with an extremely rough texture. He tried to persuade her with expensive gifts with a “chamois”, soft leather made from skin of chamois, sheep and deer (“chamois.” Def. 2). He used his personal control to go beyond the limits of what is considered right. His bodily invasion or rape causes a lamb to become the black lamb of the neighborhood.
Her feeling of rejection of everyone around her was beginning to take a toll on her. Although she was as innocent as a lamb in the beginning, the time has come when...
... middle of paper ...
...a burden she was carrying by keeping the rapist’s identity to herself.
WORKS CITED
“abattoir.” Webster’s New World Dictionary and Thesaurus. 2nd Edition. 2002.
Print.
Bohince, Paula. “Edge of Bayonet Woods.” Sarabandebooks.org. 2008.
Sarabande Books. 6 September 2009.
“chamois.” Webster’s New World Dictionary and Thesaurus. 2nd Edition. 2002.
Print.
”loathe.” Webster’s New World Dictionary and Thesaurus. 2nd Edition. 2002.
Print.
“phantom.” Webster’s New World Dictionary and Thesaurus. 2nd Edition. 2002.
Print.
“profane.” Webster’s New World Dictionary and Thesaurus. 2nd Edition. 2002.
Print.
“quaking.” Webster’s New World Dictionary and Thesaurus. 2nd Edition. 2002.
Print.
In Lamb to the Slaughter, Mary Maloney, doting housewife pregnant with her first child, commits a heinous crime against her husband. After he tells her that he is leaving, she become distraught and strikes him in the head with a leg of lamb. Afterwards, Mary...
In this essay, Ellerby goes through and gives a brief but accurate summary of the short story. Then she gives her interpretations of what this story was supposed to mean. She finally talks about the techniques Susan Minot used in order to get the atmosphere and emotions she wanted the reader to experience. I agree with how Ellerby interprets this story and it will be evident throughout this paper. Because I agree with what this essay had to say, I will be able to use it as evidence to support my ideas.
“Lamb to the Slaughter” by Roald Dahl captivates readers as they follow the story of how a loving wife turns into a merciless killer. This passage is told from the point
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This poem exists on two very different levels. On one hand, the speaker is a child, sent to the dark, scary basement for a bag of frozen vegetables. But on the other, more sinister side, the very obvious correlations between the dark basement and Hell are directly meant to terrorize and intimidate the reader. It is not easy, these days, to be scared. This poem does an admirable job of making itself engaging and frightening in less than half a page. The intent is achieved.
Lamb to the Slaughter, by Roald Dahl, instantly grabs a reader’s attention with its grotesque title, ensuing someone’s downfall or failure. The saying “lamb to the slaughter,” usually refers to an innocent person who is ignorantly led to his or her failure. This particular short story describes a betrayal in which how a woman brutally kills her husband after he tells her that he wants a divorce. She then persuades the policemen who rush to the scene to consume the evidence. This action and Patrick’s actions show the theme of betrayal throughout the story which Roald Dahl portrays through the use of point of view, symbolism and black humor.
Lamb is a man willing to give up a friendship in order to avoid leaving his home city. In his response to Wordsworth’s invitation he uses rhetorical devices such as hyperboles, personification, and comparisons to blatantly deny Wordsworth.
Sarah Josepha Hale (1788-1879) was America’s first woman editor and the author of many novels and poems, publishing nearly fifty volumes of work in her lifetime. President Abraham Lincoln declared Thanksgiving a national holiday in 1864 after Hale had spent 40 years campaigning for a national day of thanks. An early activist for women’s education and property rights and editor of the 19th century’s most successful woman’s magazine (Godey’s) – these are only a few of the many accomplishments of the extraordinary woman who is now unknown to most Americans.
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In Julia Alvarez’s poem “On Not Shoplifting Louise Bogan’s The Blue Estuaries”, Alvarez skillfully employs poetic devices such as imagery and personification to let the reader view the power of literature through the eyes of a young, poverty stricken, estranged woman, inspiring her love for poetry. Alvarez’s use of imagery paints a vivid picture of the setting and the narrator’s actions for the reader throughout her significant experience; all through the eyes of an alienated female. The use of personification and author’s tone brings “The Blue Estuaries” to life for the reader-just as it had appeared to the narrator.
Through diction, the tone of the poem is developed as one that is downtrodden and regretful, while at the same time informative for those who hear her story. Phrases such as, “you are going to do bad things to children…,” “you are going to suffer… ,” and “her pitiful beautiful untouched body…” depict the tone of the speaker as desperate for wanting to stop her parents. Olds wrote many poems that contained a speaker who is contemplating the past of both her life and her parent’s life. In the poem “The Victims,” the speaker is again trying to find acceptance in the divorce and avoidance of her father, “When Mother divorced you, we were glad/ … She kicked you out, suddenly, and her/ kids loved it… ” (Olds 990). Through the remorseful and gloomy tone, we see that the speaker in both poems struggles with a relationship between her parents, and is also struggling to understand the pain of her
The speaker reflects on the teenage girl’s childhood as she recalls the girl played with “dolls that did pee-pee” (2). This childish description allows the speaker to explain the innocence of the little girl. As a result, the reader immediately feels connected to this cute and innocent young girl. However, the speaker’s diction evolves as the girl grew into a teenager as she proclaims: “She was healthy, tested intelligent, / possessed strong arms and back, / abundant sexual drive and manual dexterity” (7-9). The speaker applies polished language to illustrate the teen. This causes the reader not only to see the girl as an adult, but also to begin to grasp the importance of her situation. The speaker expresses what the bullies told this girl as she explains: “She was advised to play coy, / exhorted to come on hearty” (12-13). The sophisticated diction shifts towards the girl’s oppressors and their cruel demands of her. Because of this, the reader is aware of the extent of the girl’s abuse. The speaker utilizes an intriguing simile as she announces: “Her good nature wore out / like a fan belt” (15-16). The maturity of the speaker’s word choice becomes evident as she uses a simile a young reader would not understand. This keeps the mature reader focused and allows him to fully understand the somberness of this poem. The speaker concludes the poem as she depicts the teenage girl’s appearance at her funeral: “In the casket displayed on satin she lay / with the undertaker’s cosmetics painted on” (19-20). The speaker elects not to describe the dead girl in an unclear and ingenuous manner. Rather, she is very clear and
I found that throughout this poem there was much symbolism within it. Identifying that it was written in first person form showed that this poem relates to the author on a personal basis, and that it was probably written to symbolize his life. But when talking about people’s lives, you can conclude that people’s lives are generally and individually very diffe...
In the scene where Lamb prepares to execute Dr. Newgate, he is shown a photograph of a drummer boy; a photograph that triggers a traumatic and dark memory in his past. The scene then shifts from the quiet asylum into Lamb’s memories, where he is inside of a hospital tent filled with dying soldiers. Desperately wanting to save them, Lamb kills them all, including the drummer boy. Later on, when the scene returns to the asylum, Lamb is shown to be mentally broken, as he is unable to do anything another than shake his head and say “I saved them all.”. These two short, significant scenes show the powerlessness of humans when they are faced with the mistakes of their past. Silas Lamb is reminded of his actions through the photograph he is shown, which symbolically represents his dark experiences and depicts one of the many people he has killed. As a result, Lamb hides the photograph so he can pretend it doesn’t exist and hide from the guilt it depicts. However, he can no longer hide, as Newgate reveals the photograph to him. The photograph of the drummer boy reminded him of the powerlessness he felt when he tried to “save” his comrades. He was incapable of doing anything once again when he failed to change his actions in the haunting recollection. In both events, Lamb could not do anything, as he did not have the power to work medical miracles or change the past. When he finally understood this, he broke apart mentally and became insane. Lamb conveys the inability of humans to control their past through his own experiences of the past and his dark persona. Moreover, he shows that all humans are powerless and afraid in the face of their past and their