Edward Hirch's poem Execution touches on various thought provoking and heart touching subjects such as cancer. Hirsch does this by using a common American loved sport football to make connections with the reader. Within the poem Hirsch begins to by building a character for us which was the football Coach who was diagnosed with cancer. Hirsch used an extensive amount of literary strategies in his poem to portray the Coach as a man who had always been a strong fighter and strives for the "perfect execution" and winning in life. The Coach's life is changed drastically when he is loosing his battle with his opponent Cancer which is shattering his hopes and battering him with Cancer's "deadly...power." Feeling inferior to cancer, the Coach devised a "spiderweb of options and counters, Blasts and sweeps..." in a futile attempt to defeat cancer. The Coach knew that his plans were "flawless" and he made sure to use every strategy out there, but just like other cancer patients who try everything they possibly can do to survive, most of the time it isn't enough. In the Coach's case the game that he was fighting against cancer was already lost and all that was left of him was a "wobbly...stunned by illness" man. Even though winning his battle would have been the ideal ending, the author's purpose was to show that Cancer is tireless and that sometimes in life, some battles will be lost no matter how long and hard the fight.
Diction is used through out the poem Execution to effectively portray the Coach's character through out the story and the battle he is fighting with cancer. In the story the game of football was used with an extended symbolic meaning representing the game of life. At the beginning of the story Hirsch used phrases...
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...ming because at some points you feel hope for the Coach but then the reader realizes how difficult the battle against cancer is and how most individuals have a slim chance of surviving. Which then creates a sense of reality, displaying that not everyone wins in life no matter what it is whether its football, or an illness. Hirsch then ties the reality back to something that is sort of unreal to humans until we experience it, death. This incredible combination creates a mood that over powers the reader throughout the entire piece until the end which is the loss of hope, and sadness. The poem was pieced together beautifully in an extended metaphor, which finalizes the impact of the authors purpose on the reader. Hirsch use of language made the poem become very real, and causes individuals to grasp a hold of a bit of reality and realize that in life everyone can't win.
The author tells the reader that his coach had 'cancer stenciled into his face,' which obviously implies that the man was diagnosed with the genetic defect, cancer. Though the man, whom we shall call Coach, made special plays and drew up as many plans of action that he could muster and believed in the new options as a way to win an uncertain game, he could not defeat the invading team from upstate. The way that Coach drew the plays and knew that the ?execution? of the plays was flawless, and his team was still demolished is equally compared to a cancer patient?s conferring with doctors on the course to take to beat the foreign body trying to control his body. The ?blasts and sweeps? were the plays that were created to defend from an impending defeat, just as chemotherapy is a preventative of the malignant invader. The coach ?had perfect...
While the poem's situation is simple, its theme is not. Stafford appears to be intimating that life is precious and fragile; however, nothing so clearly discloses these attributes of life as confrontation with death. Furthermore, the very confrontations that engender appreciation of life's delicacies force action-all to frequently callous action.
Terry knew that aches and pains are common in athlete’s lives. At the end of his first year of university there was a new pain in his knee. One morning Terry woke up to see that he could no longer stand up. A week later Terry found out that it was not just an ache he had a malignant tumor; his leg would have to be cut off six inches above the knee. Terry’s doctor told him that he had a chance of living but the odds were fifty to seventy percent. He also said that he should be glad it happened now fore just 2 years ago the chance of living was fifteen percent. The night before his operation a former coach brought Terry a magazine featuring a man who ran a marathon after a similar operation. Terry didn’t want to do something small if he was going to do something he was going to do it big. "I am competitive" Terry said, "I’m a dreamer. I like challenges. I don’t give up. When I decided to do it, I knew it was going to be all out. There was no in between Terry’s sixteen month follow up he saw all the young people suffering and getting weak by the disease. He never forgot what he saw and felt burdened to thoughts that died to run this marathon. He was one of the lucky one in three people to survive in the cancer clinics. Terry wrote asking for sponsorship " I could not leave knowing that these faces and feelings would still be here even though I would be set free of mine, s...
This pain weaken the self-esteem with a lot of imagery like “a rainy morning” and the first line itself “she is being helped toward the open door that leads to the examining rooms”. We can all have a picture of the examination room and someone being led there. “A young woman in a wheelchair,” the poem presents an extended picture of raff in the reader 's mind, I hopeless young woman that need help. By reading Delights and Shadows we get see another method of poems writing that is filled with imagery that comes in poetry format but a more like short story. In this poem “At the Cancer Clinic” like so many others, Ted Kooser wrote in point of view of some that were watching this happening. The poem talks to how weak to walk on her own beside her she has two people accompany her to the examination room on each side to This poem tries to capture the feeling of wonder that people often get when they realize that someone who is engaging against unconceivable physical weakness is fraught to persevere with the little strength they have. The Cancer Clinic invites readers to reflect on the strength of the woman and not to dwell on the illness that has emaciated her but her willingness to live and a more uplifting experience than and the title first tells
Initially, Mailer used diction through imagery and emotional words to give the reader how the situation felt to him and to describe to the reader the situation. In the passage, emotional words such as “bad maulings”, “three disgusted steps away”, and “referee’s face came a look of woe” pop up. Mailer utilizes these negative emotional words to impose a tone that is solemn towards Paret and a tone that is disdainful towards Griffith. Consequently, the reader’s mood coincides with the tone of the author. For example, the phrase “referee’s face came a look of woe” gives the reader a grievous feeling because of the word “woe”. Another instance where a reader can see this is in the phrase “three disgusted steps away”. Mailer could have just stated “three steps away”, but he wanted to enforce the negative connotation of the story and to show the reader how he had felt. Additionally, imagery is used in...
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
The poem is told by the child’s view and everything is described in order for the reader to visualize what is happening. “The whiskey on your breath/Could make a small boy dizzy.”(1-2), Roethke starts off by describing the father through sense of smell instead of his facial features. Another use of imagery, “We romped until the pans/Slid from the kitchen shelf/My mother’s countenance/ Cold not unfrown itself.”(5-8), the kitchen is a mess and the mother only watches, providing no help. They “romped” until the pans fell, this creates an image of destruction because the dad is drunkenly moving through the kitchen and destroying everything. The mother only watches in despair and she had no power of the actions of the father. “The hand that held my wrist/Was battered on one knuckle” (9-10), the battered knuckle means that the father is violent and giving a strong image of how the father is. Roethke uses amazing imagery in order to make sense of the story. He wants the reader to connect with him and to visualize what he is trying to
The poem begins by introducing the main figure in the poem, a naturally talented baseball player named Hector Moreno. To the narrator, the game of baseball is more than just a simple game, “it [is] a figure – Hector Moreno” (6). Describing Hector Moreno initially as a figure closely associated with the game of baseball shows just how revered a person Hector is in the narrator’s mind. This image of Hector Moreno is quite concrete, but as the poem continues, the narrator expresses to the reader that his father died sometime during his childhood, as “his [father’s] face no longer [hangs] over the table” (18). Suddenly the image of Hector Moreno is not as concrete as it first appears, especially through the lines leading up to Moreno’s first appearance on the baseball field “in the lengthening shade” (4-5). The shadow of the narrator’s father over the dinner table when he was a boy has now taken the form of Moreno’s figure in the shade over the baseball field since the narrator’s father has died. This initial me...
Predominantly the poem offers a sense of comfort and wisdom, against the fear and pain associated with death. Bryant shows readers not to agonize over dying, in fact, he writes, "When thoughts of the last bitter hour come like a blight over thy spirit, and sad images of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall, and breathless darkness, and the narrow house, make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart -- go forth under the open sky, and list to Nature 's teachings." With this it eludes each person face their own death, without fright, to feel isolated and alone in death but to find peace in knowing that every person before had died and all those after will join in death (Krupat and Levine
One of the most prevalent of the literary tools used in this poem is the simile. Repeatedly throughout the poem Bishop uses the simile to give the reader a clearer picture of the situation at hand. The simile is an ideal literary tool to use when the author is trying to convey a sensory description of an object or idea. When describing the fish?s physical appearance in lines 9-15 she compares the fish?s skin to ?ancient wallpaper?; this immediately gives the reader an impression of the age and outward appearance of the fish. Later in the poem when in lines 61-62 she describes the pieces of broken fishing line hanging from the fish?s mouth as ?medals with their ribbons / frayed and wavering? she is using a simile to give the impression of pride and honor. This comes at a point when ...
A specific example of a man who tosses three girls out the window and then plunges to his own death serves to show us the horror of the situation. the poem then continues on to tell us of in humane conditions in Scotland. It ends by telling us about the slaves who picked and planted the cotton. The speaker seems to be telling us a story in order to inform us of what's going on in the shirt industry.Robert Pinsky doesn't have many obvious examples of diction in his work, although hints of it can be found. There is a simile in the first line of the tenth stanza.
Roethke’s poem has a regular rhyme scheme that can be expressed as “abab”. The only exception to this scheme would be the first stanza as the words “dizzy” (2) and “easy” (4) are slant rhymes. Only the end syllables of the two words sound the same. As a result, the use of a consistent “abab” rhyme scheme allows the poem to reflect the
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.
Chaos and drudgery are common themes throughout the poem, displayed in its form; it is nearly iambic pentameter, but not every line fits the required pattern. This is significant because the poem’s imperfect formulation is Owen making a statement about formality, the poem breaks the typical form to show that everything is not functioning satisfactorily. The poem’s stanza’s also begin short, but become longer, like the speaker’s torment and his comrades movement away from the open fire. The rhyming scheme of ABABCDCD is one constant throughout the poem, but it serves to reinforce the nature of the cadence as the soldiers tread on. The war seems to drag on longer and longer for the speaker, and represents the prolonged suffering and agony of the soldier’s death that is described as the speaker dwells on this and is torn apart emotionally and distorts his impressions of what he experiences.
...tentially be cured with a one surgery. He uses this story of death to share that life is short. “Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by Dogma. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most importantly, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” He uses repetition and parallelism to drive his message home.