After thorough analysis and interpretation, we determined that the poem ‘Let Everything Happen To You’, by Natalie Eilbert, revolves around a central theme regarding decisions and their effects. Though Eilbert’s poem never explicitly reveals a decision or effect that the main character goes through, we noticed some elements in the text that hint towards a decision that the narrator regrets. In the beginning of the poem, the narrator paints a pleasant, nostalgic picture, reflecting upon a childhood memory. However, the story shifts to a darker tone as fear, aching, and pain enter the character’s emotions in later lines. Despite the narrator’s claims that these feelings do not matter, when she foregoes details about what happened, we saw through
her internal conflict and came to the conclusion that she was negatively affected by a previous decision. Our interpretation of the poem centers on a girl who allows herself to be pressured into ditching school, despite the guilt and consequences that follow. We wanted to convey to the audience the meaning of the poem in a way that High School students could relate to, as many of us can relate to the regret that comes with giving into peer pressure. The main character, portrayed by Mikayla, receives an important family heirloom, a ring, along with a note that, in essence, asks that she show responsibility in exchange for the gift. Soon after, at school, her friend tries to get her to ditch class. She is initially skeptical about unlawfully exiting the school grounds, but ultimately makes the decision to follow her friends in leaving the school. One of her friends, played by Sahil, persuades her to leave the school. Upon leaving the school, the girl loses a prized family ring which ends up being stolen. This relates to the poem because the general theme is similar. In our video the girl decides to skip school, not knowing the effects of this decision. However, since she decided to skip school she ends up losing her ring. This cause and effect greatly relates to the poem as the name of it is “Let Everything Happen to You”.
For anyone who has ever worked in healthcare, or simply for someone who has watched a popular hit television show such as Grey’s Anatomy, General Hospital, House or ER know that there can be times when a doctor or health care provider is placed in extremely difficult situations. Often times, those situations are something that we watch from the sidelines and hope for the best in the patient’s interest. However, what happens when you place yourself inside the doctors, nurses, or any other of the medical provider’s shoes? What if you were placed in charge of a patient who had an ethically challenging situation? What you would you do then? That is precisely what Lisa Belkin accomplishes in her book “First Do No Harm”. Belkin takes the reader on
This week’s reflection is on a book titled Girls Like Us and it is authored by Rachel Lloyd. The cover also says “fighting for a world where girls not for sale”. After reading that title I had a feeling this book was going to be about girls being prostituted at a young age and after reading prologue I sadly realized I was right in my prediction.
The fantastic tale “Was It a Dream?” by Guy de Maupassant is a story narrated from the first point of view, in which the main character, who remains anonymous, describes his desperation and overwhelming grief since the loss of his loved one. He also relates a supernatural event he experienced, while in the cemetery, in which he finds out the truth about his significant other’s feelings but refuses to accept it, or at least tries to ignore it. Maupassant’s readers may feel sympathy towards the narrator as they perceive throughout the story his tone of desperation, and are able to get to the conclusion that he was living a one-sided relationship. Maupassant achieves these effects in the readers through the use of figures of speech, like anonymity, symbolism and imagery, and the structured he employed in the story.
The following response comes from the poem “ Totally Like Whatever, You Know?” by Taylor Mali. In this poem, Mali talks about how our society is becoming more cautious and uncertain in stating their opinion by saying the words “like” or “you know”. He wants to know why people do not speak proudly anymore, basically stating everything they say in a question when it shouldn’t be. It seems that we see more and more people always looking for a second opinion and closure to things they actually already know the answer too. Which leads me to the main idea of the poem, which is how the author is urging our generation to stand by our beliefs and opinions by speaking with passion. If you are going to talk, talk with Authority! Mali says “it is not enough
These final words sum up her feeling of helplessness and emptiness. Her identity is destroyed in a way due to having children. We assume change is always positive and for the greater good but Harwood’s poem challenges that embedding change is negative as the woman has gained something but lost so much in return.
Mrs. Mallard’s repressed married life is a secret that she keeps to herself. She is not open and honest with her sister Josephine who has shown nothing but concern. This is clearly evident in the great care that her sister and husband’s friend Richard show to break the news of her husband’s tragic death as gently as they can. They think that she is so much in love with him that hearing the news of his death would aggravate her poor heart condition and lead to death. Little do they know that she did not love him dearly at all and in fact took the news in a very positive way, opening her arms to welcome a new life without her husband. This can be seen in the fact that when she storms into her room and her focus shifts drastically from that of her husband’s death to nature that is symbolic of new life and possibilities awaiting her. Her senses came to life; they come alive to the beauty in the nature. Her eyes could reach the vastness of the sky; she could smell the delicious breath of rain in the air; and ears became attentive to a song f...
During the process of growing up, we are taught to believe that life is relatively colorful and rich; however, if this view is right, how can we explain why literature illustrates the negative and painful feeling of life? Thus, sorrow is inescapable; as it increase one cannot hide it. From the moment we are born into the world, people suffer from different kinds of sorrow. Even though we believe there are so many happy things around us, these things are heartbreaking. The poems “Tips from My Father” by Carol Ann Davis, “Not Waving but Drowning” by Stevie Smith, and “The Fish” by Elizabeth Bishop convey the sorrow about growing up, about sorrowful pretending, and even about life itself.
A mutual understanding towards many of Poe’s works is that the loss of a lover brings about insanity, but the truth is that in Poe’s works the loss of a young lover leads to depression. This is a theme that is played out in more than one of Poe’s works, but it is most prevalent in the depressing poem Annabel Lee. The speaker is conflicted with losing what is his whole world and his childhood lover. While all is well with both him and the girl alive, an insurmountable depression takes hold once the winds blow out to carry her to the grave. This is a theme that plays out often in his works and has been observed as one of his main inspirations. Within Peter Coviello’s research, he comes to the conclusion that “Within [Poe’s] world, only very young girls, who are not yet encumbered by the revulsions of adult femininity, seem capable of providing a site for stable heterosexual male desire in Poe.” Rather than using a full fledged adult as his lover, he engineered a child into his poem so the lover does not harness the potential to mutate into a monstros...
In Amy Hempel’s “The Most Girl Part of You” and “Going”, Big Guy and the narrator, respectively, both suffer grave tragedies that have left them in a state of emotional turmoil and psychological distress. In “The Most Girl Part of You” Big Guy’s method to his madness is self-harm and mutilation in coping with his mothers suicide. Similarly, in “Going” the narrator flips his car speeding in the desert resulting in his hospitalization for sustained injuries, due to his inability to deal with the loss of his mother. The characters are only able to feel “alive” during these brief moments of pain and agony, where they would otherwise feel bound and haunted by their grief. This is evident when the narrator in “Going” talks about driving through
‘’The woman thing’’ by Audre Lorde reflects more on her life as a woman, this poem relates to the writers work and also has the theme of feminism attached it. The writers role in this poem is to help the women in discovering their womanhood just as the title say’s ‘’the woman thing.’’ The poem is free verse and doesn’t have a rhyme to it and has twenty-five lines.
Right from the moment Louise Mallard hears of her husband's death, Kate Chopin dives into a her vivid use of imagery. “When the storm of grief has spent itself” introduces a weather oriented theme (para.3). This imagery depicts a violent and dark setting that denotes death and grief. Her reaction to her husband's death ideally what society would expect. Her acute reaction instantly shows that she is an emotional, demonstrative woman. Even tho...
Author Christine Mitchell’s “When Living is a Fate Worse Than Death” told the story of a girl Haitian named Charlotte. Charlotte was born with her brain partially positioned outside of her cranium which had to be removed or she would have not survived. Her skull had to be concealed by a wrap in order not to cause further damage. Charlotte was born with less brain cells which allowed her only to breath and not feel much of the pain. Charlotte’s parents thought that the doctor’s in Haiti did not know what was best for their daughter. The doctors in Haiti thought Charlotte should not be resuscitated, undergo anymore horrible treatments and die peacefully. Charlotte’s parents were not happy with the doctor’s guidelines and thought the United States medical care would have better technology and could save their daughter. Charlotte’s parents bought her a doll which
Poetry has a way of being about any sort of situation we can come to think of. Within this essay, I will be explaining the similarities and the differences between “Annabel Lee” by Edgar Alan Poe and “Daddy” by Sylvia Path. We notice that between these poems, love and death fall hand in hand. These two poems have many similarities and the differences, but in my mind more similarities.
Robert Frost beautifully said that “Poetry is a way of taking life by the throat”. In fact, poems are all about expressing deep secretly kept feelings through the handling of language. Poetry is a shareable and universal language of specific states of heart to which any reader can identify himself/herself. It is the voice which says the truth. Quite often, delicate subjects lead to sensitive poem like the one of Marge Piercy that we are now going to scan. In the following stanzas, the poetess portrays the hard life of an innocent girl, victim of the society criteria.
In Broken April, Ismail Kadare tells two tales of how the traditions of the High Plateau affect the individuality of a man that lives within it and two newlyweds on their honeymoon. These newlyweds try to immerse themselves within this new culture, the Kanun, but fail to realize the detrimental effects of such a culture on their relationship. The author uses the Physical proximity of the newlyweds, Bessian and Diana, as a representation of the division that arises between the two, as they both interact with and learn more about the Kanun.