Analysis Of Mary Oliver's Of Power And Time

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In Mary Oliver’s “Of Power and Time,” she shows us a more efficient way of becoming a creative and extraordinary worker. In her work, she shares many examples and ideas to help display her message that creative work should be done by dedicating large amounts of time, and giving it all your effort to make it truly extraordinary. Oliver demonstrates the main idea of that creative work requires more attention as it does not make the world go around, but forwards. Oliver uses curious word choice, asserting ideas, illustration of examples, and strong points, to give her audience of creative workers seeking for improvement a better understanding of how creative and extraordinary work can be done. Oliver’s use of curious word choices help her express …show more content…

After Oliver’s first statement, she transitions to an example to explain the topic better as she talks about distractions, such as a call from the dentist, a lack of supply of mustard, or an uncle’s birthday, providing readers with a better understanding of how distracted one can get. (1). Another example Oliver uses is that of a pilot and the fact that the passenger wants nothing special from the pilot, just that the flight is safe and that they pilots work as they do normally ,and work with confidence (3). Helping in her explaining of that we do not think about the ordinary, because it is just the regular, but when it comes to the extraordinary we must dedicate more time and power because it is what leads us to the future (3). Oliver also uses an example of a knight, and how they have little creativity and adventure in their life, but just being a knight is an adventure (5). Which shows her readers that they cannot separate their life from their work, but must go at their work with a large amount of energy and concentration to make it extraordinary. Throughout Oliver’s work, the reader can see the true power and effectiveness of these examples and the effectiveness they accomplish. The lack of examples in Oliver’s writing would lead to a writing that is confusing and difficult to read. With using these, Oliver can deliver her message with an easier context that the reader …show more content…

She allows her readers to ponder about the message she is displaying as she says, “…that the self can interrupt the self-and does- is a darker and more curious matter” (3). She then leads into a thought provoking statement, where she explains that there people that “…that make the world go around,” and those that don’t just make it go around “…but forward.” (4). With this statement, Oliver leads her readers into really thinking about the world and the fact that there are two kinds of the work, but also that they work simultaneously to have the world both “go around” and forward (4). To conclude her paper, Oliver beautifully adds a point saying, “ The most regretful people on the earth are those who felt the call to creative work… and gave to it neither power nor time,” which leaves her readers to truly rethink the way they should go at their creative work (7). Oliver uses strong points exquisitely throughout her paper, and in such a way that forces her readers to think more than they would do for other papers. With such strong points, Oliver displays her creative work message in such a way that causes her audience of hopeful and creative workers to take her words to heart if they want to be

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