Carolyn Forche and The Country Between Us
While reading Carolyn Forche's poetry in her book The Country Between Us, I often wondered what this woman has gone through while spending her time in El Salvador. She lived in El Salvador during an ugly state: a time when this country was in the middle of a civil war and bloodshed. All those acts of cruelty that she faced and so clearly wrote about must have been troublesome on her heart. And now thanks to her we can understand a piece of history and the cruelty of mankind through her poems. These poems that strike interest in our minds, would seem as if they would still strike fear in hers. That is, to overcome those terrible memories would take a lifetime, if that were even conceivable. But in her final poem of this book she suggests that these unforgettable details can possibly be put aside. This poem she dedicates to Terrence Des Pres, someone who also has gone through similar tragedies and titles it "Ourselves Or Nothing." The experiences they had and endured, Terrence Des Pres and Carolyn Forche, in turn, allowed Forche the stamina and fortitude which she encouraged within Des Pres, and thus dedicated her writing to him.
Terrence Des Pres was a friend of Carolyn Forche's. He too was an author that wrote great contemporary poetry, the most significantly a poetic work called The Survivor: An Anatomy of Life in the Death Camps. He had written this literary novel upon witnessing the tragedies occurring during the Holocaust of World War II, an event that we understand to be one of the most inhumane and gruesome events of human recollection. The Holocaust intrigued him and captured his mind and soul. Besides completion of his novel he taught at Colgate University a literature course on the Holocaust. And from his experiences, as summarized of Des Pres in the Triquarterly Fall 1996, he taught students of what he repeatedly called the "dark times" of 20th-century political life. But all these experiences he faced, and the constant reminder of them carried a great price. He drank a lot, especially as his work on the Holocaust grew more harrowing. It is noted, once while writing his book he thought he was having a heart attack, but he was medically fine; instead his memories of the Holocaust had been squeezing at his chest causing psychosomatic symptoms.
In a story of identity and empowerment, Juan Felipe Herrera’s poem “Borderbus” revolves around two Honduran women grappling with their fate regarding a detention center in the United States after crawling up the spine of Mexico from Honduras. While one grapples with their survival, fixated on the notion that their identities are the ultimate determinant for their future, the other remains fixated on maintaining their humanity by insisting instead of coming from nothingness they are everything. Herrera’s poem consists entirely of the dialogue between the two women, utilizing diction and imagery to emphasize one’s sense of isolation and empowerment in the face of adversity and what it takes to survive in America.
The Holocaust will forever be known as one of the largest genocides ever recorded in history. 11 million perished, and 6 million of the departed were Jewish. The concentration camps where the prisoners were held were considered to be the closest one could get to a living hell. There is no surprise that the men, women, and children there were afraid. One was considered blessed to have a family member alongside oneself. Elie Wiesel was considered to be one of those men, for he had his father working side by side with him. In the memoir Night, by Elie Wiesel, a young boy and his father were condemned to a concentration camp located in Poland. In the concentration camps, having family members along can be a great blessing, but also a burden. Elie Wiesel shows that the relationship with his father was the strength that kept the young boy alive, but was also the major weakness.
In 1999, he was invited to speak at the Millennium Lectures, in front of the president, first lady, and other important governmental figures,. In his speech, “The Perils of Indifference”, he uses rhetorical devices to get emotional responses and to connect with the audience. He wants to create awareness of the dangers of indifference and show how there needs to be change. His speech eloquently calls out the government for their lack of response during the Holocaust, and warns against continued disregard for the struggles of others. He sees indifference as being the ally of the enemy, and without compassion there is no hope for the victims.
The subsequent section is concise as it provides the depressive historical context of the poem. The usage of factual period of time 1949 and the war / Now four years dead- conveys the suffering of the exiles and their endurance of the lengthy wait to migrate as they weren’t economically or physically capable to leave earlier.
A knight's’ duty is to be loyal to the king, and follow the social code, chivalry. The knight has also fought bravely in the king’s services. He fought for the king and for the christian Land. Knights were usually sent out by the king and the church to go and enforce Christianity in a new land. He was honored in bravery for all the battles he has participated in, Such as, Alexandria when it fell, in “Prussia where he was awarded the seat of honor above all knights.” . And every battle he has fought in he always “killed his foe” This was not frowned upon to the
Primo Levi, in his novel Survival in Auschwitz (2008), illustrates the atrocities inflicted upon the prisoners of the concentration camp by the Schutzstaffel, through dehumanization. Levi describes “the denial of humanness” constantly forced upon the prisoners through similes, metaphors, and imagery of animalistic and mechanistic dehumanization (“Dehumanization”). He makes his readers aware of the cruel reality in the concentration camp in order to help them examine the psychological effects dehumanization has not only on those dehumanized, but also on those who dehumanize. He establishes an earnest and reflective tone with his audience yearning to grasp the reality of genocide.
Poems are forms of communication that give an applicable view of the past, present and future events. Reading the poem titled “America”, written by Richard Blanco brought me memories from my childhood in my parent’s house and also what is happening now in my house as a parent. The poem explains how one person doesn’t have all the knowledge about something. It also, describes the daily life struggles I experienced during my childhood, when my parent 's and I moved from our hometown to live in another town becuase of their work and it brings to light the conflict of cultures I and my children are going through since we moved to United State of America .
Carolyn Forche’s “The Colonel” discusses the lack of value towards human life by totalitarian government and the United States’ stake in investigating these powers and challenging them. The speaker in this poem recounts his experience meeting the colonel to show the audience both the amount of presence of the United States in this foreign setting and the Colonel’s lack of regard toward human rights. Figurative language, such as similes, metaphors, and symbols, as well as the speaker’s first-person point of view descriptions reveal her experiences in El Salvador with a cruel military government. These elements in Forche’s poem successfully convey themes of oppression and cruelty, as well as heavy
In Elie Wiesel’s Night, he recounts his horrifying experiences as a Jewish boy under Nazi control. His words are strong and his message clear. Wiesel uses themes such as hunger and death to vividly display his days during World War II. Wiesel’s main purpose is to describe to the reader the horrifying scenes and feelings he suffered through as a repressed Jew. His tone and diction are powerful for this subject and envelope the reader. Young readers today find the actions of Nazis almost unimaginable. This book more than sufficiently portrays the era in the words of a victim himself.
In the West Egg, Gatsby threw huge and extravagant parties hoping one day the love of his life, Daisy from East Egg, would come strolling through the door. Fitzgerald satirizes these parties in order to create a larger picture about the “roaring twenties” (Slater 54). The large parties were a place that was teeming with contradictions displayed. These huge parties were contained with people who were never officially invited and stayed until they were kicked out. The people who showed up were all examples of moral corruption and cared for nothing but the material of goods. People came, trashed Gatsby’s home and then left. The guest treated each other as if they were disposable, just like the money they spent so vigorously. This is the complete opposite of what the American Dream is supposed to be, people were just partying their lives away. Fitzgerald deliberately contributed to the God-like image of Gatsby by withholding him from the novel, which surrounds him with a mythical aura. Rumors would spread about Gatsby because no one has actually seen him." 'I'll tell you a family secret . . . . he used to be the silver polisher . . . in New York that had a si...
Today, pornography has different targeted audiences based on various categories of pornography. There are pornographies made that are targeted toward women in which are slow and focused more on the people’s language rather than solely genitally focused. Most pornographies, however, are made specifically for men. These videos contain a large focus on the genitals, the men are portrayed as dominant, and the women please the men taking any measures necessary. According to a study, pornography that was intended for men and women aroused the men who were being studied. Women on the other hand, activated negative affects after watching the pornography intended for men and positive after watching the pornography intended for women (Mosher, 1994). In general, men are the main target of pornographies and women as well as feminists believe that pornography should not characterize women as objects. Also when making this study, it was difficult to find pornography that was made by women, majority of the videos are made by men and produced for
A real life example of the link between the onset of pornography in American culture and sexual crimes includes a survey done in 1978, in which 44% of the nine hun...
Fagan, Patrick F. “Adolescent.” The Effects of Pornography on Individuals, Marriage, Family and Community. North Carolina Magazine.2010.
As a child, Sharon Olds childhood was described as a “hellfire.” Growing up, she was told that she was going to hell. In Olds’ poem, she tries to express how she felt about her early childhood with an abusive father and relationships with her family. Olds wrote many poems about her relationship with her helpless, alcoholic father and her path to help deal with these memories and forgiving her father to loving the dying man. Most of Olds poems are about her journey from an abusive household to healing her past memories from a man she disgusted with. Her poems are ways of her speaking in loud tone describing domestic violence, sexuality, and family relationships. Like any poem, “His Stillness” the theme of the poem was about Olds getting close to her father w...
Claudia Rankine is a Jamaican woman born in 1963 raised in Kingston and New York City. Her early life traces back to when she studied at Williams College, where she then decided to pursue an MFA at Columbia University. Since completing her education, she has published collections of poetry, anthologies, and has received many awards and fellowships. She is currently the Henry G. Lee Professor of English at Pomona College as well as a chancellor in the Academy of American Poets. To say that Rankine has reached a bounty of success in her life is an understatement. In Citizen: An American Lyric she expresses the social struggles