The poem Edward Hopper and the House by the Railroad by Edward Hirsch extends Edward Hopper’s painting similarly titled The House by the Railroad. In the painting, a desolate, clunky, and gothic style house stands in front of a railroad. The painting’s background is the sky with sunlight, but the sun is not included in the frame. The house has a lot of shadows, its body is white and its slanted roofs are black. But a splash of color is added because the chimney is depicted red. The poem describes the artist’s relationship with the house and the house’s relationship with the artist. The relationship between the painting and the poem is a reflection of the house’s and the artist’s emptiness, sorrow, and awkwardness. The speaker begins by describing the house …show more content…
The house identifies the artist as the “stranger who returns to this place daily’’ (21). The house uses the same words like “desolate” (23) “ashamed” (24) and the phrase “Someone holding his breath underwater” (28) to describe the man. The house two is looking at all the flaws of the man. But since the house sees the same flaws in the man as the man does in the house, it shows that they are both reflections of each other and it is the artist who personifying the house to tell this story. Both the house and the artist are empty, awkward, and eerie. Once the painting is finished “the man simply disappears” (29). The metaphor “He is a last afternoon shadow moving...darkening the fields” (31-32) relates back to the sunlight simile in the third stanza. This metaphor means that once the artist has left he is taking all the sunlight away along with him. Then the speaker goes on to explain how it was not the house that was “strange” and “gawky” it was the way that the artist looked at the house. All the other “abandoned mansions” (33) and “poorly letter storefronts” (34) will always have the same expression- “the utterly naked look of someone/ Being stared at”
His outside actions of touching the wall and looking at all the names are causing him to react internally. He is remembering the past and is attempting to suppress the emotions that are rising within him. The first two lines of the poem set the mood of fear and gloom which is constant throughout the remainder of the poem. The word choice of "black" to describe the speaker's face can convey several messages (502). The most obvious meaning ... ...
...The house he recreates, to put everything in order as the drawing of how neat the couch and lights are arranged, means that he tries to rebuild himself and forget who he was. Even that is still not really perfect to him when he says “Slightly perfect,” he never feel content with it. He is good at making people think that his family is normal, but it is not really because we see the unsmiling face of the two neglected children in the background. The narration informs the reader of her feeling towards her father, comparing him with “an alchemist of appearance, a savant of surface, a Daedalus of décor.” Allison uses the metaphor of Daedalus (a Greek mythology whose son is Icarus who flows into the sun and the father does not concern) to compare to the complex relationship between him and her. She resents his love of decoration and art and feels more distanced from him.
“He uses similes such as the breeze that ‘blew curtains in at one end and out the other like pale frogs’ and that also made a shadow on the ‘wine-colored rug’ as ‘wind does on the sea’.”
Under the orders of her husband, the narrator is moved to a house far from society in the country, where she is locked into an upstairs room. This environment serves not as an inspiration for mental health, but as an element of repression. The locked door and barred windows serve to physically restrain her: “the windows are barred for little children, and there are rings and things in the walls.” The narrator is affected not only by the physical restraints but also by being exposed to the room’s yellow wallpaper which is dreadful and fosters only negative creativity. “It is dull enough to confuse the eye in following, pronounced enough to constantly irritate and provoke study, and when you follow the lame uncertain curves for a little distance they suddenly commit suicide – plunge off at outrageous angles, destroy themselves in unheard of contradictions.”
...ome the dream of attainment slowly became a nightmare. His house has been abandoned, it is empty and dark, the entryway or doors are locked. The sign of age, rust comes off in his hands. His body is cold, and he has deteriorated physically & emotionally. He is weathered just like his house and life. He is damaged poor, homeless, and the abandoned one.
...individual human being, worthy of our own unique individual response” (Weschler, p. 21). As we look at these paintings it is easy for us to connect to the subject matter, they all pertain to ethics. The contemplation of life and death, picking the right path for our highest and best good, forgiveness and taking pride in what you are doing. Each day we are faced with moral dilemmas and for the most part people choose to be good and do the best they can. These four paintings allow us to see the intersubjectivity in others as well as in ourselves.
The author’s objective is to explain what happens “more or less involuntarily” in viewers of a painting when they look at it. (133) This means that his journal entries try to make the reader see what he sees in his year of looking at these particular paintings. In his entry dated March 15, he puts his focus on lighting in
...physical structure of the poem and the symbolic patterns that it portends. In this case it refers to the resurfacing of the Sun, or symbol of god’s radiant presence, after the speaker’s horrid description of man’s misery and “toil” (a direct result of the loss of devoutness), what is supposed to represent the temporary lack of god’s radiance and thus a symbolic night.
“ I do not dare breather/ Or move.” (10-11) shows that the lonely field is even scarier after the woman has gone. Before the woman showed up, the author was just feeling peaceful and lonely, but after the woman left, makes the author not only lonely but also scared. Then, the focus go back to the wheat again, “ The wheat leans back toward its own darkness, / And I lean toward mine.” (13-14) this is a personification to the wheat and also a metaphor or analogy of the darkness of the wheat and the author. Apparently, the wheat’s darkness is just the dark field, but the author’s darkness is his own dark period or depression in his life after he lost his love or hope which was mentioned as “ the slender woman”, after the author lost his hope, he did not give up, instead, he decides to face the depression, that is why he “lean toward” his own
In every idea, object, and person, there are two sides. Especially in people, so many differences can be revealed, but they can all be boiled down to two simplistic elements: good and bad. This philosophy can be discovered in many pieces of literature and art, pieces such as The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson, The Gospel of Matthew, Mark Twain’s Two Ways of Seeing the River, Edvard Munch’s The Scream, and “Vincent” by Don McLean. In order to dissect these works and find the intertwining similarities one must first be aware of the dichotomy of people, objects, and ideas. After doing this, one may see how in all of these works the authors bring to light a similar theme, that one’s perception of a person or thing
Most people spend their entire lives in search of their ideal home. Home has distinctive importance to all. To some; it is a place of their home country and heritage as well as their birthplace. While to others, home is a place where one finds shelter and food, furthermore, a place where they can always return to and feel secure. In order for us, as the reader to, fully comprehend the significance of a home from the perspective of the characters, we must obtain a good understanding of what a home is in and of itself.
This art, like most, can be applied to the viewer in any way they wish. A person may look at one of the sculptures and see themselves. They may see a man who is going through challenges similar to their own; someone who is trying to free himself from these bounds. Such challenges may include an attempt to escape financial bounds or personal weaknesses. The interpretations are only limited to the comparisons a viewer
Husband goes to work for long hours, leaves his wife at their new home alone, and this cycle occurs time and time again. While at this new home because she does not have a job the wife, in sad emotion, looks at all of the seasoned furniture that was a gift from her mother-in-law. In Sinclair Lewis’ Main Street excerpt, he uses the literary terms symbolism, imagery, and allusion to present his theme of husbands leaving their wife at home alone.
Throughout childhood, parents are thought to be totems of support, someone to cry on, someone who will help to bandage a wounded knee, but not all adults are perfect role models. In Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, the reader is given the opportunity to delve into a developing mind amidst a whirling fervor of confusing role models. Stephen Dedalus' biological father and shifting mother figure are at the center of the aspiring artist's barriers to fulfilling his calling in life. The book is a bildungsroman at its core, and the parental figures represent the obstacles that Stephen conquers to mature and discover himself.
Similarly, the furniture in the house is as sullen as the house itself. What little furniture is in the house is beaten-up; this is a symbol of the dark setting. The oak bed is the most important p...