“Don’t do Sadness/Blue Wind” is one of the most complex songs in Spring Awakening, with many metaphors and hidden meanings in its lyrics. The lyrics of “Don’t Do Sadness/Blue Wind” contain references to some of the most important and prominent metaphors and symbols in the musical. They reference the destructive wind metaphor, they show the disconnect between the Moritz that is seen in public and the real Moritz, and show how Ilse is a symbol of hope for many of the other children. Throughout Spring Awakening, the wind is referenced as a metaphor for things falling apart. In “Those You’ve Known,” Melchior sings, “Through the wind, through the dark, through the winter light. I will read all their dreams to the stars.” In this lyric, Melchior says that no matter what the wind brings or destroys he will persevere for Moritz and Wendla. In “Don’t Do Sadness/Blue Wind,” Moritz sings “Or maybe, cool to be a little summer wind, like once through everything and then away again,” to which Ilse replies, “Blue wind gets so sad, blowing through the thick corn, through the bales of hay,” telling him that he can’t avoid sadness. …show more content…
Early in the musical, when he is in school he is shown as being shy and reserved. There are very few songs where we see the “real” Moritz, including this song, “Don’t Do Sadness/Blue Wind.” Other songs where we see who Moritz really is are “Bitch of Living,” and “And Then There Were None.” In these songs, Moritz is shown to be angry, cynical, and anxious. Deaf West’s Spring Awakening clearly demonstrates this by showing Moritz in his uniform, shy and reserved, and contrasting that with his Voice, who is aggressive and harmful to Moritz. It is very clear during “Don’t Do Sadness/Blue Wind” that who Moritz really is and how he wants to be seen are very
For example, one line, “Soon our pilgrimage will cease; Soon our happy hearts will quiver, with the melody of peace,” which is saying that one day we will die, and you can’t stop that. “Lay we every burden down; Grace our spirits will deliver, and provide a robe and a crown,” also reveals that you should appreciate what we’ve had, and what was given to us. This song is telling you, in every line, that you can’t live forever, but appreciate what you have, while you
In Cormac McCarthy's 2006 play, The Sunset Limited, McCarthy gives the reader very vague information about the setting and surroundings of the conversation that is occurring throughout the entire work. In the opening stage directions, an essential prop to the play is the "door [is] fitted with a bizarre collection of locks and bars" (3). The image of the locks is referenced a multitude of times within the duration of the play, as the two men, Black and White, sit at a table and debate the ways of the world. This conversation stems from Black saving White from committing suicide the previous morning and ineffectively tries to keep White from leaving to end his life. Throughout The Sunset Limited, the locks and bars of the door represent the overarching
In James Baldwin's "Sonny's Blues" a pair of brothers try to make sense of the urban decay that surrounds and fills them. This quest to puzzle out the truth of the shadows within their hearts and on the streets takes on a great importance. Baldwin meets his audience at a halfway mark: Sonny has already fallen into drug use, and is now trying to return to a clean life with his brother's aid. The narrator must first attempt to understand and make peace with his brother's drug use before he can extend his help and heart to him. Sonny and his brother both struggle for acceptance. Sonny wants desperately to explain himself while also trying to stay afloat and out of drugs. Baldwin amplifies these struggles with a continuous symbolic motif of light and darkness. Throughout "Sonny's Blues" there is a pervasive sense of darkness which represents the reality of life on the streets of Harlem. The darkness is sometimes good but usually sobering and sometimes fearful, just as reality may be scary. Light is not simply a stereotypical good, rather it is a complex consciousness, an awareness of the dark, and somehow, within that knowledge there lies hope. Baldwin's motif of light and darkness in "Sonny's Blues" is about the sometimes painful nature of reality and the power gained from seeing it.
Edna St. Vincent Millay says that “the summer sang in me” meaning that she was once as bright and lively as the warm summer months. In the winter everyone wants to bundle up and be lazy, but when summer comes along the sunshine tends to take away the limits that the cold once had on us. She uses the metaphor of summer to express the freedom she once felt in her youth, and the winter in contrast to the dull meaningless life she has now. There are many poets that feel a connection with the changing seasons. In “Odes to the West Wind” Percy Bysshe Shelley describes his hopes and expectations for the seasons to inspire the world.
In the end, the poem is looking to show what actions can do in the long run. It teaches us to be very cautious with everything we do since it can affect the people around us. It can have good or bad
Here Gretel has realised she has lost her innocence and her childhood has been robbed, like so many children of today’s world. In the poem, symbolism is used as a powerful technique to reinforce the darkness Gretel feels but also relates this common human experience, fear, to our own life.
Hawthorne manages to create many metaphors within his novel The Scarlet Letter. The rose bush outside the prison door, the black man, and the scaffold are three metaphors. Perhaps the most important metaphor would be the scaffold, which plays a great role throughout the entire story. The three scaffold scenes which Hawthorne incorporated into The Scarlet Letter contain a great deal of significance and importance the plot. Each scene brings a different aspect of the main characters, the crowd or more minor characters, and what truth or punishment is being brought forth.
This duality is concealed within a character because the darkness(truth) conflicts with the light(dreams/hopes) when we hold onto our desire to unite ourselves with our true lover. The author reveals that the light of the “sunset” represents the strength, by illuminating that days are going by, but the true lover still sticks to their strength. The author portrays darkness through the “death” of the“lilacs” representing the inevitable truth that one has to face when holding onto their desire to meet their true love. Parker illustrates that one whose “eyes are deep with yearning”, will persist to their strength until their determination does not overcome the obstacles preventing one from accessing true love, embracing love as a natural and beautiful thing. “Deep” represents her strength and “yearning” is symbolic of her desire to meet her husband. “Yearning” adds a sense of beauty and “deep” illuminates a depth to her strength and how it can overpower obstacles in her life. The author blends “deep” with “yearning” to enhance and illustrate that when we hold a desire we have to deepen our strength and embrace it to achieve what we aspire. The image of “an old, old, gate” where “the lady wait[s]” emphasizes the idea that her husband’s death is “old”; it occurred many years ago, but
In the context of Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues” story, the life among his family and others reflected many events. Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues” resembled the life of his brother who wanted to make a career established in music before completing high school. As the story went on, there were emotions and bonding among each other and lastly forming some sort of peace. By peace meaning they both established ground rules of what their life would be after going through the trouble. Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues” settled a principle of integrity of respect and experienced symbolism as a factor of understanding situations.
The bond of brotherhood is a prize to be cherished by those who know this bond. There is no better friendship than that of siblings, no matter how far apart geographically two brothers may be; they are always brought together by the bond in their heart. Even when brothers do not see eye to eye or have an argument, they will still be brothers and be a part of each other and their lives. The story, Sonny’s Blues, by James Baldwin uses many literary devices throughout this story such as his use of symbolism, his use of the setting and his use on tone to demonstrate the theme in the story, which is the strength of the bonds of brotherhood.
In 1924, James Baldwin was born during the Great Depression. By 1938, at the tender age of fourteen years old, young James became a Pentecostal preacher. However, in 1948 he renounced himself as a preacher and moved to Greenwich, New York. He was able to save enough money to move to Paris, France. James Baldwin became well known for his experience as a black male in America and also contributing heavily in the Civil Rights movement.
Several passages found throughout "Sonny's Blues" indicate that as a whole, the neighborhood of Harlem is in the turmoil of a battle between good and evil. The narrator describes Sonny's close encounters with the evil manifested in drugs and crime, as well as his assertive attempts at distancing himself from the darker side. The streets and communities of Harlem are described as being a harsh environment which claims the lives of many who have struggled against the constant enticement of emotional escape through drugs, and financial escape through crime. Sonny's parents, just like the others in Harlem, have attempted to distance their children from the dark sides of their community, but inevitably, they are all aware that one day each child will face a decisionb for the first time. Each child will eventually join the ranks of all the other members of society fighting a war against evil at the personal level so cleanly brought to life by James Baldwin. Amongst all the chaos, the reader is introduced to Sonny's special secret weapon against the pressures of life: Jazz. Baldwin presents jazz as being a two-edged sword capable of expressing emotions like no other method, but also a presenting grave danger to each individual who bears it. Throughout the the story, the reader follows Sonny's past and present skirmishes with evil, his triumphs, and his defeats. By using metaphorical factors such as drugs and jazz in a war-symbolizing setting, Baldwin has put the focus of good and evil to work at the heart of "Sonny's Blues."
As Lindsay Wagner once said, “When we shift our perception, our experience changes.” (Lindsay Wagner) Similarly, in the “The Funeral” by Gordon Parks, the speaker matures, realizing the beauteous environment he once saw is nothing more than a couple streams, hills, and dirt roads. As a child, he remembers being in awe while looking upon the stunning world around him. He saw everything through an elegant eye valuing it almost more than life itself. However, when the speaker returns home “after many snows,” (Parks, line 1) his surroundings didn’t have nearly the same effect on him. The magical place that brings elation to his childhood no longer exists. In its place, the speaker now sees gently trickling streams where raging rivers once were,
The author uses symbolism as well in this story to support the theme. Firstly, the author uses a closed door as a symbol of separator. The closed door separated her from her sister and her friend. She is free from the surroundings. Although she "wept at once" (69) after her husband's unfortunate, things are changing now. "The open window, a comfortable, roomy armchair" (69) reveals that Louise's true feeling. In the following paragraph, Chopin uses "blue sky" (69) as a sign of hope; twittering "sparrows" (69) as a sign of happiness. The reader can confirm that her husband's death is only a temporary hurdle and she recovers quickly from the grief. Now she looks hopefully to the future, future of independent and well deserved freedom.
She is known for creating radical novels, which stuck discord in many of its early readers, and writing highly respected sonnets. Similar to Behn, Smith also captures the inner thoughts of not just women, but all human beings in the sonnet “Written at the Close of Spring” and juxtaposes the beauty of the annual spring with the frailty of humanity. In the first stanza of this poem, the speaker uses imagery in order to help readers connect with the beauty and delicacy of spring flowers. In the second stanza, she calls to attention the fact that the spring flowers are dying and, to experience the beauty again, one will have to wait until next spring to enjoy them. In the third stanza, the poem’s focus changes from nature to humanity and asserts that as people age and begins to take part in, “tyrant passion, and corrosive care” (Line 11), youth becomes wasted. The speaker comes to the realization that once youth vanishes, it will forever, unlike the yearly revival of spring. The major fault of this sonnet is that it can be difficult to understand and has several different messages, some of which are not as strong or enlightening as