In Sharon Old’s, “On The Subway,” the speaker compares her life to a black boy. She compares their different lives and the different positive or negative connotations that may be associated with them. Olds does this with her use of metaphors, similes, and imagery. Throughout the poem, Old paints a picture in the minds of readers comparing their their different backgrounds. She uses the metaphors, “...a couple of molecules stuck in a rod of light rapidly moving through darkness.” She’s expressing that even though they’re different people, they’re still the same, hence the molecules. Also, that they face the same problem, or just problems period when she mentions moving through darkness. Even still she analyzes him because he’s different
In your life, have you ever experienced an event so traumatic that you cannot forget it? Well, a man by the name of Elie Wiesel went through a very traumatic event in his childhood and has yet to forget it. In order to share his experience Elie decided to write the memoir Night. Throughout the entire memoir Elie used figurative language. Figurative language is something an author can use to help their reader paint a mental picture. A few examples are simile, metaphor, and imagery. Elie Wiesel uses figurative language throughout Night and in the passage describing Madame Schachter screaming about fire in the cattle car which is an example of imagery.
Guetti, James. "Absalom, Absalom!: The Extended Simile."The Limits of Metaphor: A Study of Melville, Conrad, and Faulkner. Ithaca: Cornell, 1967. 69-108.
Tone, symbolism, and imagery are all fantastic ways to view and examine literary works at diverse levels. Using the right lens to study a work can give it a completely different meaning and can lend itself to instill a different lesson than was originally understood. In one work, a rose is thought of as being a discontent and as tool to show the speaker’s true feelings on what love means to her. In another, the simple sight of some commoners forces the speaker to long for a life free of the constraints of a forced marriage, making her yearn for a life of freedom and being normal. Both works use multiple literary techniques to lend themselves too many different elucidations, which makes them such prominent literary gems.
The novella “Goodbye, Columbus” by Philip Roth, is as much about social injustice and levels of class as it is about the plot. One of these things is the subplot of the little black boy who Neil feels he has a connection with. The little black boy is black, while Neil is white, and the boy is illiterate, while Neil is literate, but they both have a connection in that they are less than others who they spend time with; Neil is less than Brenda, while the black boy is less than Neil, and other white people. They also both have an upbringing in the poor city of Newark, even though the black boy does not have the same upbringing as Neil. While the black boy and Neil seem very different at first glance, they actually have a lot more in common
32) Discuss the importance of the use of metaphors to the meaning of " She Walks Beauty". Support your anwer with evidence from the selection.: The story is talking about a women that is wolking in beauty
In the poem, the speaker mentions the dark as if it is a progressive entity, meanwhile it actually limits her progression.
The poem starts with two boys from different races in opposite side of a train. That itself symbolizes the separation among races and color. The author uses simile to describe the boys apparel; for example, the narrator describes the clothe of the african american boy as “ black
America in the mid to early nineteenth century saw the torture of many African Americans in slavery. Plantation owners did not care whether they were young or old, girl or boy, to them all slaves were there to work. One slave in particular, Frederick Douglass, documented his journey through slavery in his autobiography Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. Through the use of various rhetorical devices and strategies, Douglass conveys the dehumanizing and corrupting effect of slavery, in order to show the overall need for American abolition. His use of devices such as parallelism, asyndeton, simile, antithesis, juxtaposition and use of irony, not only establish ethos but also show the negative effects of slavery on slaves, masters and
While similes within the essay are beneficial to the description of the scene, they do not depict the mood or the author's purpose. The simile “The cow's coat is as white as freshly fallen snow reflecting off the midday sun,” does not represent the feeling of abandonment or forgottenness in which the essay is portraying. While the simile can be seen as descriptive and providing a familiar basis through comparisons in which the reader can relate, it does not function properly within the text. Another example of figurative language which does not effectively portray the dominant impression is within the use of personification, “At the base of the closest towering peak sits a city, exposed by the light softly kissing the countryside.” This use of personification does not apply to the mood or any form of detachment, and while it may be effective in the sense of juxtaposing the surrounding text, the personifying of the light is not necessary. Giving the light human characteristics does not influence the reader toward the dominant impression and is not needed. Its use might confuse or obscure the desired perspective of seclusion to the reader, therefore this use of personification is not beneficial to the essay. Using figurative language is an essential aspect to create rhetoric, however,
“In this poem, the night represents his destination — the poet’s own inner life, possibly self-knowledge. The poet, then, feels at least partially alienated from himself in much the same way that the night promotes a feeling of alienation from other people” (Kidd 2). Therefore, the reader can assume this rest of the poem is going to be about the narrator getting to know his place in this world while he is on a night stroll. The second line of stanza one states “I have walked out in rain –and back in rain” (Frost 157). His repetition of going in the rain twice emphasizes his miserable condition on this dark, rainy night. Nonetheless, he embraces nature and continues on with his walk past “the furthest city light” which tells the reader that he is now in complete darkness. Stanza two focuses primarily on his relationship with society. The narrator is casually walking in the city at night and sees the “saddest city lane” and
The writer uses metaphor and simile in this story. Metaphor is a technique device that shows the comparison between two different objects. Metaphor is used in the story in order to give the readers a picture in their mind that what is being discussed and easier to follow the concept of the story. Morever, metaphor can bring an atractiveness to make the readers are get involved in the story. In " The Bully" when the main character- James moves to a new high school, he is catched the eye of the Bully. When James was eating in the boy cafeteria, the Bully told him: " Does baby like his bottle?". This is a metaphor question because the Bully seems James like a baby. He tres to annoy and look down the protagonist. Using metaphor in this
Wright uses Symbolism extensively throughout the book in order to portray how racism affected the lives and decisions of African-Americans in the pre-World War II era. These symbols are extremely effective as they open the reader to the harsh truth about race-relations in the 1930s while making him/her explore their own beliefs on the topic. The first major symbol used...
As you read the text, you come up with hundreds of metaphors. Found almost in every line, they adorn the speech and make it more effective. Most of those metaphors are used to highlight the contrast between t...
For example, the man focuses on the station and the track tracks, and the woman is focusing on the environment, namely the hills. The woman compares the hills to white elephants (Hemingway #). When the man does not seem to understand the comparison, she expounds upon the metaphor, saying, “[t]hey don’t really look like white elephants. I just meant the coloring of their skin through the trees,” but the man ignores and dismisses her comment (Hemingway #). The metaphor is representative of both the fetus and nature. The woman, representing nature, supports the conservation of the fetus, and the man, representing artificial, argues for its destruction. The man cites that they will be happy, and the woman is unsure (Hemingway #). This is a reflection on the central argument; mankind argues for the domination of nature, but people are unsure. O’Brien claims the comparison between the hills and the white elephant is important because white elephants are seen as “both ‘annoyingly useless’ and a precious gift, something to be discarded and something to be… cherished” (23). Thus, the hills represent the dichotomy in humanity; nature must be cherished, but
Key ideas in Richard Wright’s Bildungsroman Black Boy are developed as a result of strong motifs and vivid symbolic imagery. The passage incorporates a motif of hunger as a symbol and powerful imagery of literature to further Wright’s primary idea. Wright emphasizes the abstract values of literature to Richard the protagonist through imagery and symbolism.