In the poem “Two tramps in Mud Time the speaker of the story showed his character by expressing his thoughts, his actions, and his interaction with others. The speaker is a passionate person who loves his job greatly, but “Tramps” want to take his job for pay. He works because he loves his job and the other people work only for the money. A reader could infer that the speaker is passionate about his job when he states, “With what was another man’s gain. My right might be love but theirs was need.” This statement lets me know that he loves his job and not only works for money but for his love for chopping wood. I can also infer that the people he works with or “tramps” don’t chop wood because they like their job, they work because they need the money. In the poem it states, “And one of them put me off my aim by hailing cheerily “hit them hard!” I knew pretty well what he had in mind: he wanted to take my job for pay.” This excerpt from the poem clarifies that the “tramps” work because they need the money. The worker needs more money so he tried to make the speaker miss his wood so he would get fired and the worker would take his job and make more money. …show more content…
His actions signify that he loves his job. When speaker states, “Good blocks of oak it was I split, as large around as the chopping block; and every piece I squarely hit.” The reader loves his job so much that instead of being careless and chopping the wood uneven; he has perfected how to chop the wood in the middle despite the shouts to make him miss. When the speaker states, “The time when most I love my task, the two must make me love it more.” He is referring to the two seasons when winter goes into spring. While most would discourage the winter he enjoys watching the seasons pass. These actions of the speaker let me know that he a passionate person and enjoy his job very
Life is not always easy, at some point, people struggle in their life. People who are in the lower class have to struggle for a job every day and people who are in upper class also have their own problems to deal with. These ideas are very clear in Mary Oliver’s “Singapore”, Philip Schultz’s “Greed” and Philip Levine “What Work Is”. In "Singapore" a woman is likely lower class because she works at the airport and her job is to clean the bathroom. In both “Greed” and “What Work Is”, the speakers make the same conclusion about the struggle in the lower class. “Greed” furthermore discusses how Hispanics get a job first before whites and blacks because they take lower wages. All three poems deal with class in term of the society. The shared idea
In dire situations, it is common for people to seek moral guidance. William Wordsworth and Paul Laurence Dunbar did this through poetry. The two poems, “London, 1802” and “Douglass,” share a similar underlying cause, sentence formation, and the conditions of their particular country, but differ drastically in tone, use of comparisons, structure, and the author’s goals.
The poem describes workers to be “Killing the overtime ‘cause the dream is your life, / Refusing to take holidays or go home to your spouse, / But for many the overtime comes, ‘cause the work is not done. / Deadlines to be met. So you continue to dream like a war vet, / Having flashbacks to make you shiver and scream” (Jones, stanza 7, lines 2-6). Jones reinforces that overworking for an incentive of money does not give one a sense of gratification, and it also distracts them from the values that should matter more to them than anything else. Both Kohn and Jones have a similar approach to showing the reader the effect that overworking can have on a person, and how it will change their values in life, causing unhappiness. Many students go through school dispirited and do not join various clubs and activities for their own enjoyment. A friend of Kohn’s who was also a high school guidance counsellor had a student with ‘…amazing grade and board scores. It remained only to knock out a dazzling essay on his college applications that would clinch the sale. “Why don’t we start with some books that
All the poems in Kettle Bottom display a powerful message. Some of the poems messages are happy while are extremely upsetting. The readers of these poems are able to learn about the horrific conditions that people in poverty were forced to live in but also about how they made the best of those situations whenever possible. The dangerous work conditions and the inhumane treat of people living in poverty is extremely disturbing and tragic. These poems are able to show first hand examples and experiences of people involved in these situations. Despite all the dark and deaths that the poor experience they still are able to find some light in it all with the birth of new things.
Though this poem is only a small snapshot of what I personally thought Douglass was going through, I could never adequately understand the frustration he must have had. My hope in writing this poem was not to provide a psychoanalysis or theoretical idea structure to any audience, but rather to show that even today, a modern audience member like me, can appreciate the struggle of a fellow human and speak against injustices, specifically in Douglass’s time.
In the mine Joe exhibits a pre-conventional stage of development where he exists to please others. A quote from one of the older coal miners illuminates this, “All you got to think about is making your way. Someday you’re going to do something about this industry of ours. The men have great hopes on you lad. Here with the great hopes of others riding on is shoulders Joe strives for excellence.
The tone of Listening to grownups quarreling, has a completely different impact. When reading this poem, the reader has a more sad outlook on the thoughts of this author’s memories. Whitman uses ...
... the fruits of a person's hard labor will linger to give honor to their memory after their death. However, Piercy adds that "they were made to be used" to indicate that this won't be the case if a person's labor is not the fruitful productive type. Piercy concludes by stating that "The pitcher cries for water to carry and a person for work that is real" (25-26). With this figurative language Piercy develops the theme by affirming that people need to be willing to work hard in order to reach the satisfaction of accomplishing something that is meaningful in their lives.
In her poem entitled “The Poet with His Face in His Hands,” Mary Oliver utilizes the voice of her work’s speaker to dismiss and belittle those poets who focus on their own misery in their writings. Although the poem models itself a scolding, Oliver wrote the work as a poem with the purpose of delivering an argument against the usage of depressing, personal subject matters for poetry. Oliver’s intention is to dissuade her fellow poets from promoting misery and personal mistakes in their works, and she accomplishes this task through her speaker’s diction and tone, the imagery, setting, and mood created within the content of the poem itself, and the incorporation of such persuasive structures as enjambment and juxtaposition to bolster the poem’s
Taking place in the jungle of meat packing factories during the early 1900s in Chicago, a journalist by the name of Upton Sinclair dissects the savage inner workings of America’s working class factory lifestyle. Sinclair portrayed the grim circumstances that workers faced and the exploited lives of factory workers in Chicago. He became what was then called a mudrucker; a journalist who goes undercover to see first hand the conditions they were investigating. Being in poor fortune, Sinclair was able to blend into the surrounds of the factory life with his poor grimy clothing. The undercover journalist would walk into the factory with the rest of the men, examine its conditions, and record them when he returned home.
The poem told the story of a man who is inhibited by language, and has never quite had the ability to articulate his thoughts and feeling through words. It is said that his family members have tried
The poem also focuses on what life was like in the sixties. It tells of black freedom marches in the South how they effected one family. It told of how our peace officers reacted to marches with clubs, hoses, guns, and jail. They were fierce and wild and a black child would be no match for them. The mother refused to let her child march in the wild streets of Birmingham and sent her to the safest place that no harm would become of her daughter.
After reading the poem entitled “Youth”, I felt that James Wright was not only describing the life of his father but also the lives of the many other factory workers in the Ohio Valley. Many of these workers had either dropped out of school or went straight to the factories after high school, never really getting a chance to enjoy their lives as young `````adults. I think that has something to do with the title of this poem. It’s clear that Wright knew his father and the other men were not satisfied with their jobs and just chose not to speak about it. These factory workers slaved away and then came home “quiet as the evening” probably because they were content to just be relaxing at home with their families. They knew that this was their way of life and they had to do it, even if they had big dreams to someday get away. I think that Wright was also trying to make a point that these men who worked so hard every day were not valued as much as they should have been. These men did not have the education to get a higher paying job but they did have the proper skills and knowledge to work in the factories. I like that James Wright mentioned Sherwood Anderson in this poem as I enjoy his work. Anderson left his Ohio hometown for Chicago to pursuit bigger and better things because he knew if he stayed in the area, he would be unhappy. However, it is a little ironic that Anderson one day just got up and left in the middle of writing and was said to have a mental breakdown.
It is clear that the narrator enjoys cutting wood from the start of the poem. He is not doing it for pay, just for his own enjoyment. While he is chopping, he pauses to take in the sights of the day. He begins to notice every detail, even the smaller ones, such as the weather and the wildlife surrounding him. It is in these observations that he is showing how he seizes the day. Choosing to cut wood during his free time, gives him time to stop and look at the things people often ignore when focused on a task.
The poem, “What Work Is” by Philip Levine is an intricate and thought-provoking selection. Levine uses a slightly confusing method of describing what work actually is. He gives the idea that work is very tedious, however necessary. It is miserable, however, it is a sacrifice that is essentially made by many, if not all able-bodied members of society. Many have to sacrifice going to a concert or a movie, but instead works jobs with hardly a manageable salary. This poem seems to have a focus on members of the lower-class or middle-class who live paycheck to paycheck and are unable to put money away for a future for their children or for a vacation and how difficult life can be made to be while living under this type of circumstance. Levine