Life is a journey filled with moments of laughter and tears. In “First Woods” and “My Old Man’s Saddle”, David Bottoms explores from his childhood to the present. Bottoms moves through memory and the natural world to focus on his old man. In “First Woods,” Bottoms explains remembering riding in a truck with his old man and uncle over a rough terrain during a raccoon hunt. However, in “My Old Man’s Saddle,” he explains remembering news that led to him starring at his old man’s saddle. The images of his trips used in the poems focus on the journey into a life with the speaker’s loved ones. The road on a life journey will not always be smooth. Bottoms states, “Bump and jostle, the road falling fast into rut, ditch, washout, / a constant bounce between my old man and uncle” (1, 3). The speaker uses sound immediately to explain the road trip with his family and significance of every day. Throughout the road trip, Bottoms encounter challenges he has to face. He states, “but mostly I’ve kept the jar and pitch, a clearing of cut hay, / the moonlight rusting a tractor, and off / in the bl...
Mornings on Horseback by David McCullough traces the early life of Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. McCullough examines Theodore's love of the outdoors, his health problems, and his family relations. He also discusses Theodore's time at Harvard University, his first marriage, and his entrance into politics. These experiences helped shape and influence Roosevelt's later years, as President of the United States and other political positions.
This poem includes quotes with informal language that children or teens would better understand. It’s narrative-based style is easy to follow, and although the poem covers very basic concepts, it’s message is still communicated subliminally. This particular poem is interesting because it focusses on the universal experience of pain and it’s relation to time. Similar to this is “The Householder”, written in a cyclical style, opening with a “house” and ending with a “home”. With only three stanzas, it is
The Forest People, by Colin Turnbull was written in 1961. It follows his accounts among the BaMbuti Pygmies in the rainforest of the Belgian-Congo (now known as the Ituri forest in northeastern Zaire). This was said to be the last group of pygmies. These people are one of the few hunter-gatherer groups left of their kind. The book was written while Turnbull spent three years with the group of Pygmies in the late 1950s. His writing is very informal as he studies this tribe and also compares and contrasts the group of Pygmies to Africans in a local town (newer tribe). He takes the BaMbuti tribe (pygmies) who are perhaps a 10,000-year-old tribe, and he compares them to a group in the Bantu village, who lives right next to the forest and are a more recent tribe. He begins his writing by introducing the readers to the pygmies. He goes through and introduces multiple families and their family members, making it more real. He introduces Ekianga and his multiple wives, Kenge, and others. The names are strange and he gets to know many so it can be hard to keep track. He explains how as western people there is an initial fear of the forest and that this fear is alike those of the villagers near the forest. This can be true for any western born person, or anyone unfamiliar with life in the forest. The villagers have a reason for their fear though, they believe in lots of magic and spiritual things and they believe that the dark forest is full of evil spirits and magic. Turnbull then continues to introduce the readers to the forest through the eyes of the tribe. It shows the intimate knowledge that the tribe has on where and when to get food, and also how to predict predators. It turns the forest environment from intimidating and unknown, to ...
...nts a man looking back on his childhood with love and longing admiration. Both poet's have used their childhood experiences to create a window into their past, reviewing a piece of their lives, to move forward with their bold futures.
book which I was interested in certain parts of it, such as his ideal of wanting
When reading a story or a poem, readers tend to analyze, and develop their own opinions. Any content an author or poet produces is up to the reader to question, and identify what the story is trying to say. The point that I am stating is that, stories are like maps that we readers need to figure out. We have to find the starting point, and get to the destination of our conclusion, and the thoughts we have about the story or poem. In the stories that we have read so for throughout the semester, they all have different messages of what they are trying to convey to the reader in a way that can be relatable. Among all the author’s and poet’s works we have read, I have enjoyed Theodore Roethke’s poems. Roethke has developed poems that explore emotions that readers can relate to. I would like to explain and interpret the themes that Theodore Roethke expresses in the poems “My Papa’s Waltz”, “The Waking”, and “I Knew a Woman”.
We now know that we are in the real world in a natural setting a place where deer’s run. Also we know that the dark is nothing more than the cover of darkness in the night. Now that the dark is painted into our heads it will help us to visualize the poems significance. As we go through the poem he states that he sees a dead deer, “Traveling through the dark I found a deer dead on the edge of the Wilson River road” (1-2). Towards the end of the stanza he says “It is usually best to roll them into the canyon: that road is narrow; to swerve might make more dead” (3-4). What he is saying is that one needs to move away from any situation which might not be ideal before harm comes aboard. He is calm and controlled and does not get overly excited thus keeping his emotions intact.
In the novel God’s Bits of Wood by Ousmane Sembene, various marking events have occurred that remain really significant to the novel. One of the events being the march that occurred in Senegal which began all the way from the city of Thies to the capital, Dakar. The march personally viewed as a huge significant part of the novel, has a major impact and also adds an even deeper meaning to Ousmane Sembene’s work as a whole. The book indeed withholds many important events that result to being striking and or shocking in the story. Events that may have caused a lot of tragedy, internal conflicts within characters, as well as change within characters. However, despite such moments and events, the long march remains the most significant and important part of the novel and that symbolizes unity and dedication. Meanwhile, the significance and importance of the march depicts courage, will, faith, and leadership.
The point of view in which the author uses in order to convey their message, death is inevitable and gripping has a significant impact on how the poem is read. “In Blackwater Woods” uses third person limited point of view to give the reader a clear description of the setting. “Look, the trees are turning their own bodies into pillars of light, are giving off the rich fragrance of cinnamon and fulfillment... (1-8).” The vivid imagery of the trees and the olfactory imagery of the forest allows the reader to clearly imagine the setting. Additionally, at the end of one’s life, fulfillment of one’s goals and dreams is often expected, ending the second stanza
Every story, poem, or anthology alike has a part of the author’s feelings or past between their lines, which dictates their origins. The Spoon River Anthology by Edgar Lee Masters is not anything different in that regard. Every piece of writing has it’s origins and those origins can be not only interesting, but change the way the reader views the writing. This paper will not only discuss the origins of the famous Anthology, but show Edgar Lee Masters’ personal side of the origins and how those instances influenced his writing of The Spoon River Anthology.
The Road, a thrilling novel about a post-apocalyptic world, demonstrates a great understanding of the reasoning behind the choices humans make. While living a normal life with his wife and child, some unknown disaster occurs leaving the world in ruins and a father caring for his son by himself. He continues to raise his son, facing difficult decisions everyday, but inclusively decides to continue living. Also after discovering a bunker full of nonperishable foods, the father makes the tough decision to leave. Finally, the father choices to take a robber’s clothes; which presumably leads to the thief’s death. However, the son states his disagreement with his father’s choice leading to a change of heart. The incredibly difficult choices the father makes throughout the novel demonstrates his commitment to a strong relationship between him and his son.
This book is told from the diary of the main character, Sam Gribley. Sam is a boy full of determination. He didn’t give up and go home like everyone thought he would. He is strong of mind. After the first night in the freezing rain, with no fire and no food, he still went on. He is a born survivor. He lasted the winter, through storms, hunger, and loneliness, and came out on top even when everyone expected him to fail. “The land is no place for a Gribley” p. 9
The novel God's Bits of Wood by Sembene Ousmane is an account of the strike Senegalese trainworkers underwent in pursuit of equal benefits and compensation from their French employers. In an effort to coerce the workers into returning to their jobs, the French cut off the water and food supply to the three villages wherein these events transpire: Thies, Dakar, and Bamako. Ousmane's novel explores the way in which these hardships evolve the worker's and their families till the strike is ultimately resolved. Arguably the most significant transformation that takes place is in the role of women within these societies. Prior to the strike, the women were expected to be subservient to their husband, with exclusively domestic roles consisting of cooking, cleaning, and caring for the children. As a result of the strike and the famine that accompanied it, the women were forced to alter their role to provide food for their families. The goals of the men in women differed in that the men were fighting for equality and better pay, whereas the women were fighting a battle for their own and their children's survival. So despite the fact that the declaration of strike and refusal to work until their demands were met was the campaign of the men, it was the women who ultimately forced the Frenchmen to see their resolve and succumb to their demands.
The mark of a great poet is his ability to engage the reader so that they analyse their own lives. Robert Lee Frost (1874 – 1963) – an influential American poet often associated with rural New England – is brilliant at this and uses poetry as a platform for the expression of his own general ideology. Frost’s belief that human society was often chaotic and stressful and that the meaning of life is elusive, has been promoted in his poetry. Frost looked to nature, whose undying beauty and simplicity did not force him into a strict, moulded society, but represented freedom from life and its constant stresses of family and work as a metaphor to show the stark comparison. This ideology derives from Frost’s childhood – where strict rules and punishments were a normal occurrence. When Frost’s first poem was published professionally to rave reviews, he devoted himself entirely to his art by moving to England – where a combination of the natural beauty of the English farm life, sole determination, and pure talent made him one of the most recognisable figures in American history – inspiring this anthology – “Robert Frost – Breaking the Walls.” Some of the famous poems included in this anthology consist of, “The Road Not Taken”, “Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening”, “Mending Wall” and “After Apple Picking.”.
In the poetry of William Blake and William Wordsworth, this difference between children and adults and their respective states of mind is articulated and developed. As a person ages, they move undeniably from childhood to adulthood, and their mentality moves with them. On the backs of Blake and Wordsworth, the reader is taken along this journey.