Paula Bohince grew up in rural Pennsylvania town and still resides there. (Bohince, Paula). The theme and setting reflects a young innocent girl raped in a Pennsylvania town. The poet writes the poem from the victim’s perspective. The words give a creepy feeling of what has happened. The poem describes a young girl who was brutally taken advantage of and relays the devastating affect it had on her. The diction is very fitting for the poem. It creates a very vivid picture of the devastating affect the attack had on the girl. The diction creates a gruesome picture and tone for the reader. The use of words like transparency, black lamb and maggots generates a rejected feeling in the girl. There is no place she can hide and her feelings are constantly being eaten away.
The poem “Black Lamb” is about a person who has experienced the horrible reality of being raped. It creates a person who is extremely dissatisfied with herself. She feels that everyone thinks she is different or bad. Her life has been turned completely around in such a short time. Trying to live a normal life has been destroyed by an evil act she had no control over.
The attack consisted of many misleading gestures. The first experience was like a burning ember with an extremely rough texture. He tried to persuade her with expensive gifts with a “chamois”, soft leather made from skin of chamois, sheep and deer (“chamois.” Def. 2). He used his personal control to go beyond the limits of what is considered right. His bodily invasion or rape causes a lamb to become the black lamb of the neighborhood.
Her feeling of rejection of everyone around her was beginning to take a toll on her. Although she was as innocent as a lamb in the beginning, the time has come when...
... middle of paper ...
...a burden she was carrying by keeping the rapist’s identity to herself.
WORKS CITED
“abattoir.” Webster’s New World Dictionary and Thesaurus. 2nd Edition. 2002.
Print.
Bohince, Paula. “Edge of Bayonet Woods.” Sarabandebooks.org. 2008.
Sarabande Books. 6 September 2009.
“chamois.” Webster’s New World Dictionary and Thesaurus. 2nd Edition. 2002.
Print.
”loathe.” Webster’s New World Dictionary and Thesaurus. 2nd Edition. 2002.
Print.
“phantom.” Webster’s New World Dictionary and Thesaurus. 2nd Edition. 2002.
Print.
“profane.” Webster’s New World Dictionary and Thesaurus. 2nd Edition. 2002.
Print.
“quaking.” Webster’s New World Dictionary and Thesaurus. 2nd Edition. 2002.
Print.
The poem relies on the idea of personal experience from the poet, which classifies this poem as a type of lyric poetry. The author starts off the poem with a mood of comfort and love when he reminisces on the topic of autumn, specifically “late September.” Sensory imagery is revealed in the first few lines of the poem when the author says, “among the fat, overripe, icy, black blackberries/to eat blackberries for breakfast.” Along with the imagery, the readers could notice the blending of the wilderness and civilization through the nature of humankind’s necessities when the poet says the “blackberries for breakfast.” Also, in this same line, the author reveals the usage of alliteration with “love, late; black, blackberries; etc. The poem can also be seen as a simile between the comparison of blackberries and words. The words have many letters and contain one syllable compared to the hyperbolic adjectives that are used to emphasize the sensation of the blackberries. The words create a heightening in the meaning as well as relations to the “strengths” and “squinched” of the words among the few vowels of the
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 ...
Through diction, the tone of the poem is developed as one that is downtrodden and regretful, while at the same time informative for those who hear her story. Phrases such as, “you are going to do bad things to children…,” “you are going to suffer… ,” and “her pitiful beautiful untouched body…” depict the tone of the speaker as desperate for wanting to stop her parents. Olds wrote many poems that contained a speaker who is contemplating the past of both her life and her parent’s life. In the poem “The Victims,” the speaker is again trying to find acceptance in the divorce and avoidance of her father, “When Mother divorced you, we were glad/ … She kicked you out, suddenly, and her/ kids loved it… ” (Olds 990). Through the remorseful and gloomy tone, we see that the speaker in both poems struggles with a relationship between her parents, and is also struggling to understand the pain of her
All of Roald Dahl’s stories seem to be brimfull of irony and wry humor, and “Lamb to the Slaughter” is no different. Mary Maloney, a pregnant, but cheerful woman is very much in love with her husband and we certainly don’t expect her to be of any trouble. It’s shocking enough to learn that her husband, who seems such a nice guy, is cheating on her and plans to move out. This changes the expectation of the story right off the bat, and we feel a compassion for the poor woman. We’re not sure how she’s going to cope with this news, especially since she’s six months pregnant with his child. So when she acts rather compulsively and strikes him over the head with the leg of lamb that was going to be his supper, we really are shocked. She’s acted
One of the most interesting aspects of She's Come Undone is the fact that it is written by a man but is told from a female's point of view. Because of his gender, it is impossible that Lamb could have experienced many of the hardships that Dolores must deal with in his novel. However, Lamb writes with a certain understanding of Dolores and her pain. In She's Come Undone, Lamb addresses issues often avoided by male authors, including female friendships and abortion. His convincing female voice has been critically acclaimed.
raped. But rape was not what one did to women. Rape was what one felt when one’s back was against a wall and one had to strike out, whether one wanted to or not, to keep the pack from killing one. He committed rape every time he looked into a white face. He was a long, taut p...
This poem exists on two very different levels. On one hand, the speaker is a child, sent to the dark, scary basement for a bag of frozen vegetables. But on the other, more sinister side, the very obvious correlations between the dark basement and Hell are directly meant to terrorize and intimidate the reader. It is not easy, these days, to be scared. This poem does an admirable job of making itself engaging and frightening in less than half a page. The intent is achieved.
An elegance in word choice that evokes a vivid image. It would take a quite a bit of this essay to completely analyze this essay, so to break it down very briefly. It portrays a positive image of blackness as opposed to darkness and the color black normally being connected with evil, sorrow, and negativity. The poem as a whole connects blackness with positivity through its use of intricate, beautiful words and images.
Lamb is a man willing to give up a friendship in order to avoid leaving his home city. In his response to Wordsworth’s invitation he uses rhetorical devices such as hyperboles, personification, and comparisons to blatantly deny Wordsworth.
In Lamb to the Slaughter, Mary Maloney, doting housewife pregnant with her first child, commits a heinous crime against her husband. After he tells her that he is leaving, she become distraught and strikes him in the head with a leg of lamb. Afterwards, Mary...
While on the surface, it may seem understandable that the courts would take away Ella’s child in the wake of her shooting her lover, it actually showcases the cold and impersonal logic upon which the courts operate. Ella’s unforgiving environment stocked with obstacles has forced her to harden herself. She has adapted to an environment that provides her little understanding by hiding any vulnerability or neediness, even to the point that she “turns away the smaller tips, out of pride” (Lines 13-14). Perhaps because of the heavy use of snake imagery, I saw Ella’s struggle to persevere as akin to a wild animal adapting to an unfriendly environment. Ella is a complex character because she can be interpreted in multiple ways, such as “tired and sharp-worded” (Line 2). This poem explores the differences between how a person’s characteristics are viewed with and without understanding
The speaker reflects on the teenage girl’s childhood as she recalls the girl played with “dolls that did pee-pee” (2). This childish description allows the speaker to explain the innocence of the little girl. As a result, the reader immediately feels connected to this cute and innocent young girl. However, the speaker’s diction evolves as the girl grew into a teenager as she proclaims: “She was healthy, tested intelligent, / possessed strong arms and back, / abundant sexual drive and manual dexterity” (7-9). The speaker applies polished language to illustrate the teen. This causes the reader not only to see the girl as an adult, but also to begin to grasp the importance of her situation. The speaker expresses what the bullies told this girl as she explains: “She was advised to play coy, / exhorted to come on hearty” (12-13). The sophisticated diction shifts towards the girl’s oppressors and their cruel demands of her. Because of this, the reader is aware of the extent of the girl’s abuse. The speaker utilizes an intriguing simile as she announces: “Her good nature wore out / like a fan belt” (15-16). The maturity of the speaker’s word choice becomes evident as she uses a simile a young reader would not understand. This keeps the mature reader focused and allows him to fully understand the somberness of this poem. The speaker concludes the poem as she depicts the teenage girl’s appearance at her funeral: “In the casket displayed on satin she lay / with the undertaker’s cosmetics painted on” (19-20). The speaker elects not to describe the dead girl in an unclear and ingenuous manner. Rather, she is very clear and
She begins talking about her childhood and who raised her until she was three years old. The woman who raised her was Thrupkaew’s “auntie”, a distant relative of the family. The speaker remembers “the thick, straight hair, and how it would come around [her] like a curtain when she bent to pick [her] up” (Thrupkaew). She remembers her soft Thai accent, the way she would cling to her auntie even if she just needed to go to the bathroom. But she also remembers that her auntie would be “beaten and slapped by another member of my family. [She] remembers screaming hysterically and wanting it to stop, as [she] did every single time it happened, for things as minor as…being a little late” (Thrupkaew). She couldn’t bear to see her beloved family member in so much pain, so she fought with the only tool she had: her voice. Instead of ceasing, her auntie was just beaten behind closed doors. It’s so heart-breaking for experiencing this as a little girl, her innocence stolen at such a young age. For those who have close family, how would it make you feel if someone you loved was beaten right in front of you? By sharing her story, Thrupkaew uses emotion to convey her feelings about human
Lamb to the Slaughter, by Roald Dahl, instantly grabs a reader’s attention with its grotesque title, ensuing someone’s downfall or failure. The saying “lamb to the slaughter,” usually refers to an innocent person who is ignorantly led to his or her failure. This particular short story describes a betrayal in which how a woman brutally kills her husband after he tells her that he wants a divorce. She then persuades the policemen who rush to the scene to consume the evidence. This action and Patrick’s actions show the theme of betrayal throughout the story which Roald Dahl portrays through the use of point of view, symbolism and black humor.
In the scene where Lamb prepares to execute Dr. Newgate, he is shown a photograph of a drummer boy; a photograph that triggers a traumatic and dark memory in his past. The scene then shifts from the quiet asylum into Lamb’s memories, where he is inside of a hospital tent filled with dying soldiers. Desperately wanting to save them, Lamb kills them all, including the drummer boy. Later on, when the scene returns to the asylum, Lamb is shown to be mentally broken, as he is unable to do anything another than shake his head and say “I saved them all.”. These two short, significant scenes show the powerlessness of humans when they are faced with the mistakes of their past. Silas Lamb is reminded of his actions through the photograph he is shown, which symbolically represents his dark experiences and depicts one of the many people he has killed. As a result, Lamb hides the photograph so he can pretend it doesn’t exist and hide from the guilt it depicts. However, he can no longer hide, as Newgate reveals the photograph to him. The photograph of the drummer boy reminded him of the powerlessness he felt when he tried to “save” his comrades. He was incapable of doing anything once again when he failed to change his actions in the haunting recollection. In both events, Lamb could not do anything, as he did not have the power to work medical miracles or change the past. When he finally understood this, he broke apart mentally and became insane. Lamb conveys the inability of humans to control their past through his own experiences of the past and his dark persona. Moreover, he shows that all humans are powerless and afraid in the face of their past and their