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To kill a mockingbird examples of symbolism
To kill a mockingbird examples of symbolism
To kill a mockingbird examples of symbolism
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"Forgiving My Father", a poem written by Lucille Clifton, is about a relationship between a daughter and her father. Lucille Clifton is a female poet/author for several poems and children 's book. She was born in 1936 "in a small town near Buffalo, New York"; she attended Howard University, and she earned her teaching degree at Fredonia State Teacher 's College. She won numerous awards and recognitions, including an Emmy, for her works. She died in 2010 after a long battle with cancer. "Forgiving My Father" is part of the collection in her 1980 book Two-Headed Woman (Schilb and Clifford 270). In this poem, Clifton described a daughter 's memories of her father led her to become angry with him, sympathize with him, and eventually forgive him. The poem starts out with the daughter 's visit to her father and demand for money; an old memory is haunting the daughter. feeding off her anger. The daughter calls the father "a ghost [who] stood in [her] dreams," indicating that he is dead and she is now reliving an unpleasant childhood memory as she stands in front of his …show more content…
She calls him "old lecher/old liar", which means when he was alive the father often made empty promises of false hope about mending everything, but the family could no longer wait for him (Clifton 9, 10). She wishes that her father was rich, so he would have money to pay the mother when she asks for his salary on Friday; he would be able to repay the mother all she deserved being his wife. The impatient tone is still there, but it is more mellow. Rather than expecting her father to cough up the money like before, she now wishes that he has the money. This is the turning point. In addition, the daughter explains how her father has grew up in the same circumstances, "son of a needy father,/the father of a needy son" (Clifton 12,13). She admits that her father "gave … all he had" even though it was not much (Clifton
She starts by telling us what she thinks the dead are doing. She is putting this picture in the reader’s head of dead down by the river drinking to start out the poem. The second line and the beginning of the third line talking about unburdening themselves of their fears and worries for us makes the reader think of someone that has passed that they knew. By saying this, she is trying to get the point across that the dead are thinking of us, like we think of them. The thought of the dead still caring and worried about us will later be strengthened in the poem when the writer starts using memories in the poem. Mitchell then says “They take out the old photographs.” she starts using memories to start making feelings more deep. Lines four and five continue this, stating “They pat the lines in our hands and tell our futures, which are cracked and yellow.”. These lines contain a metaphor comparing our futures to something cracked and yellow. Her directly stating that our futures are cracked and yellow, gives a very depressing vibe. This is foreshadowing that she is depressed about something, that we will later find about at the end of the poem. In the first five lines of the poem, the writer is talking about the the dead and what they are doing. Even though she doesn’t really know what they are doing, she puts a picture in our
The speaker’s personal emotions emphasizes the poem’s theme since although his father is no longer with him in this world, the memory of his father will always live in his heart. Throughout the poem, Lee uses the sky, underground, and the heart to symbolize imagination, reality, and memory—emphasizing the poem’s theme of the remembrance of a loved one. Lee also uses repetition to convey the meaning of Little Father. The speaker repeatedly mentions “I buried my father…Since then…” This repetition displays the similarity in concepts, however the contrast in ideas. The first stanza focuses on the spiritual location of the speaker’s father, the second stanza focuses on the physical location of the father, and the third stanza focuses on the mental location of the speaker’s father. This allows the reader to understand and identify the shift in ideas between each stanza, and to connect these different ideas together—leading to the message of despite where the loved one is (spiritually or physically), they’ll always be in your heart. The usage of word choice also enables the reader to read in first person—the voice of the speaker. Reading in the voice of the speaker allows the reader to see in the perspective of the speaker and to connect with the speaker—understand
The poem consists of two stanzas, the first in the past, and the second in the present. But the images of conflict in the poem continue, showing how the parent-child relationship hardly changes over time and is still ridden with strain. An uneasy feeling is developed in the poem through the use of enjambment, creating the lack of any rhythm. The absence of a rhyme scheme further adds to this. This could have been done by the Clarke to mirror the uneasy conflict present in the poem between the mother and daughter. However, it could also represent the natural and sporadic emotions of the mother or even a personal experience of the author. The poem is also named “Catrin” after the daughter, but the name is never used in the stanzas. This may have been done to show that the mother and daughter are so close that they do not address each other by their
It sounds like her father’s death made her angrier at the fact that she is not able to get anything from him anymore. There are several times in the poem when she switches emotions on her father. She forgives him and then is angry again. It’s hard for her because she does not know whether or not she can forgive him, considering all the pain and hardships the family was put through. She tries to justify her father’s actions by blaming his father, but is still angry because her father didn’t help the situation. At the same time, the daughter is almost as upset with her mother as she is with her father when she says “you were each other’s bad bargain, not mine” (Line 21). By the end of the poem, she is able to accept the fact that the broken relationship with her father and content relationship with her mother has to remain untouched. She is able to see that she cannot fully blame her father for being the reason why she is not emotionally content with their relationship. There’s nothing she can do about it now since both her parents are dead, but she is able to let go of it at this
The poem is written in the father’s point of view; this gives insight of the father’s character and
The speakers father was not much involved in the speakers life. In fact he was always outsized in the speakers life bank account. The speakers father might be a huge disappointment to the speaker as a father. This might might be for several reasons. May be the father was abusive to his daughter as well as her mother, maybe he was a person who drink, or maybe her father is a gambler and that result his family to not have food to eat. This caused the speaker pain that she can’t forgive describing him as “debt” a debt that can never be paid of. Lastly the speaker at the end the speaker pointed out one last piece of financial metaphor. She stated that “what am i doing he collecting? You lie side by side in debtor’s boxes and no accounting will open them up” this particular line is significant money metaphor in the poem. In line 3 and 4 the speaker says “ all week you have….. Asking for more time” the speaker emphasizes “like a ghost” specifying the death of her father. She also indicated down in the second stanza her father's death stating that the time has passed to forgive her father. It is significant because it is where the speaker realized it is late to be angry at her father and those debts cannot be collected as her father
At the beginning of the poem, the speaker starts by telling the reader the place, time and activity he is doing, stating that he saw something that he will always remember. His description of his view is explained through simile for example “Ripe apples were caught like red fish in the nets of their branches” (Updike), captivating the reader’s attention
Although the little girl doesn’t listen to the mother the first time she eventually listens in the end. For example, in stanzas 1-4, the little girl asks if she can go to the Freedom March not once, but twice even after her mother had already denied her the first time. These stanzas show how the daughter is a little disobedient at first, but then is able to respect her mother’s wishes. In stanzas 5 and 6, as the little girl is getting ready the mother is happy and smiling because she knows that her little girl is going to be safe, or so she thinks. By these stanzas the reader is able to tell how happy the mother was because she thought her daughter would be safe by listening to her and not going to the March. The last two stanzas, 7 and 8, show that the mother senses something is wrong, she runs to the church to find nothing, but her daughter’s shoe. At this moment she realizes that her baby is gone. These stanzas symbolize that even though her daughter listened to her she still wasn’t safe and is now dead. The Shoe symbolizes the loss the mother is going through and her loss of hope as well. This poem shows how elastic the bond between the daughter and her mother is because the daughter respected her mother’s wish by not going to the March and although the daughter is now dead her mother will always have her in her heart. By her having her
The poem begins with a childlike tone, misleading the reader on the upcoming subject matter. The first line echoes a nursery rhyme, feeling like a charm against some brooding curse. “You do not do, you do not do/ anymore black shoe” (lines 1-2). Metaphorically, the shoe is a trap, smothering the foot. The adjective “black” suggests the idea of death, thus it can relate to a coffin. The speaker feels a submissiveness and entrapment by her father. In an attempt to rid herself of the restriction in her own life, she must destroy the memory of her father. “Daddy, I have to kill you” (line 3). However, the description of the father as “marble-heavy” and “ghastly statue” reveals the ambivalence of her attitude, for he is also associated with the beauty of the sea. The speaker reacts with hate to her father who had made her suffer by dying at such a point in her development.
In the first line of the poem, it really sets up what the situation is and what the child’s initial feelings towards the father are like. “Come on ...
It goes from admiring the father in the photo, to being hurt by her mother’s emotions in the family. In the beginning, it quotes, “He looks like Errol Flynn” (Stanza 1), which was a very famous man at that time. A lot of men wanted to be him and women wanting to be with him. Therefore, he was a player. This shows that she thought very highly of her father. Also foreshadowing, he is a player like Errol Flynn. But as the poem goes on, it starts to shift to talking about her mother. The first thing she said about her mother is that “She is not crying,” (Stanza 2), which shows that she significantly remembers her mother crying in her childhood, but has to explain that she is not at this moment. Since normally, people remember the good times when looking at an old photo, she remembered her mother was hurt, shows she is also hurting. It is not easy seeing mothers cry, therefore, it must have pained her knowing her mother always cries knowing her father is out cheating, then confronting him, but end up only forgetting about it and has to live with all that pain for the child. As the shift as the poem went from admiring to hurt, it leads up to the
The poem is written completely in lowercase letters, which makes the harsh diction appear less severe; furthermore, the speaker’s regret is illuminated although she is attempting to keep it concealed. The employment of the lowercase letters effectively demonstrates the ambiguity of the work itself which raises questions about how the narrator truly feels, which is regret. This theme is also highlighted when the narrator states, “You have stood in my dreams/like a ghost” (3-4). This quote further exemplifies the sensation of regret because a ghost is unable to pay his earthly debts, and this haunting brings guilt and regret to the forefront of the speaker’s mind. The ghost not only symbolizes regret, but the worriment that the speaker endures due to the unpaid debts and lack of care during her childhood. While regret has grown from the hatred the narrator has for her father, she begins to understand that dwelling on her father’s wrongdoings will not change the
The main line that directs the poems feelings is "The wraith of Love's sweet Rose is here, It haunts me everywhere! ". The ghost of "Love's sweet rose" is in my life and mind. The ghost of that rose is in my presents and is with her everywhere she goes.
mother even though he did not rarely had any money to give. Throughout the poem the daughter showed criticism towards her father. Throughout the poem words such as bills, payday, rich, pocket, do and accounting were used as other words to describe money as an extended metaphor in the poem. (Clifton, forgiving my father) Although the story was centered around forgiveness, money was still a large theme of the poem. It was made very clear that the major reason for the daughter despising her father was due to the low money he brought home to her and her mother. The daughter claimed that there will never be enough time for her father to pay all the debt he owed to his family. Poverty has played a major role in this particular story of a relationship
Throughout the poem the reader can identify many different examples of imagery being used to convey the theme. For her the chair is one of the most important items that holds a special place in her heart because her dad would always sit on it. It being empty shows how empty her life is after her father’s death. Also, while the poet puts on her father’s blue cardigan, she feels cold in the dark. This shows the loneliness and sadness she feels after losing her father. Another example is when she says the hot July afternoon her father is wearing