Within literature, many poets consider life, the hardships individuals endure, and the hope that exists during these trials. Poets who discuss such topics include John Milton and Lorna Goodison. Lorna Goodison examines the hope and understanding that exists during tribulation in “I shall light a Candle of Understanding in Thine Heart.” Through her use of imagery, symbolism, and poetic structure, Goodison emphasizes this overarching concept of hope and comprehension. Goodison presents an image of hedges and thickets, which illustrates the importance of tribulations. Throughout their lives, individuals can build hedges to block out the hardships of life, but this only hinders their growth and development. Individuals do not recognize the importance of understanding the processes of life, nor do they experience complete shelter from the world by planting such hedges. Even with these hedges, thickets will arise and obscure their path. These thickets serve as unexpected good fortunes that individuals encounter through facing tribulation. In order to gain hope, wisdom, and understanding, one must expose himself or herself to the world and believe they will receive these great fortunes. With every tribulation, humankind faces a candle of understanding/ hope will illuminate (Goodison 4-9). To draw connections between the lighting of the candle and persevering through tribulation Goodison presents various images of tribulation. These images help to emphasize the understanding that can exist when persevering through trials. In the first stanza, Goodison presents images of mending fences, paying debts, and discovering ones true friends. These images illustrate the diverse array of tribulation individuals will face throughou... ... middle of paper ... ...s as a very challenging and enduring process that everyone must experience and comprehend. Through her use of imagery, symbolism, and a unique poetic structure Goodison demonstrates that humankind can find hope and peace through God’s trust. God’s hand will light the candle of understanding within the hearts’ of all humankind to help them cope with tribulations. The manmade hedges that individuals try to construct will not prove beneficial, for misfortune and fortune will befall all despite their precautionary measures, and the light that God supplies will bring hope, confidence, and comprehension to all humankind who accepts this candle. Works Cited Goodison, Lorna. “I Shall Light a Candle of Understanding in Thine Heart”. The Norton Anthology of World Literature. Ed. Sarah Lawall. 2nd ed. Vol. f. New York: Norton, 2002. 2136. Print.
When individuals face obstacles in life, there is often two ways to respond to those hardships: some people choose to escape from the reality and live in an illusive world. Others choose to fight against the adversities and find a solution to solve the problems. These two ways may lead the individuals to a whole new perception. Those people who decide to escape may find themselves trapped into a worse or even disastrous situation and eventually lose all of their perceptions and hops to the world, and those who choose to fight against the obstacles may find themselves a good solution to the tragic world and turn their hopelessness into hopes. Margaret Laurence in her short story Horses of the Night discusses the idea of how individual’s responses
McQuade, Donald, ed. The Harper American Literature. Harper & Row Publishers: New York, 1987, pp. 1308-1311. This paper is the property of NetEssays.Net Copyright © 1999-2002
Each literary work portrays something different, leaving a unique impression on all who read that piece of writing. Some poems or stories make one feel happy, while others are more solemn. This has very much to do with what the author is talking about in his or her writing, leaving a bit of their heart and soul in the work. F. Scott Fitzgerald, when writing The Great Gatsby, wrote about the real world, yet he didn’t paint a rosy picture for the reader. The same can be said about T.S. Eliot, whose poem “The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock,” presents his interpretation of hell. Both pieces of writing have many similarities, but the most similar of them all is the tone of each one.
It is easy to place the blame on fate or God when one is encumbered by suffering. It is much harder to find meaning in that pain, and harvest it into motivation to move forward and grow from the grief. It is imperative for one to understand one’s suffering as a gateway to new wisdom and development; for without suffering, people cannot find true value in happiness nor can they find actual meaning to their lives. In both Antigone and The Holy Bible there are a plethora of instances that give light to the quintessential role suffering plays in defining life across cultures. The Holy Bible and Sophocles’ Antigone both mirror the dichotomous reality in which society is situated, underlining the necessity of both joy and suffering in the world.
"A Separate Peace." Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Vol. 3. New York: Marshall Cavendish Corp., 1993.
Literature has been a medium for getting messages across for centuries. Various authors from Aesop to Shakespeare have used writing as a vehicle to get a message across to their audiences. All of these authors are widely respected and admired for their works. One author who transcends her peers and breaks away from traditional secular teaching is Flannery O’Connor. She is widely known for her usage of Christian themes to get across a message of our worlds need for a savior in Jesus Christ. Her style of writing is unique in that she conveys spiritual messages in everyday, fun-to-read stories. This is important as it creates a medium in which she can spread the gospel in a clever manner. Image books stated, “Her expert craftsmanship, her uncanny ability for characterization, the depth and intensity of her morality-combined in strict discipline-make her one of this generation’s most respected authors” (Books, Image 1). Flannery O’Connor uses various themes to get across a religious message, but the two that have a large impact are grace and suffering. The themes of grace and suffering can be seen in her short stories, “A Good Man Is Hard To Find”, “The River”, and “The Lame Shall Enter First”. The themes of grace and suffering in Flannery O’Connor’s short stories are used to represent Jesus Christ dying on the cross for our sins.
In Emily Dickinson’s “Because I Could Not Stop for Death,” she uses the structure of her poem and rhetoric as concrete representation of her abstract beliefs about death to comfort and encourage readers into accepting Death when He comes. The underlying theme that can be extracted from this poem is that death is just a new beginning. Dickinson deftly reassures her readers of this with innovative organization and management, life-like rhyme and rhythm, subtle but meaningful use of symbolism, and ironic metaphors.
...hing “bad” happened they found a way to rejoice in the suffering. The Puritan believers were selfish with sharing their faith. A plantation missionary stated that sharing the gospel to slaves would “promote our own mortality and religion.” However the gospel and religion the masters shared with their slaves did not remain the same. The slaves were able to apply their faith to their lives, their work, and their future. The faith the slaves possessed was rich in emotion and free from preexisting regulations. In this class we focus on the many faces and interoperations of Christ that change with the seasons of history. The slave faith represented in Jupiter Hammon’s poem shows a high level of integrity and selfless, personal application of faith. The emotion and need for Christ the slaves had during this time created a new realm of relationship in the evangelical era.
The Web. 16 April 2012. http://www.ferterryfulton.org/History/Chapter_16/Chapter%2016% 20The%20Church%20in%20the%20Age%20of%20Enlightenment%20and%20Revolution.htm> Lawall, Sarah, and Chinua Achebe. The Norton Anthology: World Literature. Shorter Second Edition.
As the first poem in the book it sums up the primary focus of the works in its exploration of loss, grieving, and recovery. The questions posed about the nature of God become recurring themes in the following sections, especially One and Four. The symbolism includes the image of earthly possessions sprawled out like gangly dolls, a reference possibly meant to bring about a sense of nostalgia which this poem does quite well. The final lines cement the message that this is about loss and life, the idea that once something is lost, it can no longer belong to anyone anymore brings a sense...
At first glance Edna St. Vincent Millay's first recognized poem, Renascence, seems to be easy to understand and follow. However, as this sing-songy poem is dissected, the reader embarks upon a world full of emotion, religion, confusion, pain and sin. This poem is split up into six sections or stanzas which separate the action of the poem into easy to understand parts. I have chosen to discuss the first section of the poem for my close reading.
["What I have written is not a work of beauty, created that someone may spend an hour pleasantly; not a symphony to lift up the spirit, to release it from the dreariness of reality. It is a story of a life, written in desperation, in unhappiness. I write of the earth on which we all, by some strange circumstance, happen to be living. I write of the joys and sorrows of the lowly. Of loneliness. Of pain. And of love." Smedley 7).]
Through her many allegories, Hurnard echoes God’s call for His children to joyfully love, trust, and obey Him. She encourages her readers through the call of the Shepherd to strive after true satisfying love by forsaking thei...
Many, including I, have heard this statement a thousand times, “I have so much to do and so little time.” This statement explains what two poets were trying to say through their poems. In the poems, Death Be Not Proud by John Donne, and Because I Could Not Stop for Death by Emily Dickinson, the power that death has over one’s life and the power that one has over death becomes a race for time. Both poems explained death in two different perspectives but both still showed the underlying current that death cannot be stopped. With the use of symbolizations and metaphors, both authors show the power of death.
Candles have been used all the way back to 3000 B.C., when Egyptians used torches to see in the dark. The Romans would cover papyrus in beeswax or tallow to see in the church, when traveling and at their residence. In the Colonial times, women found out that they could make candles from bayberry bushes that produced wax. “In 1834, inventor Joseph Morgan helped further the modern day candle industry by developing a machine that allowed for continuous production of molded candles by using a cylinder with a movable piston to eject candles as they solidified” (National Candle Association). In the mid 1850’s, Paraffin wax, which is the main ingredient in most candles today, was invented. It was made with petroleum or oil. It was popular because