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Literature and Gender
Gender approach to literature
Literature and Gender
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The poem "Open All Night", by Mary Rose O'Reilley is a poem about life which is written in second person, which allows the reader to experience the story on a personal level, and depending on the reader get a different theme from it. It also challenges the reader's skill, and makes the story feel more fresh to read. "Open All Night" has a major theme about life. The theme that sex is a carnal desire.
The reader first finds out about the setting of the poem, which is in a motel off the interstate. The setting of the story helps uncover one of the themes. When people think of motels, they often times think about how a motel is a place that people go to have sex. A motel is cheap and discrete, so the odds of being caught in the act are slim. The second and third lines, both describe the motel. In the
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"Once a confection, wallpaper pink, and flocked with floral bouquets." The choice of diction for the word confection, makes us think of a sweet delicacy of some sort. Along with the visual imagery of the room, which is pink and filled with flowers, makes us think that the room was beautiful in the past. This can be a reference to how sex was in the past, when you first experienced it. It was a beautiful and passion filled act. It could have been an act of love in the past.The following line uses olfactory imagery to describe how sex is now. "A musk of cigarettes, Shalimar, This-Bud's-For-You." The smell of the room is disgusting with the smell of cigarettes and beer, and fake with the scent of perfume. This is describing sex after its lost its true meaning. It eventually loses its thrill, the faces of your lover's become blurred, and the names become
One of the ways the author does this is by using enjambment to make the title and the first line of the poem flow into one single line. This symbolizes how when you are in jail there is no real beginning; one day flows to the next. His extensive use of figurative language, allows for the reader to paint a picture in his or her mind. “... to a dark stage, I lie there awake in my prison bunk.” This line can be interpreted literally and figuratively; he is really in prison in his bunk or it feels so much like a dream that it is as if he were on a stage. However, his diction shows that he has does this often. “...through illimitable tun...
He sets a tone of hopelessness to help understand the characters’ feelings. The poem is based on the painting by Edward Hopper of the same name. The diner was located at “the corner of Empty and Bleak” (Yellen 1) in the “night’s most desolate hour” (Yellen 2), at the time of the night that criminal activities are executed, on the most abandoned corners during the odd hours of the night. The diner’s name is unknown, and the scenery is overly cute, it has no individuality. Just as the streets that are unlit, show no interactions, neither does the diner. The poem’s characters seem to be disconnected; they are “Nighthawks” or night owls. The couple seems to be uncomfortable, the way they sit closer than strangers but do not touch, “His hand lies close, but not touching hers” (Yellen 16). They look emotionally distant as they smoke “A contemplative cigarette” (Yellen 15). The man sitting by himself with a hunched back looked to be challenged by his fate when he “put a gun to his head in Russian roulette” (Yellen 10). Granted, he “won the bet,” (Yellen 11) his posture indicated he is still preoccupied or upset. Even though he may have cheated death this time, dying is
The readers are apt to feel confused in the contrasting ways the woman in this poem has been depicted. The lady described in the poem leads to contrasting lives during the day and night. She is a normal girl in her Cadillac in the day while in her pink Mustang she is a prostitute driving on highways in the night. In the poem the imagery of body recurs frequently as “moving in the dust” and “every time she is touched”. The reference to woman’s body could possibly be the metaphor for the derogatory ways women’s labor, especially the physical labor is represented. The contrast between day and night possibly highlights the two contrasting ways the women are represented in society.
A. Title: The title of this poem suggests that it is about a small country town with one road, most likely in the middle of nowhere. Very few people and very few things around for a person to do with their free time.
Sex is more than just a physical act. It's a beautiful way to express love. When people have sex just to fulfill a physical need, as the poet believes sex outside of love-based relationship only harms and cheapens sex. In the beginning of the poem, Olds brilliantly describe the beauty of sex, and then in the second half of the poem, she continues reference to the cold and aloneness which clearly shows her opinions about causal sex. Through this poem, Sharon Olds, has expressed her complete disrespect for those who would participate in casual sex.
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
Using this choice of words like “then worms shall try” and “…turn to dust”, the speaker essentially tells his mistress that there will be consequences if she does not engage with him. He believes his wit will gain control over his mistress, and her “coyness” will inevitably disappear. In his mind, the repercussions are if she dies without having sex with him, the worms will take her virginity, which can be considered as phallic imagery. In the lines, the worms symbolically mirror the narrator’s male sexual organ. Marvell creates an interesting approach with this daring and disturbing language because the appealing strategy grasps the reader’s attention and explores the question of the extent a person will go to fulfill their sexual desires. While discussing this proposed tight-lipped subject, the tone of the narrator in “To His Coy Mistress” greatly differs from the narrator’s tone in “A Rose for Emily.” The readers can perceive that Marvell’s speaker is intelligent and informed in the sexual category because of his style and word choice. He creates a relaxed tone with his audience, which makes the readers feel comfortable, and he is very clear about what he writes. The direction of the arguments he makes is very undeviating because he goes straight into what he wants
Throughout the poem there is only one narrator, a man or woman. The narrator is of high importance to the one being spoken too, so possibly a girlfriend or boyfriend. This narrator alludes to the idea that dreams and reality can be one in the same. The narrator says, “You are not wrong, who deem/That my days have been a dream;” (Line 4-5). The narrator explains that the moments spent with her have felt almost, if not, a perfect dream. The narrator also says, in the closing lines of the first stanza, “All that we see or seem/Is but a dream within a dream.” (Line 10-11). The narrator concludes like dreams, reality is not controlled; reality is what you make it, or what you see. Moreover, in the second stanza the narrator
This poem dramatizes the conflict between love and lust, particularly as this conflict relates to what the speaker seems to say about last night. In the poem “Last Night” by Sharon Olds, the narrator uses symbolism and sexual innuendo to reflect on her lust for her partner from the night before. The narrator refers to her night by stating, “Love? It was more like dragonflies in the sun, 100 degrees at noon.” (2, 3) She describes it as being not as great as she imagined it to be and not being love, but lust. Olds uses lust, sex and symbolism as the themes in the story about “Last night”.
This change in tone echoes the emotions and mental state of the narrator. At the beginning of the poem, the narrator starts somewhat nervous. However, at the end, he is left insane and delusional. When he hears a knocking at the door, he logically pieces that it is most likely a visitor at the door.
Not only does this personification alter the pace of the poem, but the fact that the woman’s breasts – important sexual organs and symbols of female sexuality – are portrayed as sleeping conveys a lack of arousal and general desire, particularly on the behalf of the woman. This sense of a lack of desire between the gypsy and the woman is communicated later in the poem through the description of the characters’ undressing before they begin to have sex:
...he wall, he thinks about his rejected opportunities and his unbearable regret. As he sobers with terror, the final blow will come from the realization that his life is ending in his catacombs dying with his finest wine. The catacombs, in which he dies, set the theme, and relate well with the story. Without the yellow wallpaper in the short story, the significance of the wallpaper would not mater, nor would it set the theme or plot. At night the wallpaper becomes bars, and the wallpaper lets her see herself as a women and her desire to free herself. She needs to free herself from the difficulties of her husband, and from her sickness. The settings in both, set up the elements of the stories and ads to the effect in both of the short stories.
"They turn casually to look at you, distracted, and get a mild distracted surprise, you're gone. Their blank look tells you that the girl they were fucking is not there anymore. You seem to have disappeared.(pg.263)" In Minot's story Lust you are play by play given the sequential events of a fifteen year old girls sex life. As portrayed by her thoughts after sex in this passage the girl is overly casual about the act of sex and years ahead of her time in her awareness of her actions. Minot's unique way of revealing to the reader the wild excursions done by this young promiscuous adolescent proves that she devalues the sacred act of sex. Furthermore, the manner in which the author illustrates to the reader these acts symbolizes the likeness of a list. Whether it's a list of things to do on the weekend or perhaps items of groceries which need to be picked up, her lust for each one of the boys in the story is about as well thought out and meaningful as each item which has carelessly and spontaneously been thrown on to a sheet of paper as is done in making a list. This symbolistic writing style is used to show how meaningless these relationships were but the deeper meaning of why she acted the way she did is revealed throughout the story. Minot cleverly displayed these catalysts in between the listings of her relationships.
A specific example of a man who tosses three girls out the window and then plunges to his own death serves to show us the horror of the situation. the poem then continues on to tell us of in humane conditions in Scotland. It ends by telling us about the slaves who picked and planted the cotton. The speaker seems to be telling us a story in order to inform us of what's going on in the shirt industry.Robert Pinsky doesn't have many obvious examples of diction in his work, although hints of it can be found. There is a simile in the first line of the tenth stanza.
These lines may seem confusing if not read properly. At first look, these might not make sense because the night is acquainted with darkness, but when the lines are read together as intended, one can see that the night is “cloudless” and filled with “starry skies” (1, 1-2). The remaining lines of the first stanza tell the reader that the woman's face and eyes combine all the greatness of dark and light: