Gary Soto’s poem, The Red Palm, opens by evoking the dream like quality of the monotony of working in a cotton field, where chopping and swinging a hoe in the hot sun becomes as much a part of you as breathing, “You raise a hoe, swing, and the first weeds / Fall with a sigh. You take another step, / Chop, and the sigh comes again, / Until you yourself are breathing that way.” Red Palm is about a farm laborer whose ability to feed his family is measured in the rows of cotton he chops and weeds he hoes from dawn to dusk. He works for the whole day in the cotton field, the sun shining very brightly, hot and burning like the red blisters emerging on his palms. There are quite a number of figures of speech in this poem, like this metaphor, “The
No more picking wildflowers. Now she is aware of the horror that her people experienced and continually experience. In paragraph 3, another indicator of race struggle is made evident. Toward the end, Maypop notices “the tiny white bubbles disrupt the thin black scale of soil” which is a big color contrast. Notably, between black and
Though in his short life Stephen Crane was never a soldier, his novel The Red Badge of Courage was commended by Civil War veterans as well as veterans from more recent wars not only for its historical accuracy but its ability to capture the psychological evolution of those on the field of battle (Heizberg xvi). Walt Whitman, on the other hand, served as a field medic during the Civil War. He was exposed perhaps to the most gruesome aspect of the war on a daily basis: the primitive medical techniques, the wounded, the diseased, the dying and the dead. Out of his experiences grew a collection of poems, "Drum Taps" , describing the horrors he had witnessed and that America suffered. As literary artists, a wide chasm of structure and style separates Crane and Whitman. The common cultural experience, the heritage of the Civil War connects them, throwing a bridge across the darkness, allowing them, unilaterally, to dispel notions of glorious battles and heroic honorable deaths. By examining Crane's Henry Fleming and the wound dresser from 'Whitman's poem of the same name, both fundamental literary differences and essential thematic consistencies emerge.
Didion paints uneasy and somber images when describing the Santa Ana winds. “There is something uneasy in the Los Angeles air… some unnatural stillness, some tension,” starts the essay off with the image of Los Angeles people in a sense of stillness or tense. She further adds, “Blowing up sandstorms out along Route 66… we will see smoke back in the canyons, and hear sirens in the night,” propagating the uneasy and stark image of Los Angeles. “The baby frets. The maid sulks,” she adds, giving a depressing view into the effects of the Santa Ana winds on people. Didion, in an attempt to show the craziness associated with the Santa Ana winds, points out the Indians who throw themselves into the sea when bad winds came. At any rate, Didion attempts to show the negative effects of the Santa Ana winds through images of stillness, uneasiness, and sobriety.
In the essay of Mr.Gary Soto, we learn about his experiences about falling in love with someone of a different race. Ever since he was young, he would be lectured that marrying a Mexican women would be the best option for his life. Gary’s grandmother would always proclaim: “... the virtues of marrying a Mexican girl: first, she could cook,second, she acted like a woman, not a man, in her husband’s home” (pp.219). Being conditioned into the notion that all Mexican woman have been trained to be proper women, Mr. Soto set out on finding his brown eyed girl; however, what love had quite a different plan. This paper will cover three different themes Gary’s essay: The tone, the mindset of the character’s mindsets, and the overall message of the
Bend low, bend low, then bend lower. The wind blow one way, you bow that way. It blow the other way, you do, too. That is the way to survive” (McCormick, 33). The brittle and weak grass represents “survival” in both, literal and metaphoric contexts. Before the reign of the rebel group, Khmer Rouge, Cambodia is described as a close knit ‘village’ of sorts, with children playing freely amongst nature alongside scenic patches of greenery. In a pre-genocide era, this greenery is a representation of safety and survival – whereby the Cambodians had autonomy over their affairs and security matters. Albeit, after the rebellious ‘revolution’, McCormick brilliantly juxtaposes the landscapes. Arn is keen to note the dirt, mud, dry terrain, foul odour and darkness in the fields. Thus, his formula for survival demonstrates a highly aware understanding of the circumstance. ‘Bending like grass’ depicts an erosion of self-will and the fragility of human life. Moreover, Arn’s heightened understanding can also be
He described the fields of Ohio’s villages in autumn and their beauty. He described the “apples ripe”, the “grapes on the trellis’d vines”, “the sky so calm”. so transparent after the rain”. He made us feel as if we were smelling the grapes, the buckwheat and touch them. He made us hear the buzzing of the bees.
By presenting the competing sets of industrial and rural values, Jewett's "A White Heron" gives us a rich and textured story that privileges nature over industry. I think the significance of this story is that it gives us an urgent and emphatic view about nature and the dangers that industrial values and society can place upon it and the people who live in it. Still, we are led to feel much like Sylvia. I think we are encouraged to protect nature, cherish our new values and freedoms, and resist the temptations of other influences that can tempt us to destroy and question the importance of the sublime gifts that living in a rural world can bestow upon us.
Figurative Language in used throughout poems so the reader can develop a further understanding of the text. In “The Journey” the author uses rhythm and metaphors throughout the poem. “...as you left their voices behind, the stars began to burn through the sheets of the clouds..”(25-27). The author compares the star burning to finding your voice. Rhythm also develops the theme of the poem because throughout the story rhythm is presented as happy showing growing up and changing for the better is necessary and cheerful. In “The Laughing Heart” the author uses imagery and metaphors to develop the theme throughout the book. “There is a light somewhere. It may not be much light but it beats the darkness”(5-7). Always find the good out of everything, even it
The story opens by embracing the reader with a relaxed setting, giving the anticipation for an optimistic story. “…with the fresh warmth of a full summer day; the flowers were blossoming profusely and the grass was richly green (p.445).”
Every person is likely to feel a sense of discontentment at some point . This feeling could stem from many different aspects of a person’s life such as their job, house, financial situation, etc, and this in turn inspires an incentive to do something else with their life. In “Saturday at the Canal” , Gary Soto utilizes various literary devices including imagery, symbolism, and personification. These literary devices serve to convey the feeling of desire and motivation to pursue life’s journey.
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
The visual imagery through the descriptive language paints an image of crops starting to grow in the shade and suburban areas. The harsh, unforgiving and dangerous Australian environment is illustrated through Henry Lawson’s short story ‘In a Dry Season’ through descriptive language and visual
In Galway Kinnell’s “Blackberry Eating,” the author utilizes several literary devices that enhance the symbolic meaning behind the poem. Kinnell uses repeated alliterations throughout the poem through several constant uses of soft sounds that are interrupted quickly by heard sounds to produce pathos for the readers. The slow rhythm of the poem creates a sense within the readers of savoring the blackberries of the poem. The whole poem is an extended metaphor that represents the relationship of tangible blackberries and intangible words. Through sensory imagery, including sight, touch and taste; the author creates a parallel to both the reader’s senses and the word that are contained within the poem. This style that the author has created formulates
He uses personifications specifically in this poem to write about what is going on and to describe things. “It's a hard life where the sun looks”(19)...”And its black strip of highway, big eyed/with rabbits that won’t get across ”(2)...”A pot bangs and water runs in the kitchen” (13) None of these are really human body parts on things such as the sun, a pot, or a highway, but they help describe what something does or what something looks like. In the first instance, the sun cannot actually look at something, but it could mean that the sun is visible to the humans, and if humans are out for a long time in the sun, they can get hot and exhausted. For the second line, the big-eyed highway could mean that the highway has many cars with bright headlights that are dangerous for the rabbits, the immigrants, to get across. For the third and final line, pots are not able to bang things on their own, and it could have possibly been a human who made the pot bang, preparing the meal of beans and brown soup that they survive on. There is also a simile in this poem, “Papa's field that wavered like a mirage” (24). This simile could suggest that the wind is moving the grass or crops on his father’s field and looked like an optical illusion. According to Gale Virtual Reference Library, the literary device, “tone” is used to convey the significant change of the author’s feeling in the poem. In the beginning lines, the tone is happy. The poem talks about nostalgia of when he was little, “They leap barefoot to the store. Sweetness on their tongues, red stain of laughter (5-6). (GVRL) These lines illustrate the nostalgia and happy times of Gary Soto’s life when he was probably a child. However, after line 11, the tone becomes more of a negative one. Soto later talks about Farm Laborers and how the job was not a great one. After line 19, a brighter
The sunset was not spectacular that day. The vivid ruby and tangerine streaks that so often caressed the blue brow of the sky were sleeping, hidden behind the heavy mists. There are some days when the sunlight seems to dance, to weave and frolic with tongues of fire between the blades of grass. Not on that day. That evening, the yellow light was sickly. It diffused softly through the gray curtains with a shrouded light that just failed to illuminate. High up in the treetops, the leaves swayed, but on the ground, the grass was silent, limp and unmoving. The sun set and the earth waited.