How pleasurable is the month of February for those who are are lucky enough to have a romantic partner to share Valentine's Day with? Single folks, however don't have much cause to care about this time of year, it might even be a least favorite of all. A close reading of Margaret Atwood’s poem, “February” guides readers into the psyche of a woman who is starving for a resurgence of love but eschews from confessing so. To begin an analysis of this poem, one must consider the literary connotations that could be drawn from the subject of winter. Although February is the shortest month of the year, it can often times feel as if it were the most drawn-out with its arctic conditions. Interestingly, this speaker utters her lonely temperament in a …show more content…
Her waking thought is that it’s still winter and because it is so- she knows exactly what to expect. She proceeds with, “Time to eat fat and watch hockey,” that for her a day in February comes with it an attachment of common tradition. Not only is this time of year predictable, but there’s little hope of the speaker breaking out of it. From the get-go she pilots her thoughts to believe today is just an ordinary day of gloom. When her friendly cat jumps on the bed, the speaker just goes on to say that she knows what to expect; “The cat…jumps up on the bed and tries to get onto my head. It’s his way of telling whether or not I’m dead. If I’m not, he wants to be scratched; if I am He’ll think of something.” The emphasis of these events, is that through a voice of exasperation and sarcasm a reader transmitted a 'masquerade impression': that the speaker doesn’t think anything significant is down the line. It's likelier a reader would suspect that the speaker is disguising her emotional weakness. Certainly the oppressiveness of February may be where the speaker’s state of lethargy could be emanating from. She says for herself that, “February [is the], month of despair, with a skewered heart in the centre.” While the month of February romanticizes on love and the blossoming of relationships, the speaker’s reality is quite different. The speaker's exasperated tone widens this poem’s theme in that she is …show more content…
In doing so, she lays forth her sensitivity without having to plainly acknowledge it. For instance, the speaker takes advantage of the cat to relay her state of idleness without plainly saying she’s desperate for sex. In brief, the cat can be utilized to feature the speaker’s longing for comfort. Following this convention the speaker then ambiguously describes the cat as, “Purring like a washboard,” understating the speaker’s sexual repression. She is talking about both the cat's casual nature and her never-ending winter of sexual absence needs to change. Accordingly she mentions lust in a twofold manner; “Dire thoughts, and [a] lust for French fries with a splash of vinegar,” projects more than its literal interpretation but more significantly a phallic symbol. As a result it that which the speaker believes she must reject is without a doubt candid language and communication. Ambiguous language is the speaker's protective armor used to fend off her lonely soul from winter's harsh conditions. Thus by exclaiming, “Cat, enough of your greedy whining and your small pink bumhole. Off my face! You’re the life principle, more or less,” she employs ambiguity yet again. Demanding control over and the change of a stumpy cat in place of her own soul is quite an indicator which proves her desolation. Indeed, using ambiguous language to speak in puzzles makes
Particularly, you can analyze that this quote contains a strong voice that can be portrayed as descriptive. She uses a handful of adjectives that foreshadow the character’s personalities.
She starts her poem by addressing her dead brother Johnny and gives a series of complaints about the condition of her kitchen. Just like what happens to many people, she recounts how they hesitate to undertake their responsibilities and blame them on other people or circumstances. She gives the ordinary excuses of a lazy person, accusing the presence of the mess in her kitchen rather than her indolence. She claims the crusty dishes have piled up while it is she or her guests piled them in the sink. She expects the plumber to repair the drainage although she didn't even call him. She would probably have a better kitchen if she called the plumber and then washed the dirty dishes. Instead of taking action, she stands, watches, and then blames everything else apart from herself. She recounts that is the ordinary thing that people do, and before she could solve her kitchen mess she drifts to another distraction and notices that it's already winter. Ideally, people will find tons of distraction but will not find time to accomplish their
This poem holds many metaphors and symbols pertaining to how certain seasons make people feel. She compares the feeling of nature with her personal feelings of being alone after having so many lovers. In “What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why” Millay reminisces back to a time when she had one lover after another. She cries because she lost them all and instead of opening her heart to them and offering her love, she remained closed off and simply enjoyed the physical connections. Edna St. Vincent Millay may have imagined a speaker for this poem, but she makes it seem as if it is coming from her own personal experiences.
In this moment, it is apparent that Lucy Snowe has undergone a momentous shift reflected in the diction, which portrays the passing of a violent, and tumultuous storm. Indeed, Snowe’s conflict mirrors that of the storm as she finds herself
For each seasonal section, there is a progression from beginning to end within the season. Each season is compiled in a progressive nature with poetry describing the beginning of a season coming before poetry for the end of the season. This is clear for spring, which starts with, “fallen snow [that] lingers on” and concludes with a poet lamenting that “spring should take its leave” (McCullough 14, 39). The imagery progresses from the end of winter, with snow still lingering around to when the signs of spring are disappearing. Although each poem alone does not show much in terms of the time of the year, when put into the context of other poems a timeline emerges from one season to the next. Each poem is linked to another poem when it comes to the entire anthology. By having each poem put into the context of another, a sense of organization emerges within each section. Every poem contributes to the meaning of a group of poems. The images used are meant to evoke a specific point in each season from the snow to the blossoms to the falling of the blossoms. Since each poem stands alone and has no true plot they lack the significance than if they were put into th...
To begin with, her poem Spring shows readers her true thoughts on the season. During this poem she analyzed that a beautiful month like April, can still remind her of death. In line 9-15 it states, “It is apparent that there is no death. But what does that signify? Not only underground are the brains of men- Eaten by maggots.
The poem's speaker mistreated,gloomy and being isolated. She is a person who loss and assimilation if not loose your self. “That this
As serene as the speaker may try to appear in the poem “Changes” by D. Ginette Clarke, Clarke’s “calm” way of delivering the speakers message unintentionally brings forward his eager and desperate side; and this is revealed by Clarke’s use of the repetition of words. To begin, D. Ginette Clarke writes the poem with a distinguished amount of words in which she repeats. She does this to show that the persona is eager to get some answers and clarification as to why his relationship with this person has ended. The first line of the first stanza says “Speak to me” (Clarke, 1), and the obvious question of who the speaker is speaking to is soon revealed: “While last year you were my friend? / More than my friend, my confidante, my soul-be” (6-7). Later, Clarke beings to reveal the curiosity of the persona by using question marks. The speaker begins to constantly ask questions like “Why? / Why is it now we can’t talk together / Why must you tell him that secret?” (3,...
There are many female writers, some known better than other. Female writes most of the time focused their stories in experiences or personal point of view on what is going on around them. Other women write fiction of unusual worlds and character that people can relate to with the struggle or experiences. Margaret Atwood the “Canadian nationalist poetess is a prominebt figure concerned with the need for a new language to explore relations between subjects and society“ (Omid, Pyeaam 1). Atwood wrote her first novel called, “The Edible Woman”; this first novel categorized her as feminist, based on the main character of a strong woman. In an interview with Emma Brockes, Atwood affirms, "First of all, what is feminism? Second, which branch of it? Am I against women having rights? Actually, no. Am I really a puppet of the women's movement? No, I'm too old for that. I've been writing since 1956 and there was no women's movement in sight at the time”. Atwood does stands for women’s right but she never thought of being feminist while writing her stories. Atwood writes about strong women because just like any other female they are tired of reading about weak and submissive woman in books. Is clear that Atwood began writing before the woman movement started and that means she was ahead of her time. Atwood’s works is not just feminist her works represents her art and the way she feel about the world. Margaret Atwood is a poet, critic, novelist, and activist. Atwood’s stands for issues that trouble her and that she sees that are obstacles for her community. Through her entire writing career peoples can see that culture, science, feminism, and environment is reflected in her words and her expression to tell a story the only way she can. Her sho...
quote can have two meanings; on the surface it can mean that the objects she talks about are
“John is so queer now, that I don’t want to irritate him. I wish he would take another room! Besides, I don’t want anybody to get that woman out at night but myself.”(Gilman) She is now imagining the woman out of the paper and creeping around outside. She wants to catch her even though there is no one to even catch, but she doesn’t know that. Her husband is at work all day which gives her the opportunity to creep around, explore and find this woman. Her husband John would suspect her of something if she left the room at night so she must do it during the day. This quote shows symbolism in relation to the fact that the woman in the paper is symbolizing the narrator wandering around outside. Moreover, she is clearly hallucinating about this woman in wallpaper. Her visibility of insanity is quite clear when the author says, “That was clever, for really I wasn’t alone a bit! As soon as it was moonlight and that poor thing began to crawl and shake the pattern, I got up and ran to help her. I pulled and she shook, I shook and she pulled, and before morning we had peeled off yards of that paper.” (Gilman) The narrator is imagining interactions that have occurred with the woman she sees in the wall. They begin to peel off all the paper, working together in her mind. She then begins to imagine the wallpaper laughing at her when the sun is out. It can be concluded that her husband should not be taking care of her because he is the sole reason she is insane in the first place. This quote demonstrates symbolism because the woman in the wall represents the psychotic state that the narrator’s husband has driven her to. With this in mind, the narrator becomes connected with the woman in the wall. “I have locked the door and thrown the key down into the front path. I don’t want to go out, and I don’t want to have anyone come in, till John comes. I want to astonish him. I’ve got a
“If you look long enough, eventually, you will be able to see me”(24-25) The last line of Margaret Atwood’s poem “This Is a Photograph of Me” is an example of an open ending that leaves you speechless, just as many of her poems do. Margaret Eleanor Atwood is a Canadian novelist, poet, television script writer, environmental activist and always is refered to as a feminist. Atwood is a feminist who strongly believes in equality, creating primarily female protagonists. She realized that women could be intelligent by being around the female faculty members at Victoria Collge at University of Toronto.
The force of her fit drowns out the beauty seen in springtime flowers. Furthermore, in order to personify Melancholy, she is referred to as, “thy mistress some rich anger shows, / Emprison her soft hand, and let her rave, /And feed deep, deep, deep upon her peerless eyes” (Keats 932). The depiction of this mistress is another personification, but this time it is of Death as a Goddess. These confusing lines of the poem could refer to Melancholy or Death in this stanza as either goes from an untouchable Goddess to a Goddess with a human nature that includes anger and pain. A distinct opposition to Melancholy or Death’s choler is the soft hand that the speaker is asking someone to restrain.
The phrases she chose are also significant because they allow us to see that her shift in language represents, and coincides, with her shift in emotion and tone. Ph...
The first section is called “Burial of the Dead” which is a reference to a burial service in a church. In the poem it says that April is the cruelest month, which is ironic because April is normally considered to be the month of renewal. In the beginning of the poem, the passing of seasons, symbolizes a natural cycle of death and a “new beginning”. In this section of the poem, historical context is represented because the deaths are symbolically the soldiers and other casualties that were lost in the war.... ...