In the poem “A Story”, Li-Young Lee shows the complicated relationship between the father and the son by using point of view and structure. Italicized lines distinguish who is talking to draw on point of view to indicate the complex relationship. The poem’s structure also identifies the complex relationship by increasing the lines in each stanza by one-until the sixth stanza which goes down to four lines, and then in the seventh stanza which goes back to five lines. Lee italicized the text when either the father or the son spoke. In lines 11-14 and lines 16-18, the father speaks, and in lines 4 and 19, the son speaks. If the conversion is italicized the title could possibly be considered a stanza of the poem because it is being spoken by the
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Show MoreLi-Young Lee’s poem, A Story, explores a complex relationship between a father and his five year old son. Although the poem’s purpose is to elaborate on the complexity of the relationship and the father’s fear of disappointing his son, the main conflict that the father is faced with is not uncommon among parents. Lee is able to successfully portray the father’s paranoia and son’s innocence through the use of alternating point of view, stanza structure, and Biblical symbolism.
The author uses imagery, contrasting diction, tones, and symbols in the poem to show two very different sides of the parent-child relationship. The poem’s theme is that even though parents and teenagers may have their disagreements, there is still an underlying love that binds the family together and helps them bridge their gap that is between them.
There is no greater bond then a boy and his father, the significant importance of having a father through your young life can help mold you to who you want to become without having emotional distraught or the fear of being neglected. This poem shows the importance in between the lines of how much love is deeply rooted between these two. In a boys life he must look up to his father as a mentor and his best friend, the father teaches the son as much as he can throughout his experience in life and build a strong relationship along the way. As the boy grows up after learning everything his father has taught him, he can provide help for his father at his old-age if problems were to come up in each others
The poem of A Story by Li-Young Lee analyzes the coming of age of a son through the eyes and emotions of a father. On the surface, it seems like a simple situation of a father telling the son a story to entertain him. But it is upon closer inspection and deep analysis that reveals the true meaning of the poem that the poet is trying to convey to the reader.
1) The theme that I will explore for the two independent pieces, will involve the theme of simply finding who you really are. As a viewer we should see past the complications of the obstacles we face in our day-to-day lives, for our eyes should only then become fixated on the endless possibilities of the time we have left within the intersection of time and space. The viewer can than grasp each of the moments that are left, so they can imagine beyond the emptiness - alone to see a sense of self-discovery in the very center, only pondering on the isolated sense of power we hold as humans to create a new life of belonging. Also, the depiction of having a positive approach to life’s challenges is essential to explore life and work
I have elected to analyze seven poems spoken by a child to its parent. Despite a wide variety of sentiments, all share one theme: the deep and complicated love between child and parent.
Imagine yourself lying in the sun, feeling the warmth on your skin, when a cloud cover the sun and you feel the sudden coldness that you can seem to shake? The feeling is similar when you love someone very much but they don’t return the feeling. The band, 5 Seconds of Summer (5SOS), in their song, If You Don’t Know, sings about how a singer is in love with a person. The person seems to not be sure if they are in love with the singer, and the the singer wishes for the person to let them go. The couple that 5SOS wrote about was in love at one time, but the person is slowly falling out of love with the singer.
The poem “LXXVI. Zhongzi, Please” from Classic of Poetry, is about a girl who is fearful that her lover, Zhongzi, coming into her life will bring disapproval from her parents, brother, and society. The meaning can be reveled through the use of literary qualities such as images and repetition.
“Your beliefs don’t make you a better person, your behavior does.” This quote comes from a picture found on flickr and makes me think about my younger days as I learned how to be a leader in scouting and it’s similarities to the poem, “A Little Scout Follows Me.” The moral of the poem is that there are always younger eyes watching and learning from those they look up to, even those that don’t realize they are being watched.
His description of the young child is one of his techniques that helped the audience have a better understanding of the events in the poem and the overall era of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Also, the poem was answering the beginning question in the first line in the first stanza, “Childhood? Which childhood?” This is another technique that gives a different, more thinking process and a different sounds when reading the poem. The amount of literary elements is well known in Lee’s writing techniques. For example, in line nine, Lee uses a personification, “While loudspeakers declared a new era.” Lee might have added this personification in the poem to paint a picture in the audiences mind. This image of how the child might have interpret the soldiers, that were marching down the streets shouting out the laws of communism to the Chinese people. Not only is it a personification, but a emotional imagery of chaos that was taken place. Another example of literary elements is “Death from childhood, and both of them from dreaming.” This is a metaphor but it does not mean that the child died from dreaming, but in a sense from the situation that the child was in and what they saw. This ended up causing him to become mature quicker and had to stop being a child. In reality the effect of the Chinese Cultural Revolution on the child was that the innocence and faith was gone. Lee’s literary terms were helpful in the poem and gave it strength in a emotion sense and as an overall
...nal family. The second poem uses harsh details described in similes, metaphors, and personification. The message of a horribly bad childhood is clearly defined by the speaker in this poem. Finally, the recollection of events, as described by the two speakers, is distinguished by the psychological aspect of how these two children grew up. Because the first child grew up in a passive home where everything was hush-hush, the speaker described his childhood in that manner; trying to make it sound better than what it actually was. The young girl was very forward in describing her deprivation of a real family and did not beat around the bush with her words. It is my conclusion that the elements of tone, imagery, and the recollection of events are relevant to how the reader interprets the message conveyed in a poem which greatly depends on how each element is exposed.
The Poem Annabel Lee, written by Edgar Allan Poe, told a tale of love. In this romantic poem the narrator emanates feelings of passion, and overwhelming joy when he speaks of his beloved, Annabel Lee. Although the poem expresses the sorrow of Annabel’s demise, it accentuates the bond between the two characters, so much so that death could not break their eternal love for one another (Poe, 494; 495). Many literary devices were apparent in Poe’s poem Annabel lee. One of which being Rhythm, Poe creates reading that flows, one that is constantly reusing similar sounds to interpret the beauty of the love between the two characters. Another literary element that was found in this poem was imagery. By composing a poem that uses words to describe the location and characters, Poe was able to implement imagery in his writing. The final literary element Poe conveyed in the poem was mood. Poe was able to express the element of mood by the words he used.
There are different types of parent and child relationships. There are relationships based on structure, rules, and family hierarchy. While others are based on understanding, communication, trust, and support. Both may be full of love and good intentions but, it is unmistakable to see the impact each distinct relationship plays in the transformation of a person. In Chang’s story, “The Unforgetting”, and Lagerkvist’s story, “Father and I”, two different father and son relationships are portrayed. “The Unforgetting” interprets Ming and Charles Hwangs’ exchange as very apathetic, detached, and a disinterested. In contrast, the relationship illustrated in the “Father and I” is one of trust, guidance, and security. In comparing and contrasting the two stories, there are distinct differences as well as similarities of their portrayal of a father and son relationship in addition to a tie that influences a child’s rebellion or path in life.
The poem “The Past” by Ha Jin is about a man struggling with how to deal with his past. He looks at all the other people around him and how they’re doing it, and from that he learns what he believes he should do. It’s a poem that made me think about my past and how that affects my present and future, connecting to different aspects of my life and making me really think.
In the poem “White Lies” the language of the poem creates an image of a young girl who is ashamed of her background.The language used in some parts of the poem point to the girl being biracial as well as a very light skinned biracial who appears to be white “light-bright” “near-white” “high-yellow”, and about how she tends to lie to the white people in order to not feel judged. She says she lives in uptown but she actually lives in a roughly built part of town “not in that pink and green shanty-fied shotgun section along the tracks.”. As she describes how easy it is for her to tell about where she lives “I could easily tell the white folks…” the image created is that people truly think she is white and their acceptance of her lies only makes her feel more apart of them so she keeps doing it.