Poetry Coursework
I am going to compare these two poems by thinking about the theme,
purpose, mood, language and imagery.
An extract from “The Ballad of Reading Gaol” by Oscar Wilde.
In the first verse of this poem, the writer introduces us to a
miserable setting of a prison, “the dripping wall, the leaden sky.”
This sets us in the mood of how it was to be a prisoner at the end of
the 19th century.
Oscar Wilde introduces us to another character, a murderer. Throughout
the poem, Wilde sympathizes with this character. We see this by the
use of language. Wilde tells us about the wardens who watched this
prisoner, “for fear the man might die.” “And by each side a warder
walked.” Although the wardens knew that this man would be put to
death, they still watched him in the event that the prisoner might
take his own life. Wilde refers to this man as ‘prey’ thus giving the
impression that the wardens are hunting this man’s blood. This use of
language reveals that Wilde disapproves of the way the man is treated
and sees this as an unjust act.
The purpose of Wilde’s poem is to protest against the authorities and
against the way the prisoners are treated. He writes about the harsh
conditions,
“We rubbed the door, and scrubbed the floors,
And cleaning the shining rails:
And, rank-by-rank, we soaped the plank,
And clattered with the pails.”
The rails were already shiny they didn’t need cleaning.
Wilde also protests against the difficult and monotonous work. The
structure, language and brisk rhythm in this poem give emphasis to the
main point of Wilde’s poem.
“And shaven heads and feet of lead
Make a merry masquerade.”
He uses harsh repetitive words that are difficult to pronounce.
“With blunt and bleeding nails.” Just as this is difficult to say, it
was difficult work to do. The thought of this cruelty makes you
quiver.
Oscar Wilde was in prison when he wrote this poem, and therefore he
could not openly address his intended audience. Instead, He used a lot
of irony in his writing. He questions the role of compassion through
irony, in such a place with a definitely ironic tone,
“And what should human pity do
Pent up in a murderer’s hole?
What word of grave in such a place
Could help a brother’s sole?”
Wilde is attacking the governor, the doctor, and the Chaplin for not
having pity on the prisoners. He disapproves of their approaches by
listing their actions coldly. A minister of church should be praying
with him. Religious men have jobs to pray with him and accompany him.
But the Chaplin isn’t doing his job.
The insight of Frankl’s ideas and meaning, have helped the other inmates physically and psychologically survive under the inhumane abuse. This is why the author and main character Viktor Frankl affected me the most during my reading of these torturous experiences. Whether he was curing ones typhus, or causally giving advice to the other prisoners, he was always thinking of others, and was seen as a courageous figure to the other individuals at the camp. For example, on page 58 Frankl talks about how he will be escaping the camp with his friend. He states how he checked on his patients one last time before his freedom and saw the sad look in one of his deathly patients eyes. He felt unsatisfied with leaving his hopeless patients and then began to tell his friend that he could not leave camp. He stated, “I did not know what the following days would bring, but I gained an inward peace that I had never experienced before. I returned t...
...pg. 23).This scene shows a survival mood because they are all trying to do their best to stay warm. In these camps, the guards did not provide the people with a housing heat source. The mood is an effective tool for expressing the suffering that occurred in both stories.
The second prisoner was a young boy who was being hanged for the fact that he stole weapons during a power failure. The significance of this particular hanging was the young boy’s lack of rebellion, his quiet fear and the unbearable duration of his torment. The boy had lost all hope and was one of the only victims who wept at the knowledge of their demise. What made this case different from the rest was not only his youth, but also his silence, and emotion and the fact that it took a half an hour for him to die, as a result of the lightness of his young body. Even though he was constantly tortured and provoked by the guards before he was hanged, he still said nothing, unlike the two people who joined him, who both shouted in defiance. His quiet courage really stood out as an unspoken and unannounced rebellion not only for the Jews, but it showed the doubts that some of the guards began to have. “This time, the Lagerkapo refused to act as executioner.” Although this quote is one sentence it still shows the effect the boy had on everyone in the camp. Even though the prisoners had been living with the constant presence of death, the execution of this young boy made them feel emotion they believed they had lost forever. This death was an unsaid act of rebellion in the sense that it showed the audience that there was indeed still some sensitivity left no matter how much both the prisoners and the guards were dehumanized: the prisoners as merely a number, and the guards as ruthless
The poems Pietà by James McAuley and November by Simon Armitage are confrontational as they revolve around the theme of life. Life, death and grief are all something that every person will experience here on earth. Life… Death… Grief…The existing themes are already confronting but with the poets application of poetic techniques the two poems are able to be effective.
...nt appears less traumatic than Milgrams. The guards and prisoners both agree to have learned something from their experience and even have learned about themselves. They consider, “we might react more morally in future real-life analogues of this situation” (252). Zimbardo leaves his subjects with new knowledge and determination to keep themselves from imprisonment in their normal life.
While being taunted he takes his role as prisoner and breaks down from that with the taunting. His role as the prisoner continues as his cries and taunts from the other inmates bring the attention of the guards for being noisy. He is then reprimanded by the guards for causing noise with his crying. The prisoner is being disciplined by the guard, it is the case where the both the inmate and guard are assuming their roles in
In his book This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen, Tadeusz Borowski shows how the conditions and situations that the prisoners were put through made them make a choice that most humans never face. The choice of compassion and concern for ones fellow man or only loving and caring for one’s self. This may sound harsh people, but after seeing, hearing, smelling and feeling the things they did in camp, it was the only way to survive physically and mentally. The narrator in the book makes the decision numerous times and suffers from these choices as he
With it’s tight structure, poetry can accommodate great passion. Do you agree with this statement? You should base your answer on a close examination of two or three poems covering at least two groups. ‘With it’s tight structure, poetry can accommodate great passion’. Do you agree with this statement?
As Edgar Allan Poe once stated, “I would define, in brief the poetry of words as the rhythmical creation of beauty.” The two poems, “Birthday,” and “The Secret Life of Books” use different diction, theme, and perspective to give them a unique identity. Each author uses different literary devices to portray a different meaning.
"Poetry is the revelation of a feeling that the poet believes to be interior and personal [but] which the reader recognizes as his own." (Salvatore Quasimodo). There is something about the human spirit that causes us to rejoice in shared experience. We can connect on a deep level with our fellow man when we believe that somehow someone else understands us as they relate their own joys and hardships; and perhaps nowhere better is this relationship expressed than in that of the poet and his reader. For the current assignment I had the privilege (and challenge) of writing an imitation of William Shakespeare’s "Sonnet 87". This poem touched a place in my heart because I have actually given this sonnet to someone before as it then communicated my thoughts and feelings far better than I could. For this reason, Sonnet 87 was an easy choice for this project, although not quite so easy an undertaking as I endeavored to match Shakespeare’s structure and bring out his themes through similar word choice.
The author’s purpose is to also allow the audience to understand the way the guards and superintendent felt towards the prisoners. We see this when the superintendent is upset because the execution is running late, and says, “For God’s sake hurry up, Francis.” And “The man ought to have been dead by this time.” This allows the reader to see the disrespect the authority has towards the prisoners.
In Etheridge Knight's poem "Hard Rock Returns to Prison from the Hospital for the Criminal Insane," he uses a fictional tale to describe the tyrannical elements of prisons while simultaneously conveying the oppression that those who defy authority face in society. Knight effectively utilizes imagery and analogies (implied or clearly stated) to appeal to the readers senses and draw them into the story (and ultimately the motif).
In the story, the prisoners are often dehumanized by how they are treated while they wait for their hanging. The beginning of the story starts with the narrator describing what the prisoner cells looked like with it in poor condition:
Contemporary female poets are a very powerful group of female poets that with their poems shows major events and issues in society. Contemporary female poets usually all have an underlying theme of politics, women rights, life events, and sexuality. Contemporary means living or occurring at the same time and some contemporary female poets are, Adrienne Rich, Nikki Giovanni, and Gwendolyn Brooks. Adrienne Rich, Nikki Giovanni, and Gwendolyn Brooks were all writing in the late 1900s. The Women Rights movement and the Civil Rights movement were two events that occurred during the time of the late 1900s. These two movements was heavily incorporated in each Brooks’, Rich’s, and Giovanni’s life and influenced their writings. Each of these women put their personal feelings about political issues in their poems, which makes the theme of their work politics. The theme of these three women work is different aspects of politics, such as women empowerment and women rights, and racial pride. “Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers” by Adrienne Rich, “Nikki-Rosa” by Nikki Giovanni, and “The Mother” by Gwendolyn Brooks are the three poems that each represent the theme of politics regarding women rights and empowerment, and racial pride.
Each prisoner had a transformative moment throughout their time at Sobibor that would push them to their ultimate decision to escape. Usually such moments represented a realization that death was almost certain if they were to stay, others, that letting the world know was necessary. But the common thread through them all was that to live was an act of defiance.