The concept of the hunt in “Monologue for an Onion” is essential to understanding the poem’s commentary on human desire and failure to comprehend the intricacies of life. The heart, skin, and secret core are the three concepts attached to the idea of the hunt that humanity is on. They each contribute a vital piece to understanding just why the Onion is suggesting that humanity is flawed when it comes to their pursuit of happiness and finding life’s true meaning. The heart symbolizes both what is beautiful about the Onion and what is beautiful about humanity. Skin is the essence of the hunt taking place because it is the brush that the hunter has to go through to find its prize. The secret core is the mystery of life itself and humanity’s pursuit of this secret. “Monologue for an Onion” is essentially a poem that centers around the idea of what an onion could possibly have to convey to a human. The scenario is that a nameless human is cutting at the onion and the onion is not lamenting for itself, but for the person bringing about its demise. The onion chastises the human for foolishly cutting at it and bringing about unnecessary tears. Then the onion’s speech takes a turn for the philosophical when it tries to convey a worldview to the human that would be beneficial for it instead of cutting away at an onion in search of something it will never find within it. The poem ends with the onion warning the human that it will face doom just as it has. There is something to be said about the onion in the poem. It is most definitely a living, breathing character within the work and displays a number of characteristics. The onion comes across as sometimes immensely cruel and mocking, but it also seems to carry with it a gr... ... middle of paper ... ...e and the same. Literally, yes they are the same thing, but metaphorically they are on two different planets. The heart is the physical ideal that man is pursuing much like Jason pursued the Golden Fleece. It is the prize while the secret core is beyond that because it represents a higher truth that pursuing man is missing. The onion knows we will never discover the secret core because of our obsession with simply obtaining the heart. We will simply covet the heart as a physical prize and think we have succeeded without ever trying to discern a deeper, truer meaning. The secret of the core is that it is something we already possess, but do not realize because of our outward need for physical reward. That is why the onion mocks and pities us because the hunt never had to happen in the first place and the greatest reward is always within our grasp.
Alice Walker uses the narrative element of imagery to craft a powerful story in “The Flowers” by using very descriptive sentences and singular words. She uses these to clearly depict the setting, characters and many other aspects of her story. To begin, in the very first paragraph , Walker writes, “ The harvesting of the corn and cotton, peanuts and squash, made each day a golden surprize that caused excited little tremors up her jaws.” Here, the author is able to create a scene in the fall, that further helps the reader imagine the joyful scene the story starts off with. Walker uses words like, golden, surprize, and excited to how how Myops attitude reflects a sense of pure innocents. Next, the quote, “Myop watched the tiny white bubbles disrupt the thin black scale of soil and water that silently rose and slid down the stream.” shows how Myop is happy and has childish innocents. Words like, tiny, bubbles, disrupt and many more used in the quote, help to convey more images of the tone of this story. Finally, as the story’s mood and tone begins to change, there is one quote that stands out. “It was the rotted remains of a noose...now blending into the soil. Around an overhanging limb of a great spreading oak clung another piece.” Walker uses this quote to depict a new sad and gloomy mood change and to show that Myop found the body of a man who had been lynched. Here, the author has also conveyed that this new mood will continue as Myopic innocents degrades. Lastly, the final words in this short story, “And the summer was over.” creates a powerful, descriptive ending. These examples show how the author, Alice Walker used the narrative element of imagery to show how the story, “The Flowers” turns from a cheerful, happy mood at the beginning, to a gloomy, unpleasant mood at the end.
The poem has a great language use. The poet does not use many metaphors, similes, and symbolism, but the words still have resonance, even though the poem is quite short and literal. The poet describes Richard Cory throughout the poem, giving the reader a clear idea of who Richard Cory is. In the first stanza, the poet tells the reader wh...
This duality is concealed within a character because the darkness(truth) conflicts with the light(dreams/hopes) when we hold onto our desire to unite ourselves with our true lover. The author reveals that the light of the “sunset” represents the strength, by illuminating that days are going by, but the true lover still sticks to their strength. The author portrays darkness through the “death” of the“lilacs” representing the inevitable truth that one has to face when holding onto their desire to meet their true love. Parker illustrates that one whose “eyes are deep with yearning”, will persist to their strength until their determination does not overcome the obstacles preventing one from accessing true love, embracing love as a natural and beautiful thing. “Deep” represents her strength and “yearning” is symbolic of her desire to meet her husband. “Yearning” adds a sense of beauty and “deep” illuminates a depth to her strength and how it can overpower obstacles in her life. The author blends “deep” with “yearning” to enhance and illustrate that when we hold a desire we have to deepen our strength and embrace it to achieve what we aspire. The image of “an old, old, gate” where “the lady wait[s]” emphasizes the idea that her husband’s death is “old”; it occurred many years ago, but
In this poem the author’s tone has a contrast of a humorous figure, at the same time a sad and dark feeling. In this...
onion. She uses the onion as a metaphor for her love. The poet says 'I
Ordinarily, Valentine’s Day conjures up images of exchanging flowers, chocolates, cards, and so on and so forth for most people, except Carol Ann Duffy, who buys her lover’s Valentine’s Day gift in the produce aisle of her local grocery store, an onion. In her poem appropriately titled, “Valentine,” she challenges her lover to adopt her what she deems a realistic notion that if one has true love for another, romance can be found in any gift, even something as unromantic as an onion. In order to convey the message that gifts of love are subjective and do not have to align with tradition; she uses an extended metaphor to compare her love to an onion throughout the poem.
As the first poem in the book it sums up the primary focus of the works in its exploration of loss, grieving, and recovery. The questions posed about the nature of God become recurring themes in the following sections, especially One and Four. The symbolism includes the image of earthly possessions sprawled out like gangly dolls, a reference possibly meant to bring about a sense of nostalgia which this poem does quite well. The final lines cement the message that this is about loss and life, the idea that once something is lost, it can no longer belong to anyone anymore brings a sense...
Despite the fact that most differences within Dickinson’s drafts are limited to word choice and syntax, each draft of a single poem is capable of presenting wildly different information. Not only that, but these shifts in information often play into themes of secrecy and ambiguity. For instance, the second line in “I hide myself within my flower” varies from the first to the third version: a flower hiding “on your Breast –” and “from your Vase –” presenting varying levels of intimacy (80A/80C: 2). The prior phrase produces an image of a flower on a breast—breast being a term that could easily be read as non-gendered, but, interestingly enough, it simultaneously has a feminine connotation as old as Macbeth (“breast, n.”). Conversely, Dickinson’s second and third versions of “I hide myself within my flower” speak of a vase, an object devoid of gender and life. This simple shift dehumanizes the subject in the initial version of the
First, the poem’s interfering similes and metaphors undermine its formal coherence and consistency. Whereas the foregoing paragraph explains the uniformity of tone, syntax, diction, and purpose that emanates from the poem’s form, its conflicting comparisons make the poem’s subject protean at best and amorphous at worst. I will argue that Lady Lazarus is the latter.
The speaker opens up the poem by speaking in first person and saying “In the privacy of my mind/ I give vent to rage, lies, / envy, and vices of every kind”. (1-3) The speaker’s mind is like a safe haven and she can go there to be free and private with her thoughts without anyone knowing her true identity, almost as if she is trying to hide from the public’s eye. In the second tercet she mentions that she is filled with joy and is safe because the forbidden part of her nature is explored and no one can see or knows. In Duality the speaker also mentions that her mind is a wall that conceals her. This statement represents the speaker’s secrecy to keep her thoughts guarded and protected. Throughout the poem the speaker goes back and forth contradicting her façade with her inner thoughts. This technique makes the reader not only confused about the true identity of the speaker but also hungry for more information as the character in the poem isn’t thoroughly revealed and brought to light. The lack of information from the speaker and the nature of her thoughts can make her seem as a dishonest and evil
Humanity is also shown to be petty. In the original ode, the elders boast about how man may snare “all breeds [...] in his woven nets”. However, in this poem, “[Shattering] [...] the cheeks of birds” and capturing “salty silvers” are portrayed as the main things humans take from the world. This change in phrasing, and the focus on how small the accomplishments are, the gory picture of shattering cheekbones, makes humanity seem little more than a schoolyard bully.
The poem’s tone is a recycled process of initial innocence to eventual corruption and then death, “we degraded prisoners destined to hunger until we eat filth” (ll.52-54).Yet what do we hunger for? At stanza 19, the tone takes a turn in language —“imagination strains after deer,” “fields of goldenrod,” “stifling heat of September”— and paints a mural of warmth and golden glow that mimics the imagined American dream. This use of imagery within golden fields parallels with the natural description of the “choke-cherry” and “viburnum” all seemingly pointless nature clichés but with lurking irony beneath their intention. With the use of the words ‘strains’ and ‘stifling’, with their emphasis on the ‘st’ sound, there is a mockery of discomfort that paves way for the following line, “Somehow it seems to destroy us.” This portrait mocks of a perfect existence, while the reality of it suffocates us. A hunger to reach this ‘fields of goldenrod,’ when all there is filth and in death lies the disappointing truth that everyone succumbs to the same
In his dramatic monologue, Robert Browning uses irony, diction, and imagery to achieve a haunting effect.
Whether the reader sees the satire or not depends on the reader themselves. Those who see this poem may not realize they're guilty of believing that the love and patience in stanza one exists. The presentation of this argument works because it seems sweet at first glance, logical when looked at again, and satirical when looked at against the views of the society.
It is not the tragic subject matter of the text that is of primary interest - but rather the manner in which the plot is developed. The story line progresses as if the reader is "unpeeling an onion."