Iceberg As Metaphor For Life
The poem " The Iceberg" by Sir Charles G.D. Roberts was written in 1931 when Roberts was 71 years old. When one is amidst old age a person tends to reflect on life. Experience of the past come to mind and you begin to reflect more on birth and death. This poem is an interpretation of Roberts's reflection on life and death and his course throughout life.
The poem "The Iceberg" is a metaphor for life, it is the voice of something that has approached the end and is facing death with the peacefulness of calm waters but with the forcefulness of a massive iceberg. What makes the poem more personal is that it is written in free verse. Free verse is known as "open form" verse. It is printed in short lines rather than continuity of prose, it differs because its rhythmic pattern is not organized into meter. Most free verse also has irregular line lengths and lacks rhythm1, all of which this poem possesses. Writing the poem in free verse allowed the poet to express himself fully and without any limitations. This coincides with the poem being written in the modernist period, which was first and foremost an era in which all traditionalist literary forms of the 19th century were abandoned.
Roberts had many philosophical influences and they are clearly seen in his poetry. The iceberg can represent the human consciousness and the three levels (id, ego and the super ego) which in psychology are often put into a iceberg like diagram. Throughout the poem the reader should realize that the iceberg is a metaphor for life and the human form. Essentially we are like the iceberg in which only the tip is showing. Therefore the iceberg in the poem becomes a human life form and is personified in that it is able to think and speak on a human level.
"The Iceberg" leads the reader through the road of life, its very much like a map outlining the many hardships and stages the human form and psyche will go through . The poem is most of all a reflection of Roberts coming to terms with the possibility of death and the memories of childhood and birth. The poem starts with the birth of the iceberg as it is "spawned" from something larger.
...ire, some say in ice”. One thing is we don’t know when the world will end but it will be by one or the other scientists say. The world truly doesn’t know how long it will end it is no time soon. The author is talking about the end of the world so freely without emotion, like it’s inevitable. The symbolic fire and ice meaning varies between different types of people whom remind the author of these elements. The fire we know and think about is a bringer of Light and heat but as well as pain and burning. Ice is ignorance and cold hate sort of feel to it. Fire and Ice have such deep meanings because it’s like the type of people you will encounter every day in life. The poem makes you relive all the times the world was going to allegedly end. What a symbol Fire and Ice is being used to represent is the end of times. This symbolic poem was like a vague prediction of sort.
Whitman stresses the fundamental idea of nature in this, his seventh poem: Everything is dependent-no one can be independent from everything. Therefore, we are all essentially one giant organism. A fundamental unity exists in nature, and we are a part of it. Independence is a concept that nobody can truly understand, because everything is interdependent upon one another. The texture of the poem is very helpful in understanding its meaning. Whitman's structural brilliance shines through in this poem, helping the reader grasp the concept that all things are but one.
O. Henry once said, “The true adventurer goes forth aimless and uncalculating to meet and greet unknown fate.” The poem goes a lot a deeper than the words on the page, the items and decisions within it really make you see things differently. Three symbols really stuck out to me; adolescence, sadness, and timelessness.
When Langston Hughes was given this assignment by his college professor, he used it at a self discovery tool. I think this poem is merely letting him dig into himself to find out who he really is, and what his role is in society.
The characters of the poem are also some very meaningful keys in showing the hidden meaning. The first stanza describes the crowd that has gathered to watch the enactment of our human lives. Lines three and four states "an angel throng, bewinged, and bedight in veils, and drowned in tears." Poe is stating that a group of angels is going to watch the spectacle put on for them, although they are already drowning in the tears from plays before. The orchestra that plays for them is another set of characters that have meaning. They represent the background in everyone's life by "playing the music of the spheres." A third set of characters that show hidden meaning is the "Mimes, in the form of God on high." They denote the people that inhabit the earth. Poe describes them as "Mere puppets they, who come and go at bidding of vast formless things." The vast formless things are the ideas that we have. Ideas like the things that we think we have to do for ourselves to survive and succeed. They also make up drama of the play. A final, prominent figure in this dramatic performance is the conqueror worm. Poe illustrates it as "a blood-red thing.
The poem Fire and Ice is nine line long and is an example of a briefly ironic literary style of Frosts work. Fire and Ice ranges between two meter lengths. The poem uses interwoven rhymes founded on “ire,” “ice,” and “ate.” Although the meter is irregular it does keep up an iambic foot throughout the poem. The first line of the poem is a tetrameter followed by a dimeter which is followed by five line of tetrameter, ending with two lines of dimeter. The division of the line lengths is to render natural interruptions in the poem causing the reader to stop and reread what they have just read in order to comprehend the meaning of the lines containing the dimeter. For example when the reader reads “ Some say in ice” they go back to the first line of the poem to reread the topic of what some are saying about the end of the world. The rhyme scheme of “Fire and Ice” is ABAABCBCB style. The words “fire” and “ice” are being rhymed with themselves. By using this scheme it means that the poem falls soundly and flows. By using the rhyme scheme Frosts creates a connection between the words. For example “fire” and “desire,” which make it clear that the words are related on a deeper level. As well the rhyming of “fire” and “ice” with themselves made it work to cre...
However, after further analyzing the poem one might be extremely intrigued by the message the speaker conveyed. The audience gets a sense of the setting being in a cold, dark, brooding place. The orator uses language such as, cold, bitter, snow, icy, and white. There is a play on words in the first stanza, eighth line, using the words “coal” and “cold”. Instead of saying “icy cold,” the orator states “icy coal.” At first glance the audience may feel as though someone is in dying in this poem. Comparing this to similar scenarios in films, where a lead beloved character experiences cold shivers as they get ready to pass to the great beyond. The title “Who Will Know Us?,” catches the reader 's attention because as humans, we wander the legacy and effect we will leave behind. It causes the reader to contemplate what happens after death, when the world you left behind ceases to remember you exist. The readers are left with the question of is there a really a “life after death.” There is also use of similes such as, “it is cold, bitter as a penny...with his loose buttons like heads of crucifies saints”(Soto). Nostalgia, a word some readers may not be familiar with is featured in this poem. Nostalgia is a sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations. Personification plays an integral part on the voice in
Throughout his villanelle, “Saturday at the Border,” Hayden Carruth continuously mentions the “death-knell” (Carruth 3) to reveal his aged narrator’s anticipation of his upcoming death. The poem written in conversation with Carruth’s villanelle, “Monday at the River,” assures the narrator that despite his age, he still possesses the expertise to write a well structured poem. Additionally, the poem offers Carruth’s narrator a different attitude with which to approach his writing, as well as his death, to alleviate his feelings of distress and encourage him to write with confidence.
The setting of the poem is a day at the ocean with the family that goes terribly awry. This could be considered an example of irony, in that one would normally view a day at the beach as a happy and carefree time. In “Feared Drowned,” Olds paints a very different scenario, using dark imagery to create the setting: “…suit black as seaweed / Rocks sticks out near shore like heads.” The poem illuminates moments of intense fear, anxiety and the element of a foreseen sense of doom. Written as a direct, free-style verse using the first-person narrative, the poem opens with the narrator suspecting that her husband may have drowned. When Olds writes in her opening line: “Suddenly nobody knows where you are,” this signals to the reader that we are with the narrator as she makes this fearful discovery.
Arthur Yvor Winters, an American poet and literary critic stated "This is a remarkably beautiful poem on the subject of daily realization of the imminence of death" it’s a poem of departure from life, an intensely conscious leave-taking. And Allen Tate, a distinguished American poet, teacher, and critic called this "An extraordinary poem".
“The Fish,” written by Elizabeth Bishop in 1946, is perhaps most known for its incredible use of imagery, but this analysis does not merely focus on imagery. Instead, it is based on a quote by Mark Doty from his essay “A Tremendous Fish.” In it he says, “‘The Fish’” is a carefully rendered model of an engaged mind at work” (Doty). After reading this statement, it causes one to reflect more in-depth about how the poem was written, and not just about what its literal meaning lays out. In “The Fish,” Bishop’s utilization of certain similes, imagery in the last few lines, narrative poem style, and use of punctuation allows the audience to transport into the life of the fish; therefore, allowing them to understand Bishop’s ideas on freedom and wisdom.
in the first line of this stanza when she says “ I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide” i believe whats she is trying to explain is that she feels powerful just like the ocean and she can surfaces the earth feeling capable of defeating all her difficulties. Her use of metaphor was expressed very effectively because it allows us to understand her pain and it also allows us to acknowledge why she is writing this poem. She does not want someones words to break us and wants us to understand that we are in charge of our own happiness.
Stevens’ message reveals itself as the poem unravels: there is never one true understanding of a reality outside of one’s interpretation. The author suggests that one can’t help but transfer their own beliefs and ideas onto what they see; in this case, the “listener” is projecting an impression of misery onto the scenery that lies before him. For example, the first two stanzas are filled with decorative language that serves to describe the visual image of a winter landscape. Using phrases such as “crusted with snow” (3) instead of “covered” with snow provides an evocative illustration of the snow’s roughness. Other phrases such as “shagged with ice” (5) and “rough in the distant glitter/Of the January sun” (6-7) force the reader to experience the miserable portrayal of winter. These are not the descriptions of an observer who “beholds nothing that is not there” (14-15), but rather the objective, poetic appreciation for the snowy
After reading this poem and being quite confused by it, I was determined to find out what it meant. Its simplicity is misleading because it can represent several opposites in the world today that correspond to fire and ice. To begin my understanding of the poem, I decided to answer some questions. First question was who is some? Some represents humans, which is not difficult to understand, but then some can also represent lovers. This poem is mainly about desire and hate. In the poem, fire represents desire and ice represents hate. The first theory of fire most likely came from the bible, which describes the world ending this way and the second theory of ice is the scientific theory of the world freezing over when the sun burns out. Knowing these theories was somewhat useful, but did not really aid in understanding Frost's opinion on which would make for a better end.
In “On the Beach at Night Alone,” Walt Whitman develops the idea that everyone has a connection with everything else, including nature. Whitman uses a variety of writing techniques to get his point across. First, the repetition and parallel structure that his poems contain reinforce the connection between everything in nature. The usage of “All” 11 times emphasizes the inclusion of everything in the universe. The sentence structure remains the same throughout the poem, without any drastic change; however, the length of the lines in the poem vary. In addition, Whitman’s’ extravagance with his words further illustrates his idea of the Over-Soul. For example, “A vast similitude interlocks all” (4) shows his verbose nature. Whitman does not do directly to the point, but gives every little detail. Most importantly, Whitman’s’ use of catalogues stands as the most recognizable Whitman characteristic that illustrates his beliefs. These long lists that he uses set the mood of the poem. “All spheres, grown, ungrown, small, large, suns, moons, planets,” (5) shows the idea that everything is connected in nature. Similarly, “All nations, colors, barbarisms, civilizations languages.” (10) furthermore emphasize Whitman’s belief in the Over-Soul.