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Figurative language in a literary work
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Life is a game of experiences. From learning how to ride a bike to eating your first slice of delicious pizza, good or bad experiences shape who we are. In “ The Whipping” by Robert Hayden experiences haunt two of three characters. By using diction, figurative language, and point of view Hayden illustrates the effects that our past memories can have in our lives.
There are many words and phrases that contribute to putting together the scene. The author makes it abundantly clear that the women is a villain as he describes her with words like “old”, “crippling fat”. This though is not the complete narrative as by the end of poem the author uses diction such as “purged’ and “avenged” even stating that the whipping was in fact due to “lifelong hidings” which she has lived through. The woman may still be senile, but this empathetic tone is a stark contrast to the earlier shallow insults stated before. This implies that there is an understanding for her ways as a result of past wrongs done to her. If she was whipped as a child it would seem only right to her that she whip future children for their misdeeds. The negative past of the “old women” now directly affects her decision making, and probably has for her entire life.
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One example of imagery “shouting to the neighborhood her goodness and his wrongs” describes the literal actions of the women whipping the boy, but upon digging deeper it shows an insecurity in the child abuser. The old women does not care about the boy's opinion which is why she is “shouting to the neighborhood”: she wants everybody in the area including herself to believe that the whipping is a result of a boys bad behavior, but the very fact that she is looking for validation makes it clear that deep inside she knows her delivered lashes are a result of her own unsettling
Bales and Soodalter use this to their advantage very effectively by using a multitude of personal stories from people who went through slavery. They tug at your heart strings by starting with Maria, who was 12 years old when she was taken into slavery for seven months by Sandra Bearden. During that time she was reportedly “ . . . dragged into hell. Sandra Bearden used violence to squeeze work and obedience from the child.” (722). Bales and Soodalter begin by giving you an emotional connection with Maria by telling a short story of her life growing up with her two loving parents, and small details of their house and living conditions. After the backstory is established, it goes straight into the accounts of beatings and torture endured by Maria, to quote “ . . . Sandra would blast pepper spray into Maria’s eyes. A broom was broken over the girl’s back, and a few days later, a bottle against her head . . . Bearden tortured the twelve year old by jamming a garden tool up her vagina.” (722-723). The inclusion of the tortures paints an image of how horrible slavery is, and evokes a sense of dread, despair, and helplessness for Maria. Bales and Soodalter not only state the tortures but they follow the text immediately by stating “That was Maria’s workday; her “time off” was worse.”
When an author romanticizes a piece of literature, he or she has the power to convey any message he or she wishes to send to the reader. Authors can make even the most horrible actions, such as Dustan murdering ten savages in their sleep and justify it; somehow, from both the type of mood/tone set in this piece of literature, along with the powerful word choice he used, Whittier had the ability to actually turn the tables on to the victim (i.e. the ten “savages” who were murdered in their sleep). “A Mother’s Revenge” by John Greenleaf Whittier, is a prime example of how authors can romanticize any situation into how they want to convey their message.
The past dictates who we are in a current moment, and affects who we might become in the future. Every decision people make in lives has an influence on future, regardless of how minimal or large it is. Some decisions people decide to make can have dire consequences that will follow them for the rest of the life. Moreover, even though if someone would want to leave any memories from past behind, however it will always be by his side. Specific memories will urge emotional responses that bring mind back to the past and person have no choose but to relieve those emotions and memories again. Nonetheless, certain events change people and make them who they are, but at the same time, some wrong choices made past haunts us. This essay will discuss the role of the past in novel Maestro, that was written by Australian author Peter Goldsworthy in 1989 and also in Tan Shaun's story Stick Figures which was included in book called "Tales from outer suburbia" and published in 2008.
“We didn’t know we were making memories, we just knew we were having fun.” This quote by an unknown author gives us a unique vision of memories; it shows that memories are powerful. The most powerful can be made without recognition. The most powerful are made with excitement. Annie Dillard clearly portrays this idea in “The Chase,” a chapter in her autobiography. She tells the story of her rebellious childhood and one of the most heart-pumping events of her life - a redheaded man giving her a chase. With this, she demonstrates the need for excitement, fearlessness, and recklessness in one’s childhood. In order to convey this idea, Dillard not only employs fierce and vivid description, but she impassionedly transitions from spine-chilling tone to thrilling.
In ‘The Turning’, mostly set in Angelus, some characters have never left the town while others return to the city to try to make sense of their lives and heal their wounds. All characters find disappointment or confirmation that they will never escape from their point of origin and that the painful experiences of childhood and adolescence isolate them in a phony reality. The short-story collection emphasises the idea that suffering is a pervasive part of the human condition and that moments of contentment are few, since life is an ongoing struggle, it also emphasises that the past shapes who you are. In the story 'Abbreviation', Melanie's comment that 'all the big things hurt, the things you remember. If it doesn't hurt it's not important'
Some examples of metaphor within the piece are when it says “your laughter’s so melodic it’s a song” and “your creativity’s a compass that leads you to what you love”. An example of evocative language in the piece is “you don’t need any miracle cream to keep your passions smooth, hair free or diet pills to slim your kindness down.” These metaphors and instances of evocative language help emphasise the message that it doesn’t matter what you look like, the most important thing you can love about yourself is ____. Metaphors, evocative language, and repetition are also used to describe the expectations laid upon women by society. One particular phrase that uses both metaphor and evocative language “because the only place we'll ever truly feel safe is curled up inside skin we've been taught to hate by a society that shuns our awful confidence and feeds us our flaws”. Other examples of evocative language include “a reminder that the mirror is meant to be a curse so I confine her in my mind, but when he or she shouts ‘let me out!’ we're allowed to listen.” and “Don't you shatter the illusion you could ever be anything beyond paper fine flesh and flashy teeth and fingernails.” One instance of repetition includes “echoic accusations of not good enough, never good enough”. Another phrase that uses both evocative language and repetition
My first introduction to Douglass’s world of slavery was when he walked me through the scene of his Aunt’s whipping. In this scene his Aunt Hester is getting whipped for sneaking out in the middle of night. I did not want to think that a human being could treat another in such a worthless way but after reading I was convinced that one did. Douglass tells of how the man striped this his Aunt of her clothing, which alone is so humiliating, and whipped her of skin and dignity. In Frederick Douglass’s words, “He then told her to cross her hands, he tied them with a strong rope, and led her to a stool under a large hook in the joist, put in for the purpose. He made her get upon the stool, and tied her hands to he hook” (Douglass 259). Douglass remembered the hook put into the beam in the ceiling for the mere purpose of whipping his people. He remembered the cries of his Aunt for mercy. “ I remember the first time I ever witnessed this horrible exhibition. I was quite a child, but I well remember it. I never shall forget it whilst I remember anything”(258). I wondered if I were this man, would I of wanted to remember such a disturbing episode? Douglass’s long termed memory can be considered as both a gift and a curse; for to remember such acts must be disturbing and yet to remember also never lets one forget. Douglass had witnessed some unthinkable acts of cruelty, during his life span but managed...
She has a very strong belief this and Thanks God that he didn’t make her like any of those people below her. Even goes as far as debating lives if God would have a given her a choice between any of the people she thinks she is better than. A trip to the doctor’s office for her husband’s ulcer brings a new “revelation” for Mrs. Turpin. While observing the people in the waiting room, she analyzes them and gives them titles in the groups below her. White- trash, ugly and so on. There is one girl in the room though who seems to really have something against Mrs. Turpin. Every comment she makes seems to upset the young girl and make her agitation to rise. It disturbs and also confuses her because she can’t understand why the girl who doesn’t even know her would want to ac so rudely towards such a kind a giving woman such as her. “All at once the ugly girl turned her lips inside out again. Her eyes fixed like two drills on Mrs. Turpin. This time there was no mistaking that there was something urgent behind them.” Continuing on in conversation with the white- trash an outburst of thanking the lord aloud causes the young lady to suddenly hurl the book she was reading at Mrs. Turpin and jumping across the table and attempting to choke her. The nurse and doctor try to contain the young girl while slowly giving her a shot in the arm to calm her insanity down.
With these two divergent personas that define the grandmother, I believe the ultimate success of this story relies greatly upon specific devices that O’Connor incorporates throughout the story; both irony and foreshadowing ultimately lead to a tale that results in an ironic twist of fate and also play heavily on the character development of the grandmother. The first sense of foreshadowing occurs when the grandmother states “[y]es and what would you do if this fellow, The Misfit, Caught you” (1042). A sense of gloom and an unavoidable meeting with the miscreant The Misfit seem all but inevitable. I am certain that O’Connor had true intent behind th...
Almost everything it says isn't the direct meaning, its suggested. “I was the time to hear things and talk. These sitters have been tongueless, earless, eyeless conveniences all day long. Mules and other brutes occupied their skin. But now the sun and the bossman were gone….” This is the biggest suggestive meaning in the except because it leads to show you why the people on the porch feel drawn to talk negatively and judge her. They have been nothing but slaves all day. They spend their days working long and hard, being nothing but mules. Expected to keep quiet and do nothing but their work. Therefore, speaking harshly about the woman gives them a sense of power. It makes them feel better about how low on the poll they are by portraying her lower than them. There are multiple other suggestive meanings such as “she turned her face and spoke. They scrambled a noisy “good evenin” and left their mouths sitting open and their ears full of hope.” They talk big game knowing if she gave them the time of day it would be much different. The men talk bad about her to other women knowing they think she's beautiful and would be eager to be at her beckoning
She begins talking about her childhood and who raised her until she was three years old. The woman who raised her was Thrupkaew’s “auntie”, a distant relative of the family. The speaker remembers “the thick, straight hair, and how it would come around [her] like a curtain when she bent to pick [her] up” (Thrupkaew). She remembers her soft Thai accent, the way she would cling to her auntie even if she just needed to go to the bathroom. But she also remembers that her auntie would be “beaten and slapped by another member of my family. [She] remembers screaming hysterically and wanting it to stop, as [she] did every single time it happened, for things as minor as…being a little late” (Thrupkaew). She couldn’t bear to see her beloved family member in so much pain, so she fought with the only tool she had: her voice. Instead of ceasing, her auntie was just beaten behind closed doors. It’s so heart-breaking for experiencing this as a little girl, her innocence stolen at such a young age. For those who have close family, how would it make you feel if someone you loved was beaten right in front of you? By sharing her story, Thrupkaew uses emotion to convey her feelings about human
A good example of imagery can be found at the end of the story in the last paragraph. For this part of imagery, the main character Jackson Jackson has received his grandmother’s regalia from the pawn shop employee without having to pay the total of $999 he originally had to pay. (Alexie) “I took my grandmother’s regalia and walked outside. I knew that solitary yellow bead was part of me. I knew I was that yellow bead in part. Outside, I wrapped myself in my grandmother’s regalia and breathed her in. I stepped off the sidewalk and into the intersection. Pedestrians stopped. Cars stopped. The city stopped. They all watched me dance with my grandmother. I was my grandmother, dancing.” This statement made at the end of the story indicates a strong sense of imagery that details Jackson’s emotions towards getting his grandmother’s regalia from the pawn shop. The yellow bead he mentions was his strongest symbol of feeling toward his grandmother, feeling as if he were a part of that yellow bead, in this case, his grandmother. Jackson describes in more detail of how he felt more like his grandmother after he wrapped the regalia around him. The pedestrians, city, everything around him was watching him feel like his grandmother, like some sort of flashback he could be
In lines fifty-one through sixty the speaker conveys that, although she may have been a drudge before, she will not be one any more. She refuses to submit to society and be a hard working drudge. The speaker believes she is more than that — perhaps even a queen: “They thought death was worth it, but I have a self to recover, a queen.”
Rubin mentions in her article how “women are for men to dispose of” (Rubin 74), as they “are given in marriage, taken in battle, traded, bought, and sold” (Rubin 74). She explains how the result of females who conform to the ideal structure of the “perfect” women in being quiet and obedient to male figures only lead to a life of mistreatment and misery. Carter presents this submissive and innocent female character in her story by first introducing her father who “lost [her] to a The Beast at cards (51). This demonstrates the power that men have over women, where the girl’s voice and opinion in the transaction is considered insignificant and useless. The female body in this text is represented as an object, whose worth is dependent on her appearance. She is simply passed around and sold to pay off debt and earn rewards by obliging to the “master’s sole desire” (Carter 58) of “seeing [her] unclothed” (58). The Beast’s desires demonstrate the lack of respect and power given to the female character and it emphasizes how women are only seen for their appearance and sexual features. Hence, the female character in the story lives not for herself, but for the male
it suggests the female he is addressing is not physically attractive and that despite this he loves her. In order to convey this idea he uses trope like language used in love poems and suggests the his “mistress” is not this, shown in the first line and throughout (quote and analyse). this creates the idea that the she is human and not the idealistic beauty as set out out in daniels poem. This humanising element to Shakespeare's poem contradicts the theory of Debeauvoir which suggests women to be other (quote). Also, the nature of the poem confuses her idea that to men there is the good and bad woman this is because this poem is suggested to be aimed at shakespeares dark lady and at first glance you may assume that this means she would fall into the trope of the bad women. However the love the reader feels for the women is deep and true, going beyond physical appearance and this links closer to the trope of the good women. This suggests that the idea of the good and bad women is not as clear cut and Shakespeare plays with this idea. Through his description he paints an almost revolting image of the female, an example of this being "If her hair be wires, black wires grow on her head." This clever simile creates the impression that she is unkempt and we get almost hag like connotations from this description. Also in lines 7 and 8 "And in some perfumes is there more delight/Than in her breath that