Tim Barsky’s The Bright River, is a poem written on the basis of life and death and what comes after when we no longer walk on Earth. It transcends political issues into the peaceful afterlife we hope for after our last breath. In The Bright River the author Tim Barsky utilizes allusion, concrete poetry, and imagery to depict the afterlife as a skewed reflection of the real life to emphasize political and domestic affairs.
Barsky uses imagery to describe a world that has similar aspects to real life such that the two worlds (the afterlife and the”real” world) appear the same. Although that may be the case, the afterlife which he illustrates is a skewed version of life as the reader knows it. “But these days Purgatory looks a whole lot more
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“As I stepped out into the ghetto that the garden of Eden has become and there in an empty lot, I saw the tree of life, abandoned & squatted covered in a cast concrete structures heard the four to the floor of a house beat could feel the bass right through my feet” (Barsky 18) Since Barsky is still illustrating the afterlife, he makes an impressive statement by describing the garden of Eden as abandoned and disregarded. Barsky’s depiction of the Garden of Eden is instead a ghetto that is home to a more urbanized feel of muffled house music and concrete structures. The common imagery that the reader is familiar with in this example, is the religious connotation of the Tree of Life and the Garden of Eden. Most ideas of the afterlife are associated with some sort of religion, but the fact that in this version of the afterlife religion is so blatantly disrespected, it gives the reader pause to think just how different this world …show more content…
By using this, Barsky creates parallels between the reader's world and the described after life in The Bright River.
“When I died I came to in the bus station to find that no one in America had remembered to send the fare and now I’m trapped here in the bus station and I’m homeless living this nightmare. I’m begging for money and I’m terrified. I’m really really scared and now this country said it would never forget me- but it did.” (Barsky 15)
In this section of the poem, Barsky directly correlates the mistreatment of veterans in the United States to the lost abandoned souls in Purgatory. By doing this, it’s another form of bringing the story to life as it resonates back to real life. The reader may feel the injustice that the soldier in Purgatory is suffering over as well as the rest of the veterans that are in a similar predicament. Dead or alive, the veterans receive the short end of the stick.
Furthermore, allusion is again used when the soldier describes his encounter with the social worker who is separating his
The poem “Nightmares”, by Sammy Lupo, is about an inmate who was convicted for murder on death row and how that forever haunts him after the horrifying events are over. Kimel’s poem designate, how a man that survived the Holocaust, cannot forget the horrid events that happened and he wants everyone to be aware of the Holocaust and not forget it. The likenesses the poems share are that both author’s cannot forget the terrifying events they have experienced in their lifetime and both poems share a macabre tone. The particular differences are that the inmates poem was wrote before he died and Kimel survived and is hoping to make sure no one forgets the horrifying events of the Holocaust. Lupo was punished on a death row sentence for killing an
“On the Rainy River”, an intimate chapter between Tim O'Brien and the reader digs deep within O’Brien’s mind, revealing his extensive fear of going to war and how far he would reach to avoid it. More than 60,000 men avoided the draft for the Vietnam War, O’Brien taking part in that number. Burning draft cards, ignoring “casting” calls and fleeing to Canada grew as young American men were being called to fight a war none had wanted to take part in. Without confronting his parents about the situation from the start, Tim O’Brien fled to the Tip Top Lodge which “jutted northward into the Rainy River”; not quite Canada, but close enough to execute his decision when made(47). Home, a place known to be safe and comforting for O’Brien, where his loved
One of the strongest and most moving analogies that Rosenblatt uses in his piece is one where speaks on their certain death, yet still, they wrote. “We the last occupants of the Warsaw Ghetto had finally seen their families and companions die of disease or starvation, or be carried off in trucks to extermination camps, and there could be no doubt of their own fate, still they took scraps of paper on which they wrote poems, thoughts, fragments of lives, rolled them into tight scrolls and slipped them into the crevices of the ghetto walls.” (Rosenblatt). In this moment, the survivors have experienced so much in pain and loss. Rosenblatt also explains why he thinks that humans tell stories and experiences.
Following this, alliteration is used consecutively here, their “eyes were enormous in their starving skulls” stressing the pervasiveness of their malnutrition down to the bone. Like the confused actions of Hans, so too do the Jews wear their emotions unconsciously: “a few wayward steps of forced running before the slow return to a malnourished walk”, a depiction of movement that represents the ultimate collapse of mind and body. Between the curious audience and the “depleted” Jews is the tenuous link of humanity, demonstrated by the imagery of the prisoners as they “reached across to them”—hands outstretched, universally symbolic of pleading with those in power. As the narrative viewpoint, Death notes the Stars of David that were used by state forces to identify the Jews that were likened to “misery”, a reflection of the opening dictionary definition and a recurring stress placed on their
(H) “They feel guilty for having survived, so they pretend the bad things never happened” (Trumbo). (Th) In Tim O’Brien’s 1990 metafictional novel, The Things They Carried, he exemplifies in the chapters “Ambush” and “The Man I Killed” how the ability to express the inevitable guilt from serving in war often determines whether one will survive post-war life (M) through anaphora, celestial imagery, and vivid imagination. (Pt) Anaphora manifests how a person’s expression of guilt from serving in war decides whether one can survive after war.
In Tim O’Brian’s book, The Things They Carried, he tells the story of Tim who serves in the Vietnam war and is immersed in a war filled with death. O’Brian through his theme of death helps create a story that illustrates the horrors of war, and shows how soldiers carried death both physically and psychologically. For instance, O’Brian conveys how closely war and death are associated together. On page 77, O’Brian writes, “At its core, perhaps, war is just another name for death, and yet any soldier will tell you, if he tells the truth, that proximity to death brings with it corresponding proximity to life” (77). This quote illustrates, how by coming close to dying, one can appreciate life that much more.
Throughout each poem, metaphors are evident. In line 11 of the poem “Remember,” “ For if the darkness and corruption leave,” the metaphor is used to describe that the person will become happier after moving on or forgetting about the dead loved
The concept of time changes with traumatic events. The duration of these stretches an intermediate length, allowing one to remember former fallacies and lament on what led to this dire situation. In his short story, The Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, Ambrose Bierce illustrates an execution and its effect on the mental processing of the victim.
In Housman’s poem “HERE DEAD WE LIE” the dead are talking to the living soldiers, encouraging their fight and risking their lives. Reassuring the young soldiers that life is really nothing to lose when fighting for your country, “[although] young men think it is, And [they] were young,” not knowing that they died for the right cause (Housman). The fallen soldiers, although young, are ironically convincing the living soldiers that it is alright to die for their country, and not to worry if they fall in the war as well. The lost generation is another key theme exemplified throughout the works of Remarque and Housman by the mass of soldiers killed from
The Yadkin River is one of the longest rivers in North Carolina. The Yadkin Pee Dee River Basin is North Carolina’s second largest basin. It is very important to a variety of habitats and has been the site of human civilization for at least 12,000 years, earning it the nickname of the ‘‘Tigris and Euphrates of the Carolinas.’’ It was formerly called the Sapona River, after the people that originally inhabited its banks, until the name was changed between 1709 and 1733.
Despite people’s best efforts, history’s dark side cannot be easily ignored. The stage adaptation of Australian Gothic, The Secret River, proves just that. Directed by Neil Armfield, The Secret River follows the story of William Thornhill (Nathaniel Dean), a British convict sentenced to New South Wales for his crimes, who, along with his family, claim already preoccupied land. Thornhill being to grow an attachment to the idea of owning land as his own and attempts to convince the already situated family to move on from the land. When Thornhill’s attempts fail, he is driven to making a haunting and twisted decision that would haunt him for the remainder of his life.
It is noteworthy that this story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden is the foundation of the religion with the largest number of followers worldwide. Why does it continue to resonate with so many people even today? The reason is that this utopia contains archetypes that reflect the collective unconscious that is found across all cultures. This is the result of universal themes in this story about humanity’s needs and desires that we still see occurring in our society today. The story of Genesis contains three archetypal characteristics that illustrate these patterns that still demonstrate humanity’s needs.
How does a person’s response to and perspective of a crisis define him or her? In the event of a crisis, a person’s response and perspective of it can define him or her. In the novel, The Book Thief, written by Markus Zusak, and the short story, “On the Rainy River”, written by Tim O’Brien, the characters experience crisis all around them. Hans Hubermann in The Book Thief and Tim O’Brien in “On the Rainy River” have a hard time staying true to themselves in moments of crisis.
The pale dead refer to the phrase “woman that have dead hair,” “bakers who are as white as angels,” and “pensive young girls married to notary publics,” There is one Simile which is the bakers and angels, the poet compared the bakers that white as an angels. The woman and the bakers is describing the appearance of the dead person which related to “the pale dead”. In the sixth line, the phrase “the vertical river of the dead” is the same idea of Styx River. Michael Dawson (1997) notes that “A river that separates the world of the living from the world of the dead.” (para.1).
The fear of being judged can leave a person feeling trapped in their day-to-day life. It could leave them feeling afraid to admit who they are, where they’ve been, and where it could take them in the end. “The Hollow Men” is a poem about the men stuck in a purgatory in between heaven and hell. These men are seen by others that pass through on their way to there eternity. The men do not follow them because they are afraid of their judgment, they are afraid of where they might go.