Analyzing Sharon Olds 'Poem The Real Victims'

The story “Shooting Dad” by Sarah Vowell discusses a story about a teenage girl and her relationship with her father and how they are constantly clashing with each other because they are almost exact opposites. The author develops her story by creating images in the reader 's mind to describe events that happened in her life, the use hyperbole for comedic relief, and irony for emotional effect. The use of these emotional strategies is effective because Vowell is able to use these strategies to help the readers understand the relationship between her and her father. Overall by the use of strategies like imagery, hyperbole, and irony the author creates a piece of writing that shows the relationship between the main character and her father.

In conclusion the author uses literary devices to add depth and emotion to the complex relationship between the two characters. He does this by changing the point of view throughout the poem from son to father. He uses a purposeful structure from present to future coming back to present to demonstrate with the complexity of the father's

In the second half of the Canadian novel Lullabies for Little Criminals, author Heather O’Neill continues to illustrate and conclude the development of the themes of loss of innocence and love. Baby’s negative life decisions, such as delinquency, prostitution, and drug addiction are elements of her need to feel a sense of belonging and affection. Unfortunately, the lack of her family’s presence causes her to seek appreciation in the wrong places.

The diction employed throughout the passage signifies the narrator’s background and setting. The narrator’s choice of words illustrates how significant those memories were to her. Specific words help build the narrator’s Midwestern background with items like the locust, cattails and the Bible. The narrator’s fifth-grade self also seems noticeably impressionable as she relates all her quotes to either parents, “which my mother said”, “Daddy-said-so” and “my father said.” She seems as if she does not have her own ideas and lacks thinking for herself. She simply echoes what her parents mention. This connection, however, suggests that the narrator’s childhood was very intertwined with her family. The narrator also makes use of hyphens such as

    Both of these text proves life has struggles and things is not always perfect. In the text “Mother and Daughter” Yollie and her mom are both trying to make ends meet they are poor and it’s hard for her mother to get her everything she wants. Throughout the story Mrs. Moreno sacrifices everything and a piece of evidence i can pull from the text is “ We don’t have the money said her mother, genuinely sad because

At the beginning of the poem, the speaker has a tone that demonstrates aggravation and shame towards her mother. During the description of the mother, Hogan worded it in a way the reader could interpret as a negative connotation, which was later made clearer when Hogan pronounced the Grandmother’s hatred toward the white settlers. The speaker’s father, uncle, Grandfather, and Grandmother were all Native Americans, who were constantly removed from their land, where their farms and homes were destroyed by the prospective oil dreamers. “It was the brown stain that covered my white skirt, my whiteness a shame” (28) By inserting this line into the poem, Hogan was able to show what the speaker was really thinking. A lesser author would have put that line at the beginning of the poem, leaving no imagination for the reader. After talking to all of her relatives, the speaker’s grandmother made the biggest impact her, settling her opinion about her mother’s heritage.

Poetry is an effective means used to convey a variety of emotions, from grief, to love, to empathy. This form of text relies heavily on imagery and comparison to inflict the reader with the associated feelings. As such, is displayed within Stephen Dunn 's, aptly named poem, Empathy. Quite ironically, Dunn implores strong diction to string along his cohesive plot of a man seeing the world in an emphatic light. The text starts off by establishing the military background of the main protagonist, as he awaits a call from his lover in a hotel room. After his significant other finally calls him, presumably to end the relationship, he then aimlessly goes to the zoo. Empathy, by Stephen Dunn exponentially displays the interplay of empathy and self interests, as the main protagonist seeks out his individualistic desires by searching for an empathetic connection through other living vessels.`

Comparing and contrasting Sylvia Plath’s “Daddy” and Theodore Roethke’s “My Papa’s Waltz”, one finds the two poems are similar with their themes of abuse, yet contrasting with how the themes are portrayed. Furthermore, the speaker 's feelings toward their fathers’ in each poem contrast. One speaker was hurt by the father and the other speaker was indifferent about how he was treated by his father. The fathers’ feelings toward the children are also different despite how each treated the child. Both poems accurately portray the parent-child relationships within an abusive home, even if they have different

The Boat by Alistair MacLeod is about a boy who grew up in a fishing town and wanted to escape it retelling his story. The unmanned narrator starts the story by telling the readers of his first boat ride. We learn from the story that his father is a fisherman and his mother has always known this life of fishing. So the narrators entire life was spend on a boat; from reading thee we will learn that the boat is a reoccurring theme and it is kind of personified. The we learn that the narrator’s father is an avid reader and is always reading. This makes mother angry; she thinks that books are pointless; she even goes as far to say “In the next world God will see to those who waste their lives reading useless books when they should be about work”

The poem ‘Morning Praise of Nightmares One’ which is written by Lauire, Ann Guerrero depicts a strong notion about abuse and elements of despair when children at tender age are dealt with extreme abusive behavior. The overall theme of the poem is around the narration of a young girl who is living a life of pain in a house where she is inflicted with torture, pains and bruises. Despite of her miserable condition nobody is helping her. She is facing each morning with screams of nightmares which are never ending and no one is there to comfort her.

One look 's back to find justification in childhood for the sins he 's committed in later life; to better recognize the cruelty inflicted onto others. But only appeasing the guilt and responsibility and blames the child within; without a father 's wisdom or a mother 's compassion: an orphan to himself. I was alone in this war, and out of everyone I have ever known; it was Rosemary 's absence that never left my side. What would she of thought of my actions? I took refuge in one of her bedtime poems to ease my

People of any and every background face difficulties. Many people do not even know how many people support and care for them. For example, when a family's house in a community burns down, it is reassuring to see their neighbors, friends, family, and even strangers, come together in order to protect and help the family in a time of need. In Naomi Shihab Nye’s poem “Shoulders,” she shows just how important protecting loved ones is. “Shoulders” is about a father who needs to protect his son from the rain in order to let him sleep. This poem sends the message of how important it is to protect loved ones by using figurative language, sound devices, and word choice.

What striked me was how different the daughter wanted to be from her mother, solely because personally, I strive to become at least half the woman my mom was to me. It wasn’t until the end of the poem where the daughter’s true intentions lied. Given the information from the very first stanza, the reader can only question the purpose of all the name writing. I paused and thought to myself, “why would she go through the struggle and write her name everywhere, every second of the day?” Then after reading the last stanza, it clicked. She wanted to remind herself that she is going to do something worth more in this life, as opposed to her mother. That is the central conflict of the

In the play a common sense of familiarity helps to shape the identities of Stella and the speaker of the poem. It can be inferred that Stella replaced her sister Blanche’s bossy and authoritative behavior with Stanley’s. Stella tells Blanche “I like to wait on you, Blanche. It makes it seem more like home”(pg 93). In the poem in line 18 to 20 the speaker says “I do not live to retrieve or multiply what my father lost or gained”(Baca). We can assume that the father in the poem was enduring hardships and their child was very able to see that. The hardships were so difficult that the child doesn’t want to be at all associated with

In this story, the narrator has been lead to believe that she has no part in her community. Throughout her life, she has been isolated by her entire town even by those who she called family. As seen in the text when the narrator says “ It saddened my mother to have given birth to an item such as myself”().