Through their voice, a poet has the power to present their perceptions of the human experience. Two key themes that have occurred throughout poetry are death and mentality. Death is a key theme in Gwen Harwood’s Barn owl, and Bruce Dawes Homecoming. Another theme present in Homecoming is mentality, which is also a major idea expressed in Gerald Stern’s I Remember Galileo. These themes are vital parts of the human experience, as mentality is how we think or see things, while death is the final chapter of the human experience. Each poets’ context impacts what themes they address, and how they address them.
“Sleep, those little slices of death — how I loathe them.” ― Edgar Allan Poe. Edgar Allan Poe lived a very depressing life full of sadness and death, which reflects throughout his poetry. Everyone he loved or was somewhat close to died so he felt that he could never get remotely close to anyone.In some of Poe’s stories like “The Tell-Tale Heart”, “The Black Cat”, “The Cask of Amontillado”, “Eldorado”, “The Raven”, and “Annabel Lee” he adds the topic of whether it being murder or one of his loved ones dying. Poe uses sentence structure, tone/mood, and point of view to establish suspense in his works.
The poet, Edgar Allan Poe, wrote from influences in his life such as his grief, being an orphan and drugs. Poe, born in Boston, spent 3 years with his family until he was orphaned after his mother’s death and his father’s abandonment. Poe was adopted by the
The multifaceted nature of the human condition encompasses all aspects of human life at both an individual and collective level and delves into the notion of humanity and the values it comprises. Gwen Harwood’s poems’ “Father and Child” and “Mother who gave me life,” and Shirley Jackson’s short story, “The Lottery” (1998), explore the dynamic and often contradictory nature of the human condition. Harwood portrays the transience of time and inescapable truth of mortality, illustrating the ever changing complexion of the human experience. Whereas, Jackson examines the capability of all humans to be violent and cruel while questioning whether such tendencies can be masked by a constrictive society’s heartless ideals.
From the beginning, children are taught to fear the concept of death. Most people spend their lives fearing death, but it’s not death that they are afraid of. It is part of nature to die, and our minds know that, what scares most people is the thought of death before they have had time to accomplish what they want in life. In “When I Have Fears That I May Cease to Be,” John Keats put into words how people feel about dying before they have been successful in whatever mission they have set forth for themselves. His poem touches the reality of people’s feelings though imagery and figurative language.
Literature can be funny, happy, lovely, and dynamic in all its forms, but literature that strikes a chord and evokes deep gut-wrenching feelings is often that of realistic fiction that contains tragic events in which the characters are involved. War is just one of the events that seems to captivate audiences. Literature like the story “The Things They Carried” and the poem “Death of the Ball Turret Gunner” paint the truth of events that happen during war. Death appears in both of these works and is the tragic event that changes the theme of the pieces. But what if the theme begins with death and then discussed its effect on the tone of the characters? This very thing happens in “When I have fears that I may cease to be.” This causes the same
In the movie, “Bright Star” directed and written by Jane Campion, the writer includes the poem, “Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art” by John Keats, to further emphasize the romanticism of the poem. The movie portrays the poem author, John Keats falling in love with the neighboring girl, Fanny Brawne. Nonetheless, Keats is a poet with no real success and has no money, so their future together is limited and disdained. With the hopes of becoming officially engages and getting married, Keats sets out to finish his latest poetry novel. However, during his trip Keats becomes incredibly ill, tuberculosis, he is recommended to go Italy in hopes of getting better, but tragically dies. The use of the poem in the film conveys, love has a
Humans are a fragile species, and we are capable of dying at any moment regardless if we are ready or not. In Sherman Alexie’s “War Dances”, he illustrates the narrator’s coping with death and compares it to that of those around him. Upon figuring out that his death is no longer a looming threat, the narrator goes back to living life as if nothing happened cementing the idea that the threat of death is ever present but we choose to live as if it is not. Throughout the short story, Alexie utilizes the narrator’s experiences with the deaths of others and with the threat of his own to demonstrate the theme that death is always a possibility and there are many ways of coping with it. The narrator is hopeless about fighting his own death but utilizes humor to cope with the idea of dying.
“One is never afraid of the unknown; one is afraid of the known coming to an end” (Jiddu Krishnamurti). Instead of fearing the unknown, Sarah Kay tries to prepare for the future. According to her poems the best thing to do is to protect those you care about, but also realize the future is unknown and no one can truly know what lies ahead. “In the Event of an Emergency” focuses on the topic of what should happen if something goes wrong, where to return things that have had an important impact on the life. “Hiroshima” instead focuses on living life to the fullest, leaving something great behind to be remembered by. “They Give Him a Medal When His Parachute Fails to Open” focuses on trying to save someone from making
Often times we carry much burden on us, and doubt that we could have any purpose because of those burdens that we carry. In choosing three specific pieces of writing, the themes shared many similarities among them. Tim O’Brien’s, “The Things They Carried” is a short story about the very sentimental, physical and emotional possessions that the different soldiers carry within the story. McKay’s, “If We Must Die” speaks to the reader in such a way that conveys the idea of if they should die; it should be with honor and reason. Langston Hughes’, “I too, Sing America” gives no mention of death. However, he gives the similar impression that if he is going to live, regardless of his heritage, he is still going to live happily. These three pieces
The poem "Fear" by G. Mcstrawl uses many different types of figurative language. This poem talks about the feelings of a mother and misery in losing her daughter. She is fearful of her daughter leaving her. The poem uses repeated metaphors, imagery, and symbols to show the emotion and feelings of the mother. The author uses the metaphor, " I don't want them to turn her into a swallow" multiple times. The reason for the constant repetition is so that the author shows us that the mother doesn't want her daughter to do what swallows do, such as flying away and leaving to different places far away from her. The author wanted to repeat this metaphor more than once to show the reader how she really feels. Due to the specific words used in the poem
Literature has been a constant expression of artistic emotion throughout history. Over the course of the years, Literature has developed and changed due to America’s evolution. These changing time periods can be classified into 9 eras: Colonial, Revolutionary, Romantic, Transcendental, Realism, Modern, Harlem Renaissance, Beat Generation, and Postmodern. Throughout the changing history, new literary eras have begun in response to previous eras and events. American Literature has changed over time by adapting previous values, beliefs, and literary characteristics when a new era presents itself; this progression is due to changing societal views in
The speaker begins on a stream bank where love lays slumbering, and where he hears surges sob, then he moves to the wild who case to have been dumbfounded, then the speaker moves to the garden of love and a house of prayer has been assembled over where he used to play, covered in fog. The poem makes a ton of utilization of humanoid attribution, love is sleeping, and plants are sobbing and talking. This makes a surreal environment for the reader and starts to expand on the dim tone of the poem where love is lethargic and the characteristic world is shouting out and disheartened. At that point we have this congregation in the fog on the green where the speaker used to play, this brings the poem to a significantly more dismal wavelength. The congregation is covered, proposing obscurity and mystery, and it is fabricated where the speaker played, ending further playing or fun from occurring there. It is as though the poem is continually under a cloud, making me feel dismal for what has been lost or concealed.
There are several interpretations of John Keats’ poem, Ode to a Nightingale. Keats begins his poem with talking about a bird that seems real, but as the poem progresses the bird turns into a symbol. Keats was envisioning how life could be much simpler and he was thinking about the different ways life is troublesome. His reality was taken over by his dream of having a life like the nightingale- worryless and free. He wishes that he could join the bird because if he could escape to the nightingale’s world, he could escape from reality and live a much more uncomplicated and worry free life. Although the meaning of the poem is debatable, there are different interpretations about just the last line of his poem and why Keats chose to end his poem
In the poems “A Psalms of Life” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “Because I Could Not Stop For Death” by Emily Dickinson, “Beat! Beat! Drums!” by Walt Whitman the themes, mood, structure and literary devices has similarities and differences. In Longfellow’s poem “A Psalms of Life” its theme focuses on how everyone should live a life for today. The theme is expressed in his poem as Longfellow states, “Lives of great men all reminds us, we can make our lives sublime, and, departing, leave behind us footprints on the sands of times”. As in Emily Dickinson poem, the theme is based on the cycle of life the inevitability of death. The poem “Beat! Beat! Drum!” theme is the ravages of war.