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Figurative Language In The Poem Life By Paul Lawrence Dunbar

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A minute to smile and an hour to weep in" is exactly how Paul Lawrence Dunbar begins his poem, "life". In the poem " life" Paul Lawrence Dunbar discusses the sadness in life, but demonstrates how that sadness and emptiness can be overcome with by a bit of happiness you have in your life. Although this is a relatively short poem, it does a great job of portraying the good and the bad that comes with being alive. To get his point across Dunbar uses figurative language to convey the meaning of life.
In line 3 of the poem its states " a pint of joy and a peck of trouble". This is an example of figurative language that is used to explain that life has its happy moments, but it also comes with the trouble and hardships as well. This line supports my claim of Dunbar using figurative language to convey the meaning of life because this phrase means that life does indeed have its up and downs and with life comes allot of good, but also allot of problems. By stating this he is giving us an outlook on what we have to expect while alive and into this society. Although it seems like life goes as its planned, there is always the good that can result from all the troubles you have already overcome. …show more content…

This strategy is used in line 1 where he states " A crust of bread and a corner to sleep in". We can vividly picture this in our minds as a crust of bread was used to portray poverty in sense where sometimes there isn't always enough money to have a so-called gourmet or even a fulling meal. He goes onto include A corner to sleep in to further dig into just how hard life can be for those who don’t even have a bed to crawl into at night. But as he includes in his poem it's not about just paying attention to the rough times, it's about appreciating the good times because life isn't easy and as long as that strong support system is there you can get through all the rough times life

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