Paul Durcan’s intensely lyrical poetry was incredibly thought provoking to study. He offered us memorable, striking, and powerful insights into both his personal life and his view on society. He reflects on personal issues such as marriage, familial relationships, and also on his deep sense of personal failure. All of this is conveyed through an exquisite array of metaphors and beautifully crafted symbols. These insights into human experiences are enriched by his ability to use dark humour in his poems and startling, provocative language to make his work incredibly memorable and appealing. He also excellently employs repetition to emphasize his views and feelings, making his work incredibly accessible. Durcan expresses a range of incredibly …show more content…
My favourite example of this is his poem ‘The Girl with the keys to Pearse’s cottage’. The cottage is an excellent metaphor crafted to symbolize Pearse’s ideals for Ireland. He personifies the dream of an established independent Ireland when he says, “Her name was Cait Killan”. However the striking aspect of this poem is how he highlights the failure of the Irish Government, and how ideals collapse when being implemented. He writes, “I recall wet thatch and peeling jambs And how all was best seen from below”. This is an incredibly crafted symbol to allow us understand the profound issues facing Ireland. This is exacerbated when he says “Our world was strange because it had no future”. This biting social commentary is expressed through wonderful metaphor making it incredibly accessible to the reader. Also in ‘Nessa’ he writes “I met her on the first of august, in the Shnagri-La Hotel”. This clever symbolism expresses how it felt like the height of summer and a utopia when he met her. Another excellent example of this is in ‘Windfall’ when he talks of “Goya sketching Goya among the smoky mirrors.” This shows us the beauty and perfection he feels his family encapsulates. The use of such symbolism makes his work so easy to relate to and incredibly
The novel Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston supports a theme of desire, love, and independence. Neale uses different literary devices such as symbolism and motif. Neale uses symbolism to express the theme of independence, desire and love. For example, uses Janie’s hair to symbolizes her independence and desire. Janie’s hair expresses the breaking the social standard barrier, by having her straight hair worn down which was seen shameful for a woman her age.
This quote was mentioned before but is a great example to show the imagery he used. “It is a melancholy object to those who walk through this great town, or travel in the country, when they see the streets, the roads and cabbin-doors crowded with beggars of the female sex followed by three, four, six
Poets and other writers often express life through their works and characters. Some poems convey a depressing, gloomy attitude towards life, while others show the world as a joyful and simple place. Two skilled creative writers, Edgar Lee Masters and Edwin Arlington Robinson, wrote detailed poems describing the lives of characters with extremely different perspectives on life. Many obvious differences can be identified between the lives of Robinson’s Miniver Cheevy and Masters’s Lucinda Matlock. Edwin Arlington Robinson’s poem about Miniver Cheevy paints life as miserable and useless.
Julia Alvarez, in her poem “’Poetry Makes Nothing Happen’?”, writes that poems do play a role in people’s lives. She supports her idea by using relateable examples of how poems might change someone’s life. Her first example is simple, poetry can entertain someone on long drives. This does not only aply to long dirves however, Alvarez uses this to show that poetry does not have to have a big influence on someone’s life, instead it can affect a person in the smallest of ways, such as entertainment. The second example describes poetry comforting someone after the loss of a loved one.
In “The Trouble with Poetry” the speaker touches on the same idea of how poetry is so forced, and how it has lost its meaning as an expression and has become more of an addiction among
Author’s lives inspire their writing in many ways. An illustrious writer, Edgar Allan Poe, experienced continuous sufferings throughout his life. The heartaches he faced transferred into his writing. Poe’s works are dark and traumatic, such as “The Pit and the Pendulum.” He uses the unthinkable and shapes short stories out of them.
Claire Aguilar-Hwang Mrs. Veitch 2 2/15/18 Endless Possibilities Entering a rocket, risking life, exhilarating adventures waiting. Travelling to the moon, to the endless possibilities in outer space, just like what 37 year old Charlie Gordon feels in the science fiction short story “Flowers for Algernon” by Daniel Keyes. He has a surgery, risking his life. There are highs and lows waiting for him the minute the surgery is complete.
Lisa needs that support as she goes forward in her life. We all need that safety net as we struggle forward; this message of the safety in the middle of the uncertain change is true and descriptive of our early college years today as well. IV. Conclusion: Reflections on Reading Poetry A. Reading poetry is often not as specific as prose, and it leaves more to the imagination; different words hold different meanings for different readers. B. In changing and moving into our own adult lives; our parents and grandparents often already know of the struggle we are going through.
Dreams, contrary to popular belief, are terrible. The best thing to do, is to stop chasing dreams because all dreams do is distract people from more important responsibilities. People spend their time chasing their dreams, but they don’t perform their day to day tasks they need to survive on their own. In the memoir, The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, Jeannette’s mother, Rose Mary, has a dream of becoming an artist. Instead of getting a job to provide for her poverty stricken family, she decides to stay home and paint all day.
In The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, Rose Mary is the mother of the Walls children who often does not act as a true adult. Rose Mary’s attitudes and behaviours are childlike, and therefore her children must take on responsibility for the lack her own. Rose Mary ignores her obligations as a parent and chooses an irresponsible way of life which endangers her children. Rose Mary has never properly matured into adulthood due to her lack of financial stability, bliss ignorance and optimism, and her selfishness nature.
The author used symbolism throughout the whole story to show the difference between these characters. The symbolism is there to give us a further explanation on the family and also to tell us how much heritage is important to some, but not others. The first symbol
This poem is intriguing because of its ability to draw different ideas of the theme based on the reader’s experiences and influences. What is the intended interpretation, and what could be interpreted? Dawes writes the poem, alternating between comparing the first person mentioned to a storm with the baby leaving the mother’s womb and the experiences between the first person and external individuals. Dawes writes this poem using his own experiences and other influencing factors in his
By doing this, he is giving attention to the impact that the symbol has on the culture. He is neither rejecting the idea of
His brush work is so expressive and unique, unlike anything the people had seen before. Before, painting was focused on having precise brush strokes so that the piece was photorealistic, but now it is all about adding to the tone of the piece. His work is not focused on sharp edges but rather using the strokes to move the viewer’s eye all around the piece. For example, in his piece Saturn Devouring His Son, 1819-23, Goya captures the form in these broad expressive brush strokes. These strokes contribute to the overall emotion of the piece by allowing the viewer’s eye to move around the composition entirely , revealing the horrifying subject of the piece.
Within the novel “Chronicle of a Death Foretold” the author uses specific symbols throughout the book to get certain points across. He uses symbolism through the setting of the book so we are able to read between the lines. The weather and specific objects in nature are two symbolic representations used consistently throughout the novel. Other forms of symbols can include the way he uses character names, senses, and animals. The author chooses to use all of these at specific points in the book to make our attention really drawn to key factors in the novel.