“ I Saw You Walking Away”: Symbolism, Imagery, and Punctuation in Kooser’s “After Years.”
In his poem “After Years” Ted Kooser deals with the subject of loneliness. He specifically talks about what he feels happens when somebody walks out on life. In the poem, the speaker is wondering about big catastrophic events happening once somebody he loves leaves him. Kooser uses symbolism, imagery, and punctuation to say that someone important leaving somebody can have a detrimental effect.
Firstly, Kooser uses symbolism to express that losing a loved one can have a detrimental effect. In the first half, the speaker is expressing his sadness about the loss of a loved one. He describes “A star thirty-five times the size of our own sun exploded and
Introduction The book that I selected is called “Getting Life” by Michael Morton, who is a man that was wrongfully convicted of killing his wife in Texas in 1986. This book takes us from a happy young couple to the day of the murder, through the investigation into his wife’s murder, Michael’s trial and conviction, 25 years in prison, appeals, release from prison, and reintegration into society. One unique fact about this case is that is the first case where the prosecutor in a wrongful conviction case was subsequently convicted of prosecutorial misconduct, stripped of their law license and sentenced to serve time in jail.
Reaction Paper 1: Was the American Revolution Largely a Product of Market-Driven Consumer Forces? The readings was a debate of whether or not the cause of the American Revolutionary War was largely a product of market driven consumer forces. T.H. Breen, the author of The Marketplace of Revolution: How Consumer Politics Shaped America’s Independence, believed the war was produced by market driven consumer forces.
(1) The poem was written in the early 1900s, and is told through the view of the persona, most likely a small child who is experiencing the unannounced absence of a parent, who they loved very much, who did not say goodbye. This story is told through the setting of the persona’s house which is even when the persona says, “I rushed out of bed… I say waiting near the door of the room.” The individual dramatic situation of this poem is at the end of the piece when the persona realizes that the missing loved one would come back for their “gold-mounted ivory walking stick” instead of saying goodbye to the persona, as seen in the lines, “You might come back from the station to look for it/ But not because/You had not seen me before going away.” This poem describes the relationship of the central theme with the other poems by using many examples of symbols and smilies.
David Kennedy’s Over Here: The First World War and American Society gives the reader an in depth description of American history during Americas involvement in World War I. The book covers from President Wilson’s war message to Congress on April 2, 1917 to the Armistice on November 11, 1918 pointing out major dilemmas within the country, whether they are political, social, or cultural. Kennedy starts the book out with a prologue that sets the scene. After the prologue, Kennedy jumps into explaining the war and the thoughts of the American people about the war that was carried into the battlefield.
(Page 48) The theme of lonlieness is most apparent after the dog is taken away and the setting is described. “The silence fell on the room again. It came out of the night and invaded the room.” (Page 48).
Laurie Halse Anderson conveys a lonely mood through the use of imagery, dialogue, and tone in her book “Speak”. Throughout the novel, the reader sees the struggles of a freshman girl named Melinda after she was raped over the summer. Laurie Halse Anderson uses imagery to create a lonely mood. “Built-in shelves filled with dusty textbooks and a few bottles of bleach… A cracked mirror tils over a sink littered with dead roaches crotched together with cobwebs.” This quote helps the reader create an image in their head of a dirty, forgotten place where it makes the reader feel the same feelings of loneliness that Melinda felt in the story.
Another classmate commented that she liked how the first line seemed to have a completely different meaning when rereading the poem, since it illustrates how killing one’s own inner demons is a cycle. One student also felt disconnected at “with each glance your shadow grows darker”, since the poem is not clear about what this character is glancing at or where this dialogue is coming
Symbolism uses symbols to represent ideas or qualities, such as loss, grief, or pain. This idea is of utmost importance because, in the novel Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse, two symbols show the suffering of Billie Jo and Daddy. Hence, the author uses symbolism to explain the loss in Billie Jo’s and Daddy’s lives, using the gaping hole that daddy digs and the missing cranberry sauce. Primarily, Billie Jo’s symbol for suffering loss was the cranberry sauce, as it represents her loss of her mother.
He describes the anguish and pain of being separated from family members, such as when he is taken away from his mother as a young child. For instance, he writes, "I never saw my mother, to know her as such, more than four or five times in my life; and each of these times was very short in duration, and at night" (Chapter 1). This emotional appeal is particularly effective in eliciting sympathy and anger from readers.
An icy horror of loneliness seized him; he saw himself standing apart and watching all the world fade away from him – a world of shadows, of fickle dreams. He was like a little child,
Liz Addison in her essay “Two Years Are Better Than Four” in They Say I Say lists numerous advantages two-year colleges have over the other degree. Community college is something to which people should pay close attention while reading because it appears more than once throughout the text. The paper will be based on college and its importance, and the words community college mean a two-year college where people can go to get a feel for college or to get their start.
In the poem, “Becoming and Going: An Oldsmobile Story” by Gerald Hill the speaker is traveling down a road in the Fort Qu’appelle Valley. He notices his father and his son are also driving down this road. The speaker then begins to list the two men’s characteristics. As he lists them we see that the father and the son have both similarities and differences in their personalities.
But most of the story is a form of symbolism. This story gives the reader a look at what it feels like to be lonely. In this world it’s seems hard, cold, and alone. The world seems dead. But many people in our world would say it’s not that different then the one Ray Bradbury wrote about.
Without this symbolism in the story, the story would not be as effective because it wouldn’t show the audience the key elements they need to fully understand it. Wolff’s story discusses the challenge of a family that is broken and attempting to be mended back together, similar to my own challenge with standing up to bullies.
Andy Warhol once said, “They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself”. Change is affected by time and by people in different ways. A negative change can ultimately have a positive outcome. Change is not always bad, but in order for it to be good you need to make it good. Change occurs all the time, and it happens to everyone at one point in his or her life.