ipl-logo

The Centaur By May Swenson Essay

686 Words3 Pages

Everyone has an imagination whether in depth or simple. Imagination is just a reflection of one's free spirit inside that cannot be shown on a regular basis. “The Centaur” by May Swenson shows a girl’s expression of her free spirit contrasting with the constraints of normal, everyday life.
In the beginning of the poem, the speaker uses varied imagery to show the extent of the girls free spirit and imagination. She goes to a willow grove “on [her] two bare feet” which she refers to as “[her] stable.” This opening to the poem both expresses how in depth the girls creativeness goes as she creates an imaginary stable out of a normal grouping of willow trees but also shows that she cares little for the typical gender roles of girls. Girls at that …show more content…

When the girl returns home, Swenson contradicts the exciting imagery from the ride by saying the girl enters a “dusky hall” with “clean linoleum” and leaves “ghostly toes” in the hall. These mundane adjectives identify that the girl is brought back from her imagination to boringness of reality. Before she enters the kitchen with her mother, the girl “smooth[s] [her] skirt”, showing that she is reapplying herself to the gender roles she previously left behind. Her mother then orders her to “go tie [her] hair back”, adding to the idea that when the girl is home, she is once again constrained to normalcy, unable to utilize her superior imagination. The contrasting ideas in the end of the poem create a divided between the girl’s wild imagination when she is alone, and the social norms she abides to when at home.
Although everyone has their own version of imagination and reckless spirit, only in some instances are people able to access it. “The Centaur” by May Swenson shows a girl going from wild and free in her own creativeness, to later being restricted to societal normalcy after returning

Show More
Related

  • Compare And Contrast Confetti Girl And Tortilla Sun

    685 Words  | 3 Pages

    First, both are the parents are single. Something must have happened to them because they are not present in the passages as there in the present, but rather as memories. Also, with this, the narrators would reminisce about all of the enjoyable experiences with their lost parent. The existing parents seem to care more about education rather than their own child. In Confetti Girl, the dad is oblivious to the fact that there his daughter does not want to talk about her English class.

    Read More

  • Exploitation In Michelle Cliff's Down The Shore

    1526 Words  | 7 Pages

    Michelle Cliff’s short story Down the Shore conspicuously deals with a particularly personal and specific, deeply psychological experience, in order to ultimately sub-textually create a metaphor regarding a wider issue of highly social nature. More specifically, the development of the inter-dependent themes of trauma, exploitation, as well as female vulnerability, which all in the case in question pertain to one single character, also latently extend over to the wider social issue of colonialism and its entailing negative repercussions, in this case as it applies to the Caribbean and the British Empire. The story’s explicit personal factor is developed through the literary techniques of repetition, symbolism, metaphor, as well as slightly warped albeit telling references to a distinct emotional state, while its implicit social factor is suggested via the techniques of allusion, so as to ultimately create a generally greater, undergirding metaphor.

    Read More

  • Florence Kelley Ap Language Essay

    702 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the third paragraph, Kelly describes how on a given night “several thousand little girls will be working in textile mills, all the night through, in the deafening noise of the spindles and the looms.” This auditory imagery is intended to portray the painfully loud noises created by the machinery that young children are forced to work among. Additionally, Kelley depicts “a girl of six or seven years, just tall enough to reach the bobbins,” who may spend the whole night working in a factory. This image emphasizes how incredibly young and small many working girls are, making child labor unsafe and unethical. Florence Kelley’s use of such emotive imagery moves the audience to pity working

    Read More

  • The Girl With Charlotte Smith Analysis

    1045 Words  | 5 Pages

    Zadie Smith’s “The Girl with The Bangs” is a vivid account of a romantic relationship between two incompatible characters with vastly different personalities. Told from a first person perspective, it traces the narrator’s journey through an unusual relationship with the girl Charlotte, exploring what it is like “being a boy” – enthralled by a girl’s physical features and thus willing to tolerate any faults of any magnitude (188). His optimism and attraction to Charlotte eventually leads him to grief, where, blinded by their relationship, he is caught unawares and replaced by another boy. Yet, he also achieves an epiphany: that the relationship is built on irrational obsessions and motives and is thus ultimately unsustainable. Told in introspection,

    Read More

  • The Night Waitress Analysis

    1041 Words  | 5 Pages

    Her inner self craves for freedom to drive past and achieve something. She envisions her song as a luxurious Cadillac, where she now wants a materialistic world. She is in her imaginary world until the heat of the urn in her hand bring back her to reality, where she starts comparing to her real life, hallow and vapid. She attempts to find comfort in her room, as she says “coffee cruises my mind visiting the most remote way stations, I think of my room as a calm arrival each book and lamp in its place.” She starts to reflect her possessions and the security they give her and what they represent in her life.

    Read More

  • Rhetorical Analysis Of Florence Kelly's Speech

    838 Words  | 4 Pages

    She expresses that, “North and South Carolina and Georgia place no restriction upon the work of children at night; and while we sleep little white girls will be working tonight in the mills in those states, working eleven hours at night,” (Line 27-31.) She uses the phrase ‘while we sleep’ to generate feelings of remorse among the listeners as the children work tirelessly on end while the adults are resting. She also uses the phrase ‘little white girls’ to create more sympathy as girls were seen as frail and innocent, and it creates the question ‘Why is an innocent and weak person being forced to work laboriously?’. She also states, “Tonight while we sleep, several thousand little girls will be working in textile mills, all the night through, in the deafening noise of the spindles and the looms spinning and weaving cotton and wool, silks and ribbons for us to buy,” (Line 18-22.) She uses auditory imagery in the pathos argument above for her audience to better understand the harsh conditions that the children work in.

    Read More

  • Jasper Jones By Craig Silvey: A Visual Essay

    525 Words  | 3 Pages

    At the beginning and after every scene we have picture of crumbled girl. Pictures are supported by quotes from novel, and they have the most significant part in this visual essay: The picture of a crumbled girl sitting alone represents Eliza who is very depressed because of everything that happened. The picture is fading in black. This shows the darkness that eats her, and all the negative feelings. The image of the lock presents her feelings as hidden away and she is unable to talk about them or gain closure.

    Read More

  • Cherry Bomb Maxine Clair Summary

    432 Words  | 2 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • Speak By Laurie Halse Anderson Analysis

    734 Words  | 3 Pages

    Her “homely sketch” symbolizes her life. It shows how all though she has gone through depression and her life hasn’t been perfect, she realizes she must accept it. Her experience with depression shows her that no one’s life is perfect and many people will go through many different things. She finally understands that whatever has happened to her in her life has made her become the person she

    Read More

  • Literary Elements In Eudora Welty's A Worn Path

    526 Words  | 3 Pages

    Literary Analysis: “A Worn Path” Eudora Welty uses many literary elements in her short story, “A Worn Path,” to allow the reader to stay engaged throughout its entirety. Although there are many literary elements present in this story, there are three that Welty focuses intently on. She uses elements such as imagery, symbolism, and motifs to draw the reader’s attention. It is important for an author to write their story in a way that can be understood but also enjoyed. In “A Worn Path”, Welty focuses in on the elements, such as, symbolism, motifs, and imagery and writes a story that has great meaning and can be discovered by the reader when looked at carefully.

    Read More

  • My Wicked Ways Analysis

    693 Words  | 3 Pages

    Throughout the poem, the speaker’s mother seems to be upset. The poems tone shifts when the speaker begins to talk about themselves. The speaker talks down on herself. The speakers states, “I will turn out bad”(31). From this, viewers can assume that the poems tone is unsatisfied.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Eleven By Sandra Cisneros

    700 Words  | 3 Pages

    Sandra Cisneros’ short story “Eleven”, poem “My Wicked Wicked Ways”, and book The House on Mango Street have many similarities and differences in terms of style, tone, theme, character and setting. In the short story “Eleven”, Sandra Cisneros manages to convey a powerful message about growing up from the perspective of an eleven year old. The story starts out with Rachel, the protagonist, who is turning eleven today. It starts out with her at school while she's in math class.

    Read More

  • Volar Short Story Theme

    725 Words  | 3 Pages

    At the age of twelve children still have an imagination that is wild. They dream big and still believe in the easter bunny or santa. They think about being astronauts, princesses, and even superheros. In the short story “Volar” by Judith Ortiz Cofer, a young girl of an ethnic origin, who lives in a run-down apartment with her parents, finds a refuge in comic books she buys, and dreams of being a superhero herself. Throughout the story, the young girl struggles deals with cultural related problems many people living in that building don't have to deal with.

    Read More

  • The Theme Of Female Sexuality In Jamaica Kincaid's Girl

    554 Words  | 3 Pages

    She wants her daughter to walk and act a certain way. She even teaches her how to talk to men so, they won’t assume that she is promiscuous. In “Girl,” there is different themes throughout the novel but the main one has to do with female sexuality. How a women should act and be seen as respectable.

    Read More

  • Theme Of Friendship In Ferrante's My Brilliant Friend

    904 Words  | 4 Pages

    “We read it for months, so many times that the book became tattered and sweat stained, it lost its spine, came unearthed, sections fell apart […] but we loved it dearly” (68). Reading created joy between the girls, strengthening their friendship and their will to escape the encompassing darkness of the neighbourhood. Each moment spent reading in the courtyard was one where they could be children, creating an inseparable bond. There was no worry of the past becoming present, in fact, the book drove them to desire a better future. Little Women provided a luminosity from the injustices they suffered, like Lila’s inability to continue her education.

    Read More

More about The Centaur By May Swenson Essay

Open Document