Do you ever remember being scared of monsters under the bed? If so, then you will relate to the young child in “A Barred Owl.” An owl hooting in the night scares a girl, but thankfully her parents are there to comfort her. In “A Barred Owl,” author Richard Wilbur uses imagery, tone, and personification to show how powerful words can subdue any emotion.
Living life everyday in a monotonous mechanical fashion is considered a subpar style of life for many. In Small Frogs Killed on the Highway By James Wright, Wright conveys a message perfectly touching on the issue of taking chances. The speaker of the poem reflects on his past choices through describing frogs optimizing their opportunities by deciding to risk death and attempt to cross a road. Throughout the poem Wright uses objects riddled with either deeper meanings or dual meanings. Why are frogs latently compared to humans? What is the purpose of all the contrasting, descriptive imagery? What elements underlyingly stand for other items?
“The Wild Life of Christian the Lion” and “Wild Home” share a theme which is letting wild animals grow up free. The poem by Rebecca Kai Dotlich shares the vision that Ace and John had in the story, written by Ted Olson. Both Ace and John knew immediately that they wanted to set Christian the lion free. Ace and John in the story probably visioned Christian lying in the sun with his packmates and being free, which is what the poem is about. Both the story and the poem have lions and both sound like thoughts from a human perspective. In the story and the poem, they have happy visions. Below are two examples. In the text of “Wild Home” it says “joining fellow roamers day and night” and in the text of “The Wild Life of Christian the Lion”
In the poems “A Barred Owl” by Richard Wilbur and “The History Teacher” by Billy Collins, both poets portray how different explanations to children pan out. Both poems describe the speaker being dishonest to one or multiple students, however, one is more of a little white lie while the other is a lie on a much bigger scale. The first poem utilizes personification and humor to coax a child back to sleep by easing her fears. The second poem applies homonyms and hyperbole to maintain the innocence of a room full of students. Through the use of these different literary techniques, the poets are able to express how the adults provide an explanation for children.
“The Raven” by Edgar Poe is written with the analogy of the mind, especially the conscious and subconscious attitude of the mind. The poem is interesting in the sense that the readers could argue over the events in the poem are not happening to the narrator himself, but by preference, within him, and especially within is mind. The poem begins with a dark emphasis “…midnight dreary...” (Poe), which postures the famous stage of Edgar Poe in The Raven.
In life we can all relate to the feeling of longing for something. In All Summer in a Day, Ray Bradbury’s characters’ lives are clouded with rain and the only see the sun once every seven years. Bradbury uses metaphors, emotions, and repetition to express the sun’s meaning of hope to the main character, Margot, and the children of rocket men and women on Venus. Metaphors and emotions are used to help the reader relate to the connection with the sun. He describes the sun and the rain using metaphors, and uses the children’s emotions to help further the idea. It could be argued that the sun symbolizes patience. Everyone waits in seven years of rain just for a single hour of sun. The repetition of the sun and the rain comes up a lot. It makes the point that it is a big part of their lives. Metaphors, emotions and repetition are used to show that the sun represents hope.
First, the author’s style is similar in “Predators” and “A Blessing”. Both of the poems have sound devices. For example, in “A Blessing” the author repeats the word “they” several times at the beginning of each line, “they ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happiness” and “they bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other.” In “Predators” the author has an alliteration, “in the trust that many tales spun this tract long before I came.” The sound devices give more details and can help the poem flow better.
With repetition, metaphorical language, and structure in his poem The Raven, Edgar Allen Poe’s protagonist seeks answers to his dark questions while avoiding the inevitability of their truths. Poe’s usage of line repetition reflects the emphasis on his pursuit of answers. The central character questions the possible meanings the raven perched on his chamber door might have: “Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door/Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door”.
Waterhouse use the myth of Ulysses to show that he was surrounded by sirens and tied to an long pole and couldn't break loose.The Sirens were scary and dangerous creatures that seduced the sailors with their attractive voices to their doom and causing the ships to ruin by the island.The Sirens likes to hurt people by luring sailors with their enchanting music to their death.The Sirens were beautiful but they were also threatening creatures that caused men to crash on the ships.The Sirens seem to have evolved from an ancient tale of the dangers of early exploration combined with an Asian image of a bird-woman.
Baudelaire begins his poem with a command to the cat, “Viens”, which suggests his authority and desire for the cat. Within the first quatrain the poet uses the word “beau” to describe the cat and the cats eyes. The poet’s complimentary manner proves his attraction towards the feline animal. The second line of the poem urges a sense of danger, “Retiens les griffes de ta patte”. It is thought that the cat holds a potentional threat, however, it seems the cat can be controlled by the use of the imperative “Retiens” and from the previous line where the poet summons the cat. The use of “plonger” in the third line expresses the poet’s desire to connect with the cat and contain a strong relationship with the cat. As the poet describes the eyes of the cat, this may also be a means of describing the cat’s personality as well as it’s physicality. The adjectives describing the cat’s eyes are “métal et d 'agate”. Agate is a type of gemstone which could compare
Edgar Allan Poe’s short stories and poem, “Alone”, “Hop-Frog”, and “The Raven” are similar because they have a sense of darkness, but each passage has its own sense of sadness that differentiates the tones of the individual story.
In both poems, the adults avoid disclosing the actual truth to the children in order to protect their innocence. Both poems use devices that emphasize simplicity in order to make the message suitable for a child. “A Barred Owl” utilizes a ten syllable masculine rhyme, making the poem sound like a nursery rhyme while also emphasizing simple words like “boom” and “room”. The simple devices and sounds in which Wilbur employs, allows for the somewhat frightening existence of an owl to become diluted to a reality suitable for a child’s understanding. “The History Teacher” utilizes understatements like the “tiny atom” referring to the atomic bomb and “a series of questions” referring to the Spanish inquisition. In reality, both historical events
Phenomenal Woman, by Maya Angelou is an inspiring poem that encourages women, including myself to be confident and to love themselves just the way they are. It encourages women to be independent and confident despite what others think about them, especially men. In “Phenomenal Woman”, there are various literary devices used, some of which include repetition, parallelism, metaphors and personification.
So “The Black Cat” by Edgar Allen Poe, uses a significant amount of literary devices such as symbolism, suspense, foreshadowing. Poe added a lot of suspense in the story, such as unusual characters, because the man who owned Pluto is a drunk owner, which is strange and normally doesn’t appear in gothic stories (“One night, returning home, much intoxicated” | Paragraph 7). It is also an unusual situation, because in the story, after he hanged the cat and went to sleep, his house suddenly burns out of nowhere (“I was aroused…” | Paragraph 10), and the members of the household, including the man, successfully escaped, and pluto, the cat he hanged, has resurrected into another black cat (“It was a black
The “cloud”—amorphous and obstructing—cuts into the scene, as well as the poem, with a sudden violence, in order to block the image of “Love’s moon”. The cloud itself cannot have definite dimensions, as it exists to only hide the moon, casting the speaker of the poem, his love and the cloud itself in a continuous darkness. It is in this darkness that the speaker of the poem finds his own perception and experiences clouded, indicating his blind submission to erotic love in lieu of a more illuminating, comprehensive “Love”.