Tone is the most important for a reader to understand. It can be contradicting in many different ways. An example of a contradicting tone is in the novel, The Great Gatsby by F.Scott Fitzgerald as he establishes a foreboding, gloomy and wistful tone through the setting, Valley of the Ashes and, main characters Gatsby and Nick. Despite the perception of the “Roaring 20’s” as a time of glamour and prosperity, Fitzgerald establishes a gloomy tone through his portrayal of the barren, ashen landscape, presided over by a neglected billboard.
"All Quiet on the Western Front" is a war novel by Erich Maria Remarque that reveals the ways in which war is not glorious, and the ways in which destroys a soldier 's happiness, innocence, and youthfulness. In addition, it uses imagery and characterization to describe some of the hardships the soldiers face in the trenches and at the front. Likewise, "Suicide in the Trenches" is a poem by Siegfried Sassoon that glosses over these topics as well, in the form of a poem. While both Remarque 's "All Quiet on the Western Front" and Sassoon 's "Suicide in the Trenches" portray war as a destroyer of innocence and youthfulness, Remarque 's use of characterization to illustrate the theme is more effective than Sassoon 's use of imagery and word play, because it is more
Author, Robert Penn Warren, in his poem Evening Hawk, he portrays how mankind is ignorant of their life being. Warren’s purpose is to illustrate the means of life. He does so by adopting a melancholic tone in order to obtain the readers attention of humanity’s mistakes. Warren expresses the ideas of how time is never ending, that our days are judged upon, and the ignorance of humanity can have. Time is continuous and so are human mistakes, but at the end of the day everybody will be judged.
In an attempt to make his readers picture the deep and wide expanses that exist between the islands, the poet employs imagery in order to describe the distance and distrust that exists between people. The entire poem of Arnold represents an extended metaphor that compares the desperation and loneliness that each individual feels to the solitary confinement of islands from larger bodies of land. From the first stanza of the poem, an extended metaphor is set up; as the poet compares humans to islands to address his point on isolation. In the first stanza of Arnold’s poem, the poet proposes by this extended metaphor how distant people are from one another. The narrator details how he senses loneliness and how deserted the people are from one another; as this is exactly similar to how the islands in the sea are.
Both Ginsberg and Eliot use the empty streets and darkness because of the feeling of loneliness it brings to people. In “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” Eliot says, in lines 8-9, “Streets that follow like a tedious argument of insidious intent” and in “A Supermarket in California,” Ginsberg says, “for I walked down the side streets under the trees with a headache self-conscious looking at the full moon” (line 1-2). These quotes from the poems show how they both, as a whole, give the reader the feeling of loneliness and solitude. This is a successful technique for a poet to use because it makes the reader more invested in the story and more connected to the
Owen foregrounds the poem with: “He sat in a wheeled chair, waiting for dark, And shivered in his ghastly suit of grey”. The use of plosive alliteration in these lines gives us a visual and dark image of the environment because of the sharp and abrupt sounds. Also, in the same lines, it says “wheeled chair” which suggests that the soldier is physically disabled by the war and cannot move by himself. I think this is very effective in helping us sympathize with the protagonist.
The poet gives life to an inanimate object life to create an image in the readers mind and for the reader to better understand the message. In line 6, “Does it stink like rotten meat” (Hughes 426), it compares rotten meat to a deferred dream. It could mean that when a hope is forgotten, it rots away and collects dust. It is waiting for the owner to return because without them it has no purpose; this relates to the article by Schaper. In line 7-8, “Or crust and sugar over-/like a syrupy sweet” (Hughes 426), the poet uses alliteration to put an emphasis on “syrupy sweet.”
He depicts his “solid flesh”, urging it to melt and “resolve itself into a dew (129-130). Shakespeare emphasizes his grief - he truly is upset. Hamlet even calls to “the Everlasting”, wishing he had not deemed “self-slaughter” to be a sin (131-132). His cries “O, God! God!”
Mary Shelley’s purpose in her novel, Frankenstein, is to portray a desolate mood through the use of figurative language. The usage of personification mixed with imagery, “the bare trees waved their branches above me” creates a cold and lonely feel of the woods that emphasizes the creature’s struggle to be accepted in the world. It adds a sense of sorrow towards the creature as he continues to roam about with no life around him, since he is alone with the lifeless bare leafless trees. The creature then goes on to using a simile, “I, like the arch-fiend, bore a hell within me,” which portrays a sense of self-consciousness of the evil lurking within him ready to be unleashed. The creature knew he was capable of creating havoc and destruction,
Heaney contorts information from P.V. Glob’s ; a Danish archaeologist who worked as the Director General of Museums and Antiquities for the state of Denmark; The Bog People combining it with speculatory assumptions to create bold yet alluring visual imagery; suggesting the male died peacefully. The body is described as being “naked”, a Greek symbol of moral virtue, and having metaphoric “mild pods” as eyelids, highlighting his tranquillity and relation to the Earth — alluding to his vulnerability thus juxtaposing the prominent theme of violence. The sacrificial act itself is also presented in a lyrical and sensual manner, as the “bridegroom to the [Pagan] goddess” of fertility, Nerthus, “tightens her torc on him” and “opens her fern”. Despite the violent happenings of the body, the Catholic persona uses soft phonaesthesia to compare “him to a Saint” beatifying his death, suggesting it occurred in adoration of the Earth rather than illogical violence.
This poem by Henry Lawson, written in 1892, shows his view of Australia in his poem by saying the bush is a horrible and dull place to stay. He was from the bush, but been brought up in bush poverty and had suffered hardship and unemployment. Lawson’s poem gives a very negative image of the bush. He wrote this poem in first person, so as it gives his personal opinion. He paints a bleak portrait of the bush landscape, writing of ‘those burning wastes of barren soil and sand’ and claiming that ‘the country’s rather more inviting round the coast’.
Hawthorne gives images dark characteristics too, such as "the black flower of civilized society" (Hawthorne 50) and "The Black Man" (Hawthorne 193). Flowers are one of many physical items given such gloomy characteristics, because they are representing dark and negative aspects in the novel. Pearl, Hester 's daughter, even recognizes this sense of darkness. In
The poem, “Spirits of the Dead” by: Edgar Allan Poe (poetryfoundation.org), is written in third person. The poem’s narrator has a depressed tone. This poem takes place in an old, scary graveyard. There is a lot of symbolism in the poem that builds up the theme “Secrets can’t be forgotten” My first example of symbolism is, “Mid dark thoughts of the gray tombstone-”.
These feelings reflect a sorrow as deep as it morphs into a psychological madness, a feeling that the pain death brings has ruined one forever. After analyzing this poem I came to the conclusion that Poe 's poem “The Raven” demonstrates that the sorrow of the death of a loved one bring will stay with you forever. Poe communicated this theme through abstract language and connotation, tone and allusion. I would like to give examples of how Poe communicated this poem through the use of abstract language and connotation. An abstract phrase repeated throughout the poem is the word “Nevermore” combined with different phrases depending on the stanza.
A common theme within KOBG, The Yellow Wallpaper, and Modernism is alienation. This is evident by the narrator’s isolation in The Yellow Wallpaper, alienation of the individual from his own society and the criticism of his society in King of the Bingo Game, and the feeling of isolation the narrator feels in Robert Frost’s Desert Places. Firstly, in The Yellow Wallpaper the narrator is believed to be ill, but her husband and brother don’t believe her. For her to be isolated from society, the narrator is moved to an empty house to recover from her “illness” by her husband.