The poem continues with, “We lurk late,” “We strike straight,” “We Sing sin,” “We Thin gin,” which all showcase the boys disinterest in education, lack of mental growth and pleasure in their street lifestyle. Drinking alcohol, staying out late and having sex are the only things that make up their reality. The last line of the poem reads, “We die soon.” This clearly illustrates the future of the seven pool boys, death. The boys are living a carefree life and do not want to be bothered by school or education.
Malcolm London wrote this poem, “Grand Slam”, to communicate the fact that it is difficult leave poverty once you’re born into an impoverished neighborhood. London creates an extended metaphor throughout the poem to communicate in that it is difficult to leave an impoverished neighborhood. In the 15th and 4th stanzas, London writes, “bases loaded / with her offspring / who have never made it to the majors ... most of us have stopped short / of coming home / safe.”, and, “2nd base / a boarded up building”. Therefore, London uses the metaphor to compare his neighborhood to a baseball game by comparing a boarded up building in his neighborhood to second base in a baseball game. Furthermore, London expands on the extended metaphor by writing that
The setting of the baseball field in “Sign for my Father who Stressed the Bunt” is revealing of important and major themes throughout the poem. By using words such as “rough” and “hand-cut” he establishes the setting of a rural baseball field where the majority of this poem takes place. Although time passes and the son gets older, the father still is trying and failing to teach his son to appreciate the bunt in the timeless “hand cut” baseball field. The son never seems to understand the father and his endless antics about the basics of bunting. The son comments, “I admired your style, but not enough to
Gwendolyn Brooks, in her poem “The Pool Players: Seven at the Golden Shovel,” implies that the [burn outs] or [drop outs] who succumb to this “golden” lifestyle will face consequences and that those consequences will ultimately lead to an unfortunate death. She establishes this idea first with the title: the number seven is usually associated with good fortune and because they are pool players could imply that they are a part of a gang that is in need of money, the name of the pool hall, “The Golden Shovel,” can symbolize those who choose the streets over an education will have a short life, with the word “golden,” you could assume that they (pool players) are young, and the word “shovel,” is correlated with a grave, insinuating that the
Throughout the entire novel, the author’s use of literary devices is very clear. These literary devices, specifically similes and personification, help the reader get a better idea of the exact sounds and feelings which will allow them to know what it feels like to be there in that moment. “ I stood there, trying to think of a comeback, when suddenly, I heard a whooshing sound, like the sound you get when you open a vacuum-sealed can of peanuts. Then the brown water that had puddled up all over the field began to move. It began to run toward the back portables, like someone pulled the plug out of a giant bathtub.
The story “Casey at the Bat” by Ernest Lawrence Thayer is a story about a baseball player who everyone thinks will hit the ball to win the game. Casey is similar to music idol Taylor Swift because they both have fans who believe they are almost perfect people. In this poem, the author shows Casey’s power over the fans as well as how this affects Casey’s attitude and his performance in the game through a simile and by writing the phrase, “There was pride in Casey’s bearing and a smile on Casey’s face” in the characterization of Casey. Thayer uses a simile to show Casey’s power over his fans in the poem.
The AVID program has had a positive impact in my academics, and in my life by helping me focus, enrich, and solidify my goals. I can say with full confidence that AVID has become an integral part of my High School year that equipped me with the skills and knowledge needed to be successful in college. As an immigrant who came to the United States five years ago and English being my third language, the AVID program challenged me to think critically and strive to learn more. Personality wise, there are major changes that I observed once I joined the program.
Text: The Swimmer, John Cheever Selected passage: Beginning to “friends would line the banks of the Lucinda River” (pgs 1-2 in pdf) Thesis: In the opening paragraphs of “The Swimmer”, John Cheever introduces the ideals of booming suburban life in post-war America; the American Dream, affluence and wealth, and youth and vitality. Told through a third-person narrator, the passage foreshadows the plight of Neddy Merrill by using repetition and vivid language to symbolize suburban monotony and enhance his delusion, references to Greek mythology to illustrate his downfall, and setting an artificially positive tone that leaves the reader even more acutely aware of the growing ominous air and devastated by the tragic end. Elements to focus on:
The poem “One Boy Told Me” by Naomi Shihab Nye, was told by her son when he was two and three years of age. His comments, thoughts, and remarks were jotted down verbatim by Naomi and pieced together to create the one of a kind free verse poem. Nye assembled the phrases into individual stanza’s where they coherently flow to one another to illustrate the mind of a toddler. Wide ranges of emotions and personalities invoke the inner child and their curiosity. Overall, her son’s interpretations of his surroundings and understandings are represented in how the idioms expressed set the stage for intrusiveness, humor, and poetic devices to contribute to the overall meaning.
The poem Truth, by Gwendolyn Brooks, has a lot of symbolism in it. Different things throughout the poem both represent parts of the Civil Rights movement as well as things that we can relate to our lives today. She did really well with her literary elements used, especially personification. This makes her writing more relatable and realistic in our minds to grasp. Truth is a wonderful poem full of all sorts of different literary elements.
Both poems include comparisons in the form of similes and metaphors to emphasize the significance of little moments that contrast the daze of average life. In “Golden Retrievals”, the speaker relates the dog’s bark to a resounding noise that brings his owner back to the present: “a Zen master’s bronzy gong, calls you here, / entirely, now: bow-wow…” (Doty 16-17).With a similar use of figurative language, the speaker of “Or Death and December” describes the wind in December as, “... a deuce-and-a-half, a six-by, a semi, / huge with a cold load of growls” before contradicting the unfavorable weather with a positive new experience with his puppy later in the poem (Garrett 11-12). Both utilize these figurative comparisons to provide more in-depth descriptions of the subject of the poem and connect them to their common theme. The comparison of the dog’s bark to a “bronzy gong” in “Golden Retrievals” creates a meditative tone that then relates a calm and relaxed feeling to the present moment “here” and “entirely, now” emphasizing how remaining simply in the moment can bring forth positivity in daily life.
He could imagine his deception of this town “nestled in a paper landscape,” (Collins 534). This image of the speaker shows the first sign of his delusional ideas of the people in his town. Collins create a connection between the speaker’s teacher teaching life and retired life in lines five and six of the poem. These connections are “ chalk dust flurrying down in winter, nights dark as a blackboard,” which compares images that the readers can picture.
Charles Baxter’s book “There’s Something I Want You to Do” is composed of ten chapter, each focussing on one of the seven deadly sins and their vices. The chapter that stood out the most to me (and what this essay will focus on) was the first chapter, titled Bravery. Besides the fact it’s main character is a doctor which is what I’m going to school for, the emotions described in this chapter were very genuine. But, before getting into the specific contents of the chapter, the idea behind the seven deadly sins must first be understood.
These irresponsible teenagers whom are not specified, leave school and interesting enough, they are now “cool”. They were outcast in schools, the outsiders that could not handle responsibility and decided altogether to leave school permanently. They found school as something tedious and their mind did not grasp how beneficial school could be for them in the future. Brooks use of repetition in “We” throughout the entire poem followed by an enjambment leaves the reader in suspense. Brooks disrupts the flow of the verse ending each stanza with “We”.
However, in a domain where crime runs wild, and segregation between groups is the norm, it ends up being harder to remain an individual when society considers one to be characterized as a group. A major turning point for the young protagonist occurs when he flees to a church in Windrixville after his friend Johnny—the youngest of the Greasers—kills a soc in self-defense. During the fleeing journey Ponyboy and Johnny come across a time of enlightenment as they wait for the arrival of Dally, a fellow Greaser who gave them the coordinates of the church. Through this time of awareness and realization, Ponyboy mentions Robert Frosts’ poem: “natures first green is gold//her hardest hue to hold//her early leaf’s a flower;//but only so an hour.//Then leaf subsides to leaf.//So Eden sank to grief,//So dawn goes down to day.//Nothing gold can stay.”
