Analyzing Donald Justice's Poem 'Men At Forty'
Donald Justice, “Men at Forty” (SYLLABUS p. 9)
1. What details and images are present to give the reader a sense of how the narrator feels to be middle-aged?
The poem is about middle age man who is looking back at his youth, his childhood and the nostalgia of younger age. Which he can’t go back to. Now at the age of forty, the speaker realizes that the time he had to spend cannot come back to him again. He had to move on with his life. We can see this expression in the first stanza in the line,"Learn to close softly. The doors to rooms they will not be.Coming back to.”
2. What is bittersweet about the speaker’s reflections?
The 2nd stanza is talking about a ship’s gentle swell, which describes speakers entering into old age and the youth is …show more content…
What references illustrate how the life we live can be both stable and slippery, confusing and rewarding?
In the poem the phrase” closing softly”, and “stair landing” the speaker is describing the life’s points where the speaker finds his life a little stable. But in the other phrases,"Moving beneath them now like the deck of a ship, Though the swell is gentle." Give us the feeling of life is unstable and the time has slipped beneath our feet.
4. Does the speaker seem pleased about his reflections of the past or burdened (as did the speaker of “Piano”)?
He is mindful in this poem we could see his reflections as calming and accepting of his situation we can see this in the phrase as he learns to close them softly.
Sylvia Plath, “Mirror” (p. 579)
1. Why does the lake condemn the candles and the moon as “liars”?
The lake represents the true state of the women as she sees herself in the lake but she didn’t like to see what she discovered by looking into the lake. So the women turn to see herself with candlelight and under the light of the moon so she could not see herself fully. So the lake is saying that there is no meaning for the women to see herself in the light of the candle and the moon because they are not letting her know the truth about how she really looks
1. What details and images are present to give the reader a sense of how the narrator feels to be middle-aged?
The poem is about middle age man who is looking back at his youth, his childhood and the nostalgia of younger age. Which he can’t go back to. Now at the age of forty, the speaker realizes that the time he had to spend cannot come back to him again. He had to move on with his life. We can see this expression in the first stanza in the line,"Learn to close softly. The doors to rooms they will not be.Coming back to.”
2. What is bittersweet about the speaker’s reflections?
The 2nd stanza is talking about a ship’s gentle swell, which describes speakers entering into old age and the youth is …show more content…
What references illustrate how the life we live can be both stable and slippery, confusing and rewarding?
In the poem the phrase” closing softly”, and “stair landing” the speaker is describing the life’s points where the speaker finds his life a little stable. But in the other phrases,"Moving beneath them now like the deck of a ship, Though the swell is gentle." Give us the feeling of life is unstable and the time has slipped beneath our feet.
4. Does the speaker seem pleased about his reflections of the past or burdened (as did the speaker of “Piano”)?
He is mindful in this poem we could see his reflections as calming and accepting of his situation we can see this in the phrase as he learns to close them softly.
Sylvia Plath, “Mirror” (p. 579)
1. Why does the lake condemn the candles and the moon as “liars”?
The lake represents the true state of the women as she sees herself in the lake but she didn’t like to see what she discovered by looking into the lake. So the women turn to see herself with candlelight and under the light of the moon so she could not see herself fully. So the lake is saying that there is no meaning for the women to see herself in the light of the candle and the moon because they are not letting her know the truth about how she really looks