The author first directs his attention to "Robert" that has "kill'd that fly". The author then says the man was "devoid Of thought and sense" to have killed the fly. Here, the author is implying that "Robert" must have been stupid for killing the innocent creature. The author goes on talking about natural death as a bird "devours" it or a "cold blast in the night" will take its life. By describing the natural causes of the insect's death, Lamb sympathizes for the creature because of its unnatural death. Lamb continues discussing that pain exists in even "The greatest being", and even the "smallest ones possess" the feeling of death and pain experienced before. The author goes on with more detail in the piece about the crude humor in the creature's horrible death.
Lamb explains, "The life you've taken to supply, You could not do it" that the life "Robert" has taken cannot be restored, no matter how hard he tries. The author tries to make "Robert" feel guilty by enlightening him, "A thing which no way you annoy'd - You'll one day rue it", suggesting that one day he will realize his cruelty and morn the death of the fly. "The bird but seeks his proper food... May just take [its life]". Here Lamb goes into more detail about the natural death the fly may have experienced. "A life by Nature made so short, Less reason is that you for sport Should shorter make it." Lamb again tries to weigh more guilt upon "Robert". "Although their frame and structure less Escape our seeing," they still experience pain and its horrors.
Though the rhyme scheme of AAAB, Charles Lamb starts to use the poetic device of rhyme to also express his attitude. In the first stanza, he talks about how "Robert, killed that "fly", but not matter how hard he may "try" to "supply" the life he has taken, he could never "do it". In the second stanza Lamb writes that "Robert" must have been "devoid" of thinking to have "destroy'd" the fly that he never "annoy'd", and will one day "rue it", expressing negativity by sympathizing for the innocent creature. The author then goes into the natural death by illustrating the bird seeking its "food", that fate whose power "endu'd" the fly thinks the time is "good" will take "it". Finally, the author fully expresses himself when he explains the pain "The greatest being" can have with its "flesh" that even the fly may "possess", small and structure "less" may escape our "seeing".
All in all, the author uses many poetic devices such as diction, detail, and rhyme to express his attitude toward, what seems tragic to the author, event. Even the title "Thoughtless Cruelty" expresses the authors feelings. Things may be different now, when you see a fly, pulling the wings off a fly may not seem the same.
You May Also Find These Documents Helpful
-
I believe that Roald Dahl wants us to think Mrs. Maloney is a victim. I think this because in the story Mrs. Maloney looks to be a nice, kindhearted woman who is devoted to her husband, even though he would ignore her presence when she was speaking to him. "I think it's a shame," she said, "that when someone's been a policeman as long as you have, he still has to walk around all day long." He didn't answer. Although Mr. Maloney ignored his wife and was not interested in what Mrs. Maloney had to say she still continued to speak to him a respectful manner. When Mr. Maloney decided to tell Mary that he was leaving her for another woman she tried to deny his words in her mind. “And he told her. It didn't take long, four or five minutes at most, and she sat still through it all, watching…
- 435 Words
- 2 Pages
Good Essays -
The reference to a bird wandering around his or her partner, crushed by a truck on the road is sad and highlights aan unatural death. The body of the twenty-eight parrot is described as “crushed”. This is very significant as it denotes the idea that it did not die peacefully and gracefully as a bird should die at the end of it’s natural cycle- but killed, presumabley, by the truck. This is symbolic of the effect that humanity’s intrusion has on the environment and the natural word. It disrupts the natural cycle, the way things should be. The bird is described to have died “so early in the morning, in the cold the fog not yet lifted” which further establishes the idea of a premature death- one that should not have happened. The death of a parrot and the apparent grief of its partner are almost inconsquential and represent the lack of care we have for what we are doing to the natural world. This constrasts with the truck driver, “hyping up the flesh” with a coffee to charge down the road, completely unaware of a crushed twenty-eight but to likley meet the same fate.…
- 1543 Words
- 7 Pages
Powerful Essays -
The boss comes across a struggling fly on his desk which instantly makes him think of his son struggling. The fly is stuck in a cup of ink and figuratively exclaims “help, help said those struggling legs (Mansfield 3). Through the struggling of the fly we can see that the fly is similar to the boss's son who was injured in battle and unable to continue. Similar to that of the boss's son, the fly is also unable to continue because it is stuck in a bottle of ink and practically drowning, with its legs frantically waving, trying to survive. Ultimately, the fly represents the boss’s grief of his deceased son. The boss tries not to acknowledge that his son has passed away because of the fact that he lost his life at such a young age. The boss has always thought of his son as a strong person and he does not want to see that strength go away. In “The Fly” the boss comes across a common house fly that is struggling and trying to get out of the bowl of ink that it just flew into. In “The Fly” the boss interprets how the fly is struggling to get out of the bowl, and he wants to test the struggling fly's ability to stay strong on all conditions, and to do so the boss “ plunged his pen back in the ink, leaned his thick wrist on the blotting-paper, and as the fly tried its wings down came a great heavy blot (3). This shows us that the boss is trying to test the fly to see if it…
- 635 Words
- 3 Pages
Good Essays -
The boy’s body was mangled and lifeless. Slowly, it was washed away by the tranquil ocean, as a lost reminder of the savagery in his murderers. This loss of an important character depicts the disgusting natural savagery found within man. In William Golding's 1954 novel, Lord of the Flies, Goulding shows the progression of savagery taking over man , and he depicts this through the boys and their experiences on the island.…
- 957 Words
- 4 Pages
Good Essays -
Since the hunters can accept indignity from a feeling of safety, they secure the pig’s head, who “grin[s] amusedly,” into the floor as “a gift” for the beast (Golding 151). From their beliefs in a leviathan or ghost upon the island, the boys accept savagery and believe they can physically kill their fear. Relying on superstitions, the hunters trust that the beast will accept the offering of a dead animal, yet issues remain due to the lack of understanding that their fear remains irrational. When a child witnesses the figure, the Lord of the Flies malevolently identifies itself as “the Beast” who remains the dark and evil “part” in all beings (Golding 143). As a physical form of mankind’s vileness, the head behaves derisively towards the children since they falsely believe that they possess no evil when killing peers and torturing creatures. The Lord of the Flies influences the children to accept their lack of innocence, yet their fear of accepting a inner savagery results in further damage to the island as the boys act recklessly. Ralph, escaping from his predators, encounters the pig’s “teeth grin[ning]” at him and holding his “gaze masterfully” and “effort[lessly]” (Golding 185). Evil residing in Ralph’s consciousness causes him to feel the entity with the everlasting grin, a reminding of his corruption in contrast from…
- 886 Words
- 4 Pages
Good Essays -
The author uses imagery to illustrate and give the reader a clear understanding of his thoughts about injustice. Dunbar uses imagery by stating, “ Till it’s blood is red on the cruel bars” (line 9). This shows the bird’s relentless efforts to escape. The author includes this to relate the bird’s struggles and hardships to his own dealing with injustice. Another way Dunbar uses imagery to relate to injustice is by stating, “ When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore, When he beats his bars and he would be free; It is not a carol of joy or glee, But a prayer he sends from his heart’s deep core”( lines 16-19). Here the author uses imagery to show the reader that even when the bird is in pain he still fights for freedom and justice. The author uses this piece of imagery to relate himself to the bird in the sense of that like the bird, the author fights for his freedom, but along the way is…
- 373 Words
- 2 Pages
Good Essays -
The author was working for a man that he dearly loved but he had this eye, this eye, he called the Vulture Eye, made him extremely uncomfortable and he hated his eye. He started watching him, for 7 nights he would do the same thing and just watch him to see if the eye was special even though nothing happened, he still wanted to destroy the eye so on the 8th night he killed him. The next day police officers showed up because a complaint they had that night, they talked and he got comfortable. Right once he thought he was in the clear he heard the old man’s heart beat, he tried to stay calm, but it drove him crazy so he confessed to the cops and got arrested. In the beginning his word choice and his tone caused a lot of suspense. “True!-nervous- very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am! But why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my sense- not dulled them.” (1-3). The quote is after he was arrested and he says that he is actually nervous and that he has a dieses the helped him not hurt him. If this didn’t happen then we wouldn’t know that he was actually nervous and had a dieses. This paragraph shows that he choose to kill him and now he was arrested and nervous the whole…
- 545 Words
- 3 Pages
Good Essays -
“Nesting Time”, a poem by Douglas Stewart combines an anecdote of his and his daughters experience in nature, with description of the appearance and behavior of the honey-eater, and his typical philosophical reflection in the relationship of nature and man. The poem is thus personal, objective and universal in its several dimensions. This is a charming poem that appears to comment on Stewart’s personal experience. He is pleasantly surprised by the behavior and appearance of this remarkable bird, which makes him forget the ‘hard world’, focus on its tiny beauty and cause him to reflect on humankind and nature. The opening is impassioned in its generalizing quality: ‘Oh never in this hard world’. It is apparent from this judgment that Stewart, in regarding our human life as a difficult and unconsoling affair, finds profound solace in nature and her creatures. The reader notices the contrast between his heartfelt “Oh” and absolute indictment of ‘never’, and the cluster of adjectives, with internal rhyme, which introduces the bird: ‘absurd/Charming utterly disarming little bird’. His love for it grows from an initial acknowledgment of its silliness and, then, praise of its captivating behavior to, finally, and adoring diminutive in ‘little’. It is Stewart’s descriptive language that brings the scene to visual life. The bird’s actions and purpose are highly visual through the often…
- 1412 Words
- 6 Pages
Good Essays -
Humans are known for being brutal and vicious. Even as a kid when you take great pleasure in smashing and killing the bugs in your back yard, to when you turn 18 and join the army to be trained to kill. These kinds of things happen every day but rarely do you see them portrayed to the extent of what is really happening, in writing. In William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, Golding uses characters like Jack Merridew and events like the pig kills to perpetuate the concept of fear and show the more brutal side of human nature.…
- 671 Words
- 3 Pages
Good Essays -
In Taylor’s “Upon A Spider Catching A Fly”, he uses personification to illustrate the dance of death between Satan, the spider, and human beings, the wasp and the fly. Within the beginning of the poem, Taylor gives us the account of who the wasp is and what happened to him when he fell into the web of temptation. The spider explains, “I saw a pettish wasp fall foul therein, whom yet thy whorl pins did not clasp lest he should fling his sting.” Here Taylor is…
- 521 Words
- 2 Pages
Good Essays -
Most people would assume that humans are superior to insects. This self-centered idea is a harmful aspect of humanity, as people do not try to learn from creatures that are regarded as inferior. However, in “Honeydew,” by Edith Pearlman, Alice Toomey, the strict headmistress of Caldicott Academy, and Emily Knapp, an insect-loving student, are the human exceptions who recognize the virtue insect communities are built around: selflessness. The admiring repetition of insects, Alice’s transformation into an open individual, and the symbolism of honeydew suggest that Alice and Emily, through Alice’s metamorphosis and Emily’s obsession with insects, replace their human attribute of being self-centered with the selfless character of insects.…
- 1730 Words
- 7 Pages
Good Essays -
One of the first incidents that shows the savagery within the boys is when they reenact the pig hunt using the littlun, Robert. After the disappointment of not killing a pig, Jack casts Robert into a ring of biggins, and began to chant, “’Kill the pig! Cut his throat! Kill the pig! Bash him in!’” (114). Robert cries as they prod him with spears, “’Ow! Stop it! You’re hurting!’” (114). Robert felt sincerely endangered. The hunters primary chant referred to the pig as “her”, whereas now they refer to the pig as “him”, which is ironically attributing the boys. A second incident that shows the savagery within in the boys is the slow, torturous, death they bestow on the Lord of the Flies. The air was thick with blood and sweat (135). “Roger ran around the heap, prodding of the sow, stabbing downward with his knife” (135). This scene uncovers the truth about the loss of civilization and furthermore, how brutal and bloodthirsty the boys have become. A third incident that shows the savagery within the boys is the death of Simon. Previously, Simon had found the dead parachute man and recognized it was not the “beastie.” Simon was going to the beach to inform the others about his discovery, when he fell over a steep rock causing the boys assume he was the “beastie.” The boys hastily ran to Simon. “At once the crowd surged after it, poured down the rock, lept on to the beast,…
- 1005 Words
- 5 Pages
Good Essays -
Golding uses the death of Simon to portray a death of goodness on the island and in the boys. This essay will explore how, with the use of language and imagery, how Golding shows this in chapter 9 of "Lord of the Flies".…
- 302 Words
- 2 Pages
Satisfactory Essays -
This piece is formulated through an allegory which exists on both a literal and figurative level. Virginia Woolf relates the struggles that a moth, which is so vulnerable to death to the everyday life of the human struggle. Implicitly, Woolf describes the moth to have value like individuals as they try to put a stop to death in the same sense like humans do.…
- 1148 Words
- 5 Pages
Good Essays -
‘One pinched her, another walked round her; one gentleman poked her with his cane; and one lady employed her parasol to ascertain that all was, as she called it, “natural.” This inhuman baiting the poor creature bore with sullen indifference, except upon great provocation, when she seemed inclined to resent brutality [...]. On these occasions it required all the authority of the keeper to subdue her resentment. At last her civilized visitors departed […].’…
- 1964 Words
- 8 Pages
Powerful Essays