Dahlia Ravikovitch

Pride
Dahlia Ravikovitch

The theme of this poem was that, no matter how strong you may be-you can still crack at ay unexpected time by something unanticipated. One type of figurative language used is personification. Another is imagery.

Quotes:
* “ And so the moss flourishes, the seaweed whips around.” (lines 12&13) She is describing the movement of the moss and seaweed. This is an example of imagery because of the words she is using 2 create a mental picture of the scene.
* “For years they lie on their backs” (line 3) “They don’t move..” (line7) These quotes are telling how the rocks are laying motionless in the water. This is an example of personification because she is speaking of the rocks as if they were humans.
* “Whoever is going to shatter them” (line 10) She is explaining that something will eventually crack the mighty rock. This is an example of a hyperbole because the rock will not literally shatter-it will just crack.
* “I told you, when rocks break, it happens by surprise. And people, too” (lines 19&20) She is saying that the rocks break by surprise-as is the same with humans. Nobody expects it. This is an example of symbolism, because the rocks represent human beings and their pride. They are like the rock, too stubborn to crack.
* “For years they lie on their backs” (line 3) is telling how the rocks are completely still for years. This is an example of assonance.

Dahlia Ravikovitch Biography

Dahlia Ravikovitch was born on November 27, 1936 in Ramat Gran to her father Levi, and her mother Michal. Her father was killed by a drunk driver when she was six. This was a traumatic experience for her and is recognized in some of her work. She was a very childlike person. She studied at Hebrew University and then she worked as a teacher and journalist. Ravikovitch's poems are personal and written in high articulation, and big vocabulary. Her poems were highly charged, with simple, almost childlike tones. During the 1980s, the war in Lebanon sparked a poetic-political protest in which Ravikovitch was apart of. Her retrospective collection, The Complete Poems So Far (1995), shows her status as one of Israel's leading poets and its foremost woman poet. She has published 10 books of poetry and died in 2005.