Poetry Analysis/ Practical Criticism "Auto Wreck"- by Kart Shapiro, "Mid-term Break"- by Seamus Heaney.
In "Auto Wreck", as the title insinuates it, is a situation that describes a car accident that takes place in a city, which means, that an ambulance, a hospital, the police, and the crowd are the main actors when death is about to strike. In the development of the poem, Shapiro describes the atmosphere that surrounds a city at night when there is a car accident; Blood all over the streets and gutters, the police covering the situation and the crowd observing the tragic accident, recalling death as enemy. In a very interesting way, Shapiro describes the hurry, horror, and in a certain way, indifference of society towards an "auto wreck", idealizing a space were these actors interact with one another creating a hostile atmosphere regarding death.
In "Mid-term break", the speaker is a boy that is at school in his daily routine, when it is interrupted by the news of his dead brother. The situation takes place in two atmospheres; the kid's school were he heard the knelling bells that gives a feeling of mortality and his house were all the action takes place; the family's grief, the funeral, the adults whispering and saying sorry, the ambulance, the four foot box, and the candles. An afternoon of sorrow and pain on a family environment, were death is perpetually present.
Yet no one fully understands death. In Shapiro's poem "Auto Wreck," he
illustrates the irrationality of life for it can be taken away at any given time for no rational reason. He uses a car accident to finely detail the reaction of society towards death and the real meaning that it represents to us. During the poem, he describes how a well established system that is made of ambulances, hospitals, police men and viewers, works at its given time to strike death. But despite all the efforts and effectiveness of the system, people themselves are incapable of understanding death and its dualities (cancer that is both a flower that blooms and a tragic disease.) Society is scared and ignorant when it comes
In "Mid-term break", the speaker is a boy that is at school in his daily routine, when it is interrupted by the news of his dead brother. The situation takes place in two atmospheres; the kid's school were he heard the knelling bells that gives a feeling of mortality and his house were all the action takes place; the family's grief, the funeral, the adults whispering and saying sorry, the ambulance, the four foot box, and the candles. An afternoon of sorrow and pain on a family environment, were death is perpetually present.
Yet no one fully understands death. In Shapiro's poem "Auto Wreck," he
illustrates the irrationality of life for it can be taken away at any given time for no rational reason. He uses a car accident to finely detail the reaction of society towards death and the real meaning that it represents to us. During the poem, he describes how a well established system that is made of ambulances, hospitals, police men and viewers, works at its given time to strike death. But despite all the efforts and effectiveness of the system, people themselves are incapable of understanding death and its dualities (cancer that is both a flower that blooms and a tragic disease.) Society is scared and ignorant when it comes