The second part of the poem ‘Nightfall’ continues the story of the child forty years from ‘Barn owl’, where she had lost her innocence by shooting an owl and this had resulted in a heavy hearted guilt which was caused by her unknowing and stubborn actions. The poem represents death closing in on the father, and the limitations of time on their relationship that was never experienced before in her younger years. The father, who in the first poem is depicted as an “old no-sayer”, is now held in high esteem, he is admired and respected as an “old king”. The extended metaphor “Since there is no more to taste ripeness is plainly all. Father we pick our last fruits of the temporal.” Appeals to our senses and is now an aural metaphor, it illustrates the father’s life becoming fulfilled or ripe, it has come near to its end and the father and child will now spend or pick the last moments of the father’s life together. Over time her appreciation of her father has changed, this is shown through “Who can be what you were?” and “Old King, your marvellous journey’s done.” She has realised the valuable life her father has led and the great loss that will be felt after he is gone. The child, now a grown woman learns another lesson about death, it can be quiet and peaceful, and “Your night and day…
Of these core concepts, the one most acutely conveyed by any literary device would be the natural quality of love. Cummings lustrously and repeatedly depicts this view through his use of structure, incorporating seasons, weather, astronomical patterns, and feelings associated with particular times of the year. The seasons go through clear changes, and are mentioned along with their astronomical counterparts in nearly every stanza. The poem opens in the season of “spring”(3), and ends with “rain”(36)—a weather pattern synonymous with spring—illustrating a full cycle of the year. Throughout the poem, Cummings uses these natural yearly separations to convey specific ideas that pertain to each segment of “anyone’s” life. During spring, anyone danced and sang, as compared to the dull reaping and sowing of the average townsperson(4-7). In winter, words and phrases like: “died”(25), “buried”(27), “was by was”(28), and “deep by deep”(29) suggest death; the latter two phrases particularly indicate finality or inexorability. Love and happiness correspond to autumn, in which there are mentions of laughter, marriage, and hope. This cyclical…
In the poem “Sweethearts,” by Allen Branden he describes the feelings of a young couple who have to sneak out to find time to spend with each other. The line, “Through the pale statuary and falling leaves” (2) gives the poem a setting of being in a cemetery in the autumn. Their love is so strong that they never want to be apart. The speaker is a man who is telling a story about a relationship that he was in as a teenager; he is not speaking to anyone unparticular. Through diction, symbols and tone the author explains how young love can be confusing, misunderstood, and full of emotion.…
In a sort of short story style, Marie Howe illustrates a depleting family relationship between a father and his children in the poem, “The Boy,” through its many symbols. With no discernible rhyme scheme, the plot develops, climaxes, and concludes alluding to a short story but in poetic form. The speaker, discovered through clues within the poem, is the younger sister of the boy and she is listening and learning from the examples set by her brothers. There is no mention of a mother so the focus is kept on the relationship between the father and children.…
Line 3 makes it seem as if the speaker slipped into the end of violence. The way it says that boy “hung on like death” is like he’s holding on to his dad to hard that’s he is inescapable like death. We think that this poem is going to be about a happy relationship between the father and son but instead it frightens us since the beginning of the poem.…
This poem has a symbolic structure, starting with a present situation, going to the future, and ending, again, with the present to show the trouble that is going through the fathers mind. While in the present tense the father cannot recall a new story “…and soon, he thinks, the boy will give up…” on him. The father establishes a troubling image of “…the boy packing his shirts…looking for his keys”. The man fears of his son growing up and leaving his side. As the boy sits in his lap, the father is terrorized as thoughts of his biggest fear run through his head. Lee’s ability to share the father’s thoughts and create images from the future portrays the trouble the father is having of his son giving up on…
First off, imagery is strongly used in this poem. The authors purpose is to show the love the father has for his son as well as his fears. In a couple lines throughout the story we see some examples of imagery; a “five-year-old son” waits in his father’s lap until he hears another story. A room is “full” with all the books in the world, but the father hesitates and “rubs his chin” instead. The imagery of father’s love for his son is so strong that even though the room is full of books, he still can’t decide which one to read for his son. However, behind all the love that a father has for his child, the father begins to fall into a deep thinking of his son “giving up” on him. In the fourth stanza, Lee continues to create a vivid image of the son leaving his dad’s side. “The alligator story”, “the angel story”, and “the spider story” couldn’t even stop his young son from “packing his shirts”. The father yells and shouts “Don’t go!” without realizing that his undefinable love has turned into an obsession that suddenly makes himself a failure for watching his son leave. The images of the father chasing his son who has just walked out prove the tragic cycle of growing up as well as the father’s nature to love his son. It wasn’t the nameless story that the father couldn’t figure out that made the father “silent”, but his uncontrolled love for his son that made him “scream” and wonder if he can ever become a “god” who…
This reminded me of when I was younger and I would go to the store called Chapters, I would pull random books out and start making forts and towers. I wouldn't care that I could possibly get into trouble or that people would think that Im not behaving, which again ties into the whole idea of unwritten rules of society. The child seems so carefree which reminds me of myself when I was younger. This poem reminds me of some of those how to manuals that we read on furniture appliances etc. I felt as though the author of the poem was talking directly to me as if I were the one who had asked for advice.…
Death is an important theme, because the author wants the reader to perceive the idea that there is no greater pain for a parent who has lost a child, but at the same time the poem is are celebrating the planting of the tree knowing that it is now in a better place.…
“The Pennycandystore Beyond the El” by Lawrence Ferlinghetti is about a young boy’s childhood passing by too soon and is similar to the song, “Wake me up when September ends” by Green Day. The first few lines of the poem are indented to convey the message that the boy “fell in love with unreality”. The “unreality” represents the imagination of a child, which is evident as the “Jellybeans GLOWED in the semi-gloom of that September afternoon”. Further in the poem the words are closer towards the edge of the page which represent the child coming back to reality. When the child snaps out of the unreality we’re told that “Outside the leaves were falling as they died”, which is symbolic for a childhood ending.…
In E.E. Cummings’s unrhymed poem, “[in Just-],” Cummings emphasis on the importance of the start of spring, children, and innocence-filled world. In addition, Cummings symbolizes spring to youthful children and their innocence throughout the whole poem, because spring is the season after the chilly and empty atmosphere of the outside during winter. Spring is often visualized as a colorful, warm, and bright season, where children are playing from “running from marbles and piracies” to ‘hopscotch and jump rope.” Ultimately, Cummings conveys the message of the theme of children or the younger ones out on a spring day, playing innocently and freely. Cummings repeated an imagery of “the little lame balloonman,” who serves as the center focus for…
The poem opens with a question to a child: “Margaret, with her “fresh thoughts,” cares about the leaves as much as about “the things of man.” The speaker reflects that age will alter this innocent response, and that later whole “worlds” of forest will lie in leafless disarray (“leafmeal,” like “piecemeal”) without arousing Margaret’s sympathy. The child will weep then, too, but for a more conscious reason. However, the source of this knowing sadness will be the same as that of her childish grief—for “sorrow’s springs are the same.” That is, though neither her mouth nor her mind can yet articulate the fact as clearly as her adult self will, Margaret is already mourning over her own mortality.…
The poem follows the narrator’s internal monologue as he revisits a place of nostalgia that ignited his love of nature. His fears that the picturesque scene of his childhood has been idealized are quieted as he sees the place for the first time in five years, falling in love with the environment all over again. He even credits nature as “The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,/The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul/Of all my moral being” (Wordsworth LL. 109-111). His ecological thinking recharges his soul and makes him feel joyful about life once again. Nature also connects the narrator to his sister, who he sees himself in because of their love of the countryside. He acknowledges his sister the first time in the poem as his “dear, dear Friend; and in thy voice I catch/The language of my former heart, and read/My former pleasures in the shooting lights/Of thy wild eyes” (Wordsworth LL.…
The beginning stanzas of the poem are devoted to the childhood of the narrator. The narrator seems to describe a time of happiness and joy. He talks about a small village and how he loved to dream. When the narrator says, "I was prince of the apple towns," (line 6), it is just an example that shows how the narrator dreamed and used his imagination as a child. Steele confirms that the narrator's childhood was good by saying, "The boy's life is composed of repetition of the cycles of nature" (1). From all the information perceived in the start of the poem, and confirmed by Steele in his critique, the childhood of the narrator was joyful and pleasant.…