...“To my Dear and loving Husband” Poetry Explication The poem “To my Dear and loving Husband” by Anne Bradstreet is a heart felt expression of a wife’s marital unconditional love and commitment to her husband. Indirectly, it is also about a puritan woman, who is supposed to be reserved, conveying a message of ever-lasting love and devotion to her husband through vivid imagery and emotions. By reading the poem it seems to be directed to an audience consisting of people who are in love and a person who cherishes their partner’s love. “To my Dear and loving Husband” is classified as a lyrical poem written in couplet form which means in each of the two adjacent lines, it is poetry that rhymes. For example: in the beginning, “If ever two were one, then surely we, If ever man were lov’d by wife, then thee;” (1-2) each line ends with a rhyme – we and thee. “To my Dear and loving Husband” is written in iambic pentameter that makes you read the poem with an obvious rhythm. The couplet form is AABBCCDD and so on making the lines come in rhyming pairs. The poem supports the rhythm with the masculine rhymes using the repetition in the final sounds in every last syllable. The poem consists of monosyllabic words such as we, thee, man, can, gold, hold, and pray. When reading the poem out loud the reader will notice there are many open vowel sounds and soft consonants, which adds to the sincere tone and gives the poem a sense of overall simple, unaffected speech. The beginning...
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...Poetry Explication “My Papa’s Waltz” was written in 1948 by a man named Theodore Roethke. This poem is about a young boy who has to live and deal with a father who beats him, or as metaphorically stated in the poem “waltzes” with him. There is a lot of meaning behind the title of this poem. “My” implies that this is something he takes ownership of, “Papa’s” shows that he loves his father but there is something the father has going on or has to deal with, and “Waltz” is a metaphor for the rampage his father goes through every time he comes home drunk. This poem has four stanzas with four lines in each stanza. It is written in tri-meter time and has a rhyme scheme of a-b-a-b. This is one of the simplest writing styles in poetry. It was written in such a simple format in order for the audience/reader to interpret easily. He wanted everyone to understand that his father was abusive and for you to get it immediately without him saying it out right. In the last two lines in the 2nd stanza the author uses personification to show the mother’s disapproval of the situation saying that her “countenance could not unfrown.” This enhances the meaning of the poem because it shows that the mother doesn’t like what’s going on but just sits there and watches, maybe crying a little, because she knows that what’s going on is wrong but she has no chance standing up to the drunken man. Almost to say that she cares but she’s scared and doesn’t want to get hurt herself either. This poem is...
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...Jeremy Linch Professor Merrow Explication Draft 2 March 3, 2016 In this essay I will examine a passage from Will Gibson’s Idoru was published in the year 1996 and is set in 21st century. I will start work with the passage on pages 191 and 192. The passage begins with “Steep, narrow stairs, walled with an alarming pink mosaic of glistening tonsil-like nodules” and ending with “Laney clicked through a series of images: abstract geometrics arranged in vanishing linear perspective”. First I will describe the constituent elements and the overall structure of the selected passage, not the entire essay. Then I will transition into a section about the relations that the constituent elements have to the other elements in the passage. Lastly I will discuss the different possibilities of meaning shaped by the structure. I will show the different structures, examine how they relate to each other and what that could possibly mean. I examined the passage in Chapter 21 where Laney is entering the chewing gum bar named “Le Chicle”. The main textual ideas include the combination of cultures, the importance of geometric shapes, and the lack of human attribute descriptions. It start on page 191 with the line “Steep, narrow stairs, walled with an alarming pink mosaic of glistening tonsil-like nodules.” The passage I examined ends with the quote on page 192, “Laney clicked through a series of images: abstract geometrics arranged in vanishing linear perspective.” Immediately prior to this section...
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...Explication and Argumentation to a Specific Audience It’s accurately described as the world’s online marketplace, connecting buyers and sellers both near and far. The vast majority of people are casual, intermittent users. But maybe you are ready to take that next step and make selling on eBay a full-time vocation. Nearly anyone can sign up and begin selling immediately, but only those who maintain the status of PowerSeller are able to financially maximize their selling experience. EBay makes a portion of their profits by extracting a fee from each attempted and actual sale. This fee is deducted from the sellers account. The fees are structured at a lower percentage for those who generate the most profit for eBay; those are the PowerSellers. A PowerSeller typically saves 5% over members of the general selling class. Other benefits exist beyond reduced fees, including access to group health insurance and representation in customer disputes. Even United Parcel Service in a cooperative agreement with eBay will offer shipping discounts to PowerSellers. With benefits such as these available, it’s obvious that the PowerSeller program is an attempt by eBay to attract recruits. The decision point for interested individuals as with any decision often comes down to the overall opportunity cost. Those can be weighed by viewing eBay’s PowerSeller and Top Rated Seller Policy. The website itself is accessible on the internet or smartphone as eBay.com. The PowerSeller requirement...
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...Devin Walker Professor Newberry American Literature II 31 August 2016 “Look of Agony” Explication Essay Emily Dickinson is one of the greatest American poets to date. She was most well known for her odd punctuation and capitalization that she would use to emphasize certain things that were important to the poem. “I like a look of Agony” is a short poem that seems very dark until it is analyzed. It begins with Dickinson stating that she likes the look of agony because she knows that it is true. “I like a look of Agony, / Because I know it's true— / Men do not sham Convulsion, / Nor simulate, a Throe—”(1-4). This first stanza speaks volumes about the message that Emily Dickinson is trying to send to those who read the poem. When she states, “I like a look of Agony, / Because I know it’s true—”(1-2), she is saying that when she sees a person who looks like they are in pain or struggling, she knows that their emotion is true, because a person can not fake pain. She reiterates this point with the next two lines when she says, “Men do not sham Convulsion, / Nor simulate, a Throe—”(3-4). Those lines are saying that a person can not fake convulsions, or reactions to pain, and that they can not fake a throe, which is another type of reaction to pain. Throughout this stanza Dickinson chooses to capitalize...
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...Explication Essay # 1 – “Facing It” Images of war and death can wear on the psyche of anyone and can affect those exposed in vastly different ways. In Yosef Komunyakaa’s poem “Facing It,” the soldier depicted in the poem faces a struggle with images of death and his experiences in combat during the Vietnam War. He grapples with something that we understand today as post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD; “Facing It” describes the mind altering events and the subsequent symptoms through the mind of the soldier in the poem. Moreover, as many veterans must do after they return from hell, the soldier faces coping with the memory of others around him that returned home in a flag draped box. The soldier depicted in the poem takes a journey of self-actualization to understand his PTSD, and as he stares at the Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial, he seeks to understand the reality of his condition by going out on patrol one more time. His final patrol provides a sense of closure and an understanding of his condition over a decade after his experiences in Vietnam. His “black face fades, hiding inside the black granite” (Komunyakaa 1538) as he becomes just one of the many faces of war depicted on the wall. He fights back tears as he is face to face with the wall, and his unresolved memories of pain trigger a flashback of “the boobie trap’s white flash” (Komunyakaa 1539). The resulting white flash kills another soldier named Andrew Johnson in the explosion, and he recounts the day, like...
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...Langston Hughes’s Theme for English B and Sherman Alexie’s On the Amtrak from Boston to New York City LTRE 421 July 13, 2016 The subject in Theme for English B a 22-year-old man who is trying to find out exactly who he is. The teacher tells him to go home and write a page tonight; this page should come from himself and be true. The speaker wonders if it is that simple. Is something true simply because it comes out of one person's self? Is truth the same thing for a black youth like him as it is for the white professor? In the poem On the Amtrak from Boston to New York City the author introduces two characters from different walks of life, which are brought together on an Amtrak from Boston to New York. Even though these two characters are on the same Amtrak, their cultural perspectives and differences separate them. The poem also offers commentary on the history of Native Americans versus the history of white Americans. Both of these poems contain historical context relating to race in America. In Theme for English B, wrapped up in the speaker's search for his identity is the idea of his race. He's black, born in the South, but now lives in Harlem. As this man is trying to find out who he is, America is full of racial tension, and hasn't really reached a stable identity itself. He's the only black person in his class, and that includes his instructor. When he sits down to write a page that's supposed to be true, he can't help but feel that, when people aren't equally...
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...Teresa Yang ENG 155: Introduction to Literature March 26, 2015 An Extended Metaphor: Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” In Robert Frost’s poem “The Road Not Taken”, it explores the aspects of human decisions and choices, corresponding to an oxymoron because choices that impacts so little should bear the most indifference, but instead it is the most complicated. It is shown through several different techniques such as metaphors, symbolism, repetition, and his writing style. Robert Frost was born on March 26, 1874 in San Francisco but soon moved to Pennsylvania (Robert). His dad died when he was around the age of eleven years old. Frost lived with sister who was two years younger and his mother. During his college years, he enrolled at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire and later at Harvard University in Boston. He had multiple occupations such as a teacher, cobbler, and editor. His first poem, “My Butterfly,” was published on November 8, 1894 in the New York Newspaper. Later in his life, he married Elinor Miriam who inspired many of his pieces. He became well known for “the life and landscape of New England” but isn’t a regional poet because his works are “infused with layers of ambiguity and irony” (Robert). He died on Jan 29, 1963 in Boston (Robert). “The Road Not Taken” is about a person in the woods who comes across a fork with two roads. He states that the two roads are equally worn with untroddler leaves. However, in the seco...
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...In the poem “Singapore” by Mary Oliver, there is a very important lesson of social acceptance. The poet speaks of encountering a woman in an airport bathroom stall, cleaning an ashtray in the toilet, and the disgust that she first feels towards this woman and her job. The speaker does however, express that she moves past the judgment that she first feels towards the woman in the stall. She imagines parts of nature and wishes to put the woman in a beautiful place in life. In this poem, the poet uses imagery, connotation, metaphor and symbolism to describe what she is really seeing compared to what she is imagining and would like to see. Significantly, the speaker begins the poem by saying, “A darkness was ripped from my eyes” (line 2). The darkness that she is speaking of is the judgment that she places upon this woman in the stall. She first has a closed mind, a disturbed perception if you will, towards the cleaning lady. To say that it “was ripped from my eyes” (line 2) implies that she did attain a better perception of her. The speaker knew that she should not be so judgmental towards this woman and the job she is performing. It is obvious that she understands she should not feel this way when in the second stanza she states, “Disgust argued in my stomach” (line 6). For that feeling to argue, it exhibits her capability to understand. Bewilderment and dismay overcame the speaker. She feels disgusted by what most people consider such a degrading job, yet so displeased with herself...
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...Tekela Genous October 28, 2009 ENG 435 Langston Hughes “Mother to Son” is written entirely from a weary mother’s point-of-view and presents inspiration, themes, and imagery concerning the appearance and the reality of the poem. Every mother wants to see her child be successful in life through the hardships and the good times. The poem was written from a mother to her young son demonstrating the love and concern a mother has for her son and educating him on how life may be. The overall message is to never give up, although life is hard, one can never give up no matter what your struggles are, keep pushing forward. This poem implies that experience can teach life lessons, which the mother has been through time after time. She explains to her son in a well spoken way that things may go wrong, don’t get content, move forward and never give up. This poem reminds me of a novel named Push, written by Sapphire in 1996, it illustrates the conditions of living in Harlem in the 1980’s and the suffering of a girl, Claireece Precious Jones, who experienced sexual harassment, being committed twice by her own father, having two children by him, but never giving up. The first couple of stanzas show that the son may have asked his mother a question, because she starts with, "Well, son, I'll tell you." The mother then goes on and uses the metaphor “Life for me ain't been no crystal stair,” which can symbolize her spiritual pursue towards Christ or telling her son that life is...
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...How The beginning of a relationship is and can the most magical time in your life. You guys love everything about each other. Everything is just great. In the short story How by Lorrie Moore you dive into the mind of a woman who talks about her relationship with a guy from the beginning to the end. She dives into her worries and issues in her mind. The emotions she goes through, and how she sticks around even when she feels like running away. In this short story she begins with talking about how she meets this guy and how they get to know each other. She quickly jumps into how they speak of moving in together. She has mixed feeling about it but she gives in. She doesn’t forget to lay down the rules. She lays out rules for him including that their relationship is nonexclusive. She doesn’t move any furniture around, only makes room for her things in his closet. Finally living with him she and she begin to refer to him as her “family”. She goes to a family wedding from his side and his relatives quickly start investigating and asking when is their wedding. They also begin to make comments on how lovely they look together. She feels a sense of uneasiness because her feelings for him are not as serious as his relatives believe. After the wedding they attend she begins to have thoughts of restlessness. She doesn’t feel how she feels. She goes out and she starts looking at other men and not about him. She then...
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...Anthony Wilson, Sr. English 151 15 February 2012 An Explication of Hughes' "Harlem" In the poem "Harlem" written by Langston Hughes, the speaker utilizes a series of rhetorical questions and similes intended to initiate a thought-provoking reaction that addresses unresolved or deferred dreams. The use of these questions and similes add to the overwhelming feeling of despair the speaker seems to have form the beginning until the end of the poem. In life, many have dreams intended to fulfill whatever end fantasy or goal is in mind. But, this poem attempts to address those dreams that are unfilled or put off for whatever reason. The speaker's inquisitive nature implies an uncertainty of promise or happiness of a dream deferred. The very first line of the poem begins with a question and sets the what becomes a "What happens to a dream deferred "? and immediately is followed by a series of rhetorical questions that mimics the negative outlook for the end result. "Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun"? ( 3) "Or fester like a sore- And then run"? (4-5) "Does it stink like rotten meat"? (6) Or crust over and sugar over- like a syrupy sweet"? (7-8) "Or does it explode"? (11) So, from start to finish these questions imply the outlook is a grim one. The negative tone never seems to change not even for a split second from the beginning until the end. Even the use of certain word choice added to the continuous dismal tone of the poem. Usually when...
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...April Fabro English 200B Professor Taufer 29 May 2012 An Explication of William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 12 When I do count the clock that tells the time, And see the brave day sunk in hideous night; When I behold the violet past prime, And sable curls all silver'd o'er with white; When lofty trees I see barren of leaves Which erst from heat did canopy the herd, And summer's green all girded up in sheaves Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard, Then of thy beauty do I question make, That thou among the wastes of time must go, Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake And die as fast as they see others grow; And nothing 'gainst Time's scythe can make defence Save breed, to brave him when he takes thee hence. William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 12 is written in an iambic pentameter in the Shakespearean format. It is a contemplation of one’s progression of life and the absolute emergence of ones death, with an ultimate purpose to convey the answer of an individual receiving eternal life. The sonnet is a short narration of definitive mortality that focuses on the passing of time through metaphoric images of nature and through the description of ones youth evolving into the dreaded phase of old age. It is a brief description of the passing of time here on earth. It showcases the passing of time in three quatrains: the end of youth, the end of the harvest season, and the end of ones life. The poem emphasized the importance of...
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...An explication of “The Road Not Taken” The Road Not Taken could be interpreted in numerous ways. For someone who has never read this poem it sparked many thoughts just by seeing the title. It made me think of many crossroads I have come to throughout my life and what could have been if I had chosen a different path. Before I started reading it I wondered if Frost was writing about a specific path he had chosen or just life in general and the different paths one comes to in their life. Life is full of many decisions and the struggle to choose the correct path ,but a decision must always be made. I will now try to unfold the story and try to find out what Frost may have been trying to say. In the first line a traveler comes across “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood” which tells the reader that he is at a crossroads in his life and he is now about to have to make a decision. He is unable to take both paths and must make a decision on which path to chose. He then states “And sorry I could not travel both” and seems to be somewhat unhappy that he could not take both. It is always difficult to make decisions because one always wonders what may be missed if one decision had been made rather than another. He realizes that he cannot travel both roads and now has to make a difficult choice. Attempting to make the best decision he “looked down one as far as I could,” trying to see the future of what each decision may bring. Both paths have unknown endings and although he attempts...
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...Turkey Poem Explication Word Count: 1228 This poem is about an older man reflecting on a moment in childhood. Paying specific attention to the actions of his parents, he describes a scene of his family routine and enjoying a day at the beach. The poem encompasses use of descriptive language, metaphors, and the exclusive use of symbolism. The use of negative connotations sets the tone of the piece as sad and rather insightful about understanding what he viewed as a child. The poem is told by an adult who is reflecting on a childhood memory in a poor summer home with his dysfunctional family. The person sounds very perceptive in remembering little details of the house and his parent's actions in response to one another. He seems to value his family relationships, recalling this particular memory with some kind of fondness, especially for the home they stayed in. Because the narrator is telling the scene from his own point of view, the attitude the author takes in the poem is very significant. The attitude can sometimes be described as ironic, but mostly sad. The narrator is reflecting on this scene and seeing it from a different perspective, now that the narrator is an adult. For example the narrator comments, “How difficult it is to speak as I spoke then”. His attitude while he speaks directly affects the tone of the passage. The tone here can be described as rather opprobrious. The narrator uses more negative connotations that makes it obvious the narrator is not proud...
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