In Margaret Atwood's poem A Sad Child, she uses imagery to show the transition of a girl into a woman. The poem is full of images that correlate with sadness and depression. There is also a tone that emphasizes tough love one might say.
in the first stanza there is the image of a sad young girl who does not have an external reason to be sad. It is because of her age and is turning from a girl to a woman. Atwood uses the image of material item to combat or suppress the sadness and depression mentioned in the poem.
In the third stanza Atwood uses the image of light and fog to point out the change in the young girl. the light may represent her innocence while the fog rolling in represent the loss of that innocence and the coming of womanhood. The "red flame" seeping out of you symbolizes the natural course of things when a woman starts to get her menstruation cycle. This ignites or starts a girl's life as an adult.
The imagery Atwood uses in this poem fits perfectly into the poem's theme.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Thursday, February 12, 2009
From The Frontier Of Writing
The poem From The Frontier Of Writing by Seamus Heaney is one of my favorite poems we have reviewed and analyzed all semester.
The entire poem is an extended metaphor. The speaker relates getting a work of literature published to someone passing a border check. The literal incident that is happening is that someone has approached a border check where they are checked by the guards and waiting to see if they are able to get to the other side. The figurative meaning of this poem is that if you’re a writer you have to go through editors and publishers who have the power to deny or approve your writing.
The troops or guards in the poem may represent the publishers who look over your work which in the poem may be the vehicle. They inspect the “make and number” of the vehicle. This make and number may refer to the title and content of the work. The guns that are prominently mentioned represent the power the publishers have. They can ‘kill’ your ideas or shoot it down.
In the poem what the speaker is trying to portray is that when writing you are never fully in charge of your writing. There is always someone looking and analyzing it from up-close or from afar which is symbolized in the poem by the marksman who constantly has his gun pointed at you. But after your work is approved you are able to go forward giving the feeling of freedom. Heaney uses the image of a waterfall to show how it feels when you are approved. You no longer have to deal with the soldiers or publishers as you see them fading away as you go forward.
The entire poem is an extended metaphor. The speaker relates getting a work of literature published to someone passing a border check. The literal incident that is happening is that someone has approached a border check where they are checked by the guards and waiting to see if they are able to get to the other side. The figurative meaning of this poem is that if you’re a writer you have to go through editors and publishers who have the power to deny or approve your writing.
The troops or guards in the poem may represent the publishers who look over your work which in the poem may be the vehicle. They inspect the “make and number” of the vehicle. This make and number may refer to the title and content of the work. The guns that are prominently mentioned represent the power the publishers have. They can ‘kill’ your ideas or shoot it down.
In the poem what the speaker is trying to portray is that when writing you are never fully in charge of your writing. There is always someone looking and analyzing it from up-close or from afar which is symbolized in the poem by the marksman who constantly has his gun pointed at you. But after your work is approved you are able to go forward giving the feeling of freedom. Heaney uses the image of a waterfall to show how it feels when you are approved. You no longer have to deal with the soldiers or publishers as you see them fading away as you go forward.
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Black Berry Picking
This is one of Heaney's poems that centres on memories of his childhood, growing up on a farm in the Irish countryside. Here he recalls the annual experience of picking wild fruit in the summer.
Heaney uses assonance in his phrase 'glossy purple clot' to describe the first blackberry that ripened and stood out from others pictured with the simile as being still 'hard as a knot'. Heaney compares the taste of the first ripe berry to the sweetness of 'thickened wine'. He uses the metaphor 'summer's blood' to express the redness of the juice that led to a desire for more: 'lust for picking'. The reference to blood is the first suggestion of a less enjoyable or innocent experience.
The second part of the sixteen-line first stanza tells how they collected all the containers they could lay their hands on: 'milk-cans, pea-tins, jam-pots'. The rhythm of the list is repeated two lines later in 'hayfields, cornfields and potato-drills' whose bordering hedges offered the fruit for picking. The macabre imagery increases at the end of the first stanza, where Heaney uses the simile 'sticky as Bluebeard's' to describe the blackberry juice covering the palms of the children's hands as if it were blood, thus echoing the earlier metaphor of 'summer's blood'.
In the shorter second stanza, the pleasures of picking and tasting the first ripe berries soon fade away. The berries were 'hoarded' in the byre, but very quickly begin to go mouldy. The mould is described as a 'rat-grey fungus': the inclusion of the word 'rat' in the metaphor emphasizes the distaste of this deterioration. The smell and taste are focused on too. 'Stinking' makes no bones about the unpleasant smell, and the original sweet taste of the blackberries turns sour. The following line reminds us that the poet is speaking here as a child: 'I always felt like crying. It wasn't fair...' Then once again the smell is recalled: 'all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot'. In the last line, Heaney remembers that he always hoped the blackberries would last once they had been picked, but inside realized that this was impossible.
It is interesting to compare this with another poem of Heaney's, 'Death of a Naturalist'. Both of them centre on childhood memories that begin as innocent, pleasurable experiences rooted in nature, but both end in disillusion. Nature's beauty and sweetness do not endure. The desire for the experience ends in revulsion. There is even a parallel in the structure of the two poems with the extended first stanza followed by a more compact second one that describes a change, the moment of disillusion and disgust.
Heaney addresses all the senses with his imagery and hints here and there among his initial admiration and enjoyment that things are perhaps not all they seem. The innocence of childhood and the wonders of nature are transient, and disappointment has to be confronted.
Heaney uses assonance in his phrase 'glossy purple clot' to describe the first blackberry that ripened and stood out from others pictured with the simile as being still 'hard as a knot'. Heaney compares the taste of the first ripe berry to the sweetness of 'thickened wine'. He uses the metaphor 'summer's blood' to express the redness of the juice that led to a desire for more: 'lust for picking'. The reference to blood is the first suggestion of a less enjoyable or innocent experience.
The second part of the sixteen-line first stanza tells how they collected all the containers they could lay their hands on: 'milk-cans, pea-tins, jam-pots'. The rhythm of the list is repeated two lines later in 'hayfields, cornfields and potato-drills' whose bordering hedges offered the fruit for picking. The macabre imagery increases at the end of the first stanza, where Heaney uses the simile 'sticky as Bluebeard's' to describe the blackberry juice covering the palms of the children's hands as if it were blood, thus echoing the earlier metaphor of 'summer's blood'.
In the shorter second stanza, the pleasures of picking and tasting the first ripe berries soon fade away. The berries were 'hoarded' in the byre, but very quickly begin to go mouldy. The mould is described as a 'rat-grey fungus': the inclusion of the word 'rat' in the metaphor emphasizes the distaste of this deterioration. The smell and taste are focused on too. 'Stinking' makes no bones about the unpleasant smell, and the original sweet taste of the blackberries turns sour. The following line reminds us that the poet is speaking here as a child: 'I always felt like crying. It wasn't fair...' Then once again the smell is recalled: 'all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot'. In the last line, Heaney remembers that he always hoped the blackberries would last once they had been picked, but inside realized that this was impossible.
It is interesting to compare this with another poem of Heaney's, 'Death of a Naturalist'. Both of them centre on childhood memories that begin as innocent, pleasurable experiences rooted in nature, but both end in disillusion. Nature's beauty and sweetness do not endure. The desire for the experience ends in revulsion. There is even a parallel in the structure of the two poems with the extended first stanza followed by a more compact second one that describes a change, the moment of disillusion and disgust.
Heaney addresses all the senses with his imagery and hints here and there among his initial admiration and enjoyment that things are perhaps not all they seem. The innocence of childhood and the wonders of nature are transient, and disappointment has to be confronted.
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