This physical setting sets the tone of the poem, as the wall serves as an image of safety for the neighbor, who feels it necessary to have the wall, even if for his own peace of mind. The speaker, however, sees things differently, He states, "Before I built a wall I'd ask to know / What I was walling in or walling out, / and to whom I was like to give offense" (33-5). When the two are working to "set the wall between us once gain" (14), we understand that the wall is much more important to the neighbor than it is to the speaker. Frost delves into the psyche of the human heart with this poem. What appears to be an ordinary event prompts...
We all have opinions and it is the speaker's opinion that walls or fences are not necessary for any purpose and even believes them to be of no real purpose. He states, "My apple trees will never get across / and eat the cones under his pines, I tell him" (25-6). Here we see how the wall divides the neighbors in that it separates them on an emotional level. The physical separation is obvious but beneath the surface, we discover the complexity of humanity.
Here we see the image of tenderness gain. This is reinforced when the speaker says, "He is meek and he is mild" (13-5). When he states, "He became a little child: / I a child and thou a lamb, / We are called by his name" (16-8), the speaker is incorporating to ideas. One suggestion is of the tenderness of Jesus and the lamb and the other is the
This poem is a favorite of mine because it reminds me to slow down and appreciate everything. It does not take long nor does it take much to renew and revive and that is exactly what the poet wishes to communicate. In Joy Harjo's "Remember," the poet uses imagery and personification to convey points of importance. Because the poet is encouraging someone to remember, she pulls images from experience that will
Despair in "Hope" by Ariel Dorfman There is not much to hope for in Ariel Dorfman's "Hope." A citizen of Chile when the Pinochet regime led a coup over President Allende, Dorfman experienced what it was like to have friends captured and tortured by the new government. In this poem, Dorfman explores what it must have been like for the family -- in this case the father and mother --
John Donne's "The Canonization" begins relatively simply, as a familiar lyrical ode to his mistress. Gradually it deepens in meaning while approaching the final verses, where Donne reveals the true complexity of his vision of love. "The Canonization" is undoubtedly still a love poem; it revels in theatrical descriptions of the love he and his beloved share. But there are also many layers of meaning and irony behind the words
Edgar Allen Poe's 1843 short story "The Tell-Tale Heart" is about a young man who becomes mortally obsessed with an old man's creepy eye and ultimately kills him. Thomas Hardy's 1902 poem "The Man He Killed" is about a soldier who has become used to killing people just because they are on the other side of the war. Both of these narratives lend insight into guilt related to death, told
While men ignore the kitchen as containing "nothing but kitchen things," women look for evidence precisely there because it is the only place where women are in control. As Holstein (2003) argues, women do not enter the house of Mr. Wright as a place of investigation but as a home of two human beings who have feelings. For men, what matters is the evidence and if they find one,
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