Sign Up Now
Get instant access to over 1 million+ study documents
OR
Already registered? click here to login
By creating your account, you agree to our terms of service, privacy policy and student honor code.
Option 1: Analyzing Edwin Arlington Robinson’s “Richard Cory”
Edwin Arlington Robinson’s “Richard Cory” is a poem largely structured around the poetic device of irony. The poem begins by presenting the title character as a handsome, wealthy figure who “glittered” when he walked, according to the poet. The inhabitants of Cory’s town are eaten up by jealousy. However, the final line of the poem notes that Cory one day came home and put a bullet in his own brain and presumably at the same time put an end to the admiration of the townspeople. The poem suggests that even people with apparently happy lives may lead unhappy existences in private. The psychological study of the poem is less Cory, who is not really profiled throughout much of the text, than it is the people who watch and observe him from afar. The poem suggests that Cory was a profoundly lonely man, in contrast to the idealized figure the townspeople believed him to be.
The poem begins almost like a camera zeroing in on a figure in the distance, then moving closer. “He was a gentleman from sole to crown, / Clean favored, and imperially slim” (3-4). The poem is not narrated from...
He never speaks throughout the duration of the poem. Rather, the poem is narrated through the voices of the townspeople, who form a collective “we.” The sentence, “We people on the pavement looked at him,” suggests that the average person was afraid to approach him and merely regarded Cory from afar (2). This might even be a reason for Cory’s unhappiness, because while the poem suggests that Cory was admired, there is no indication that he had any close friends in the town.
The poem makes use of the technique of hyperbole to demonstrate the townspeople’s perceptions of Cory. Again, the use of the pronoun “we” suggests a kind of collective certainty about who the man is and his exterior surface. “And he was always quietly arrayed, / And he was always human when he talked” (5-6). The phrases suggest that Cory dressed in a muted, unostentatious way and did not want to draw attention to himself. This seems to draw the approval of the town, even though they still regard him with awe. The idea that he seemed “human” when he talked is particularly odd, given that someone who is a human being should, one would think,…
Works Cited
Robinson, Edwin Arlington. “Richard Cory.” The Poetry Foundation. 15 Feb 2018. Web. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44982/richard-cory
Literary Analysis Research Paper Introduction Mrs. Dalloway is a novel written by Virginia Woolf. It was published in 1925. The book highlights various issues in life such as love, death, social status, and mental illness. Woolf also condenses the story of Clarissa into a single day comprising of past experiences and events (Latham 64). This paper will focus on the literacy aspects present in Mrs. Dalloway. Namely, setting, character, and themes. Setting The setting
Literary Analysis: Sue Monk Kidd’s The Invention of Wings Sue Monk Kidd uses symbol and theme in The Invention of Wings to tell the story of Sarah Grimke, her sister Nina and Sarah’s slave Handful, whom Sarah vows to help to freedom over the course of her life. The novel is based on the historical character of Sarah Grimke, an abolitionist and activist. To tell the story, Kidd uses the black
Literary Analysis on �Their Eyes Were Watching God��The Eyes are Watching God� is written by Zora Neale Hurston, a 1935 classic novel that received great acclamation and criticism. The novel is about a white girl, Janie, and her life with three husbands and her grandmother. Life chronicles also detail facts about the people she knows or comes in contact with, which greatly shape her life experiences.Hurston�s novel is mainly enlightened
Racism and Society -- Literary Analysis Zora Neal Hurston's heartfelt essay How It Feels to Be Colored Me (1928) presents the experiences of a young girl as remembered by an adult black woman in the early 20th century. Her narrative is simultaneously disarming and sad, because the good cheer and humor seems to belie justified resentment toward white American society. She presents an image of cheerful acceptance of racial inequality and
Catch Me if You Can Literary Analysis: Catch Me if You Can Itroduction Catch Me If You Can is a 1980 book written by Frank Abagnale as well as a 2002 film directed by Steven Spielberg which depicts the story of Frank Abagnale, a notorious con artist who cashed $2.5 million worth of bad checks and assumed various jobs and identities until being caught by the FBI. Both the book and the movie
The angel's position as a symbol of faith is revealed not only through his wings, but also through his first appearance drenched in mud. In Christian theology, the relationship between God and man began with God's creation of Adam through a mixture of earthly clay and divine spirit (Genesis 2:7). The angel's appearance in the mud highlights the duality of this relationship -- that it is at the same