The Caterpillar Poem Analysis

The theme of Sympathy is the oppressive treatment of both the narrator and the bird, and the imprisonment of the bird and how the narrator sympathizes with it. This is shown through the diction choices which create dark images of mistreatment and sorrow, and imagery that is strengthened in repetition. An example of diction that supports the theme is “...its blood is red on the cruel bars;” this choice of words gives image of a dark, dirty cage with a wounded beaten bird and its cage that is blood red from his wounds; this image is very oppressive and gives characteristics of the prisonization of the bird. The next example of the poem’s theme is shown by imagery and repetition, which come together convey strong flashing images of the imprisonment of the bird and its oppressive feeling. “When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore, -- When he beats his bars and he would be free;”, this quote gives imagery to the reader to see a bruised, tired, and dirty bird beating against his cage for freedom. The repetition of the word “when” in the quote gives off the effect to the reader of flashing images one after the other. While the use of the words “bars”, “bruised”, “sore”, and “he beats”, give off the specific imagery characteristic of oppression to the reader’s developing images.

Abandoned by her mother at three-year-old, married at the age 19, three children at the age of 26, and with only a fifth-grade level education. My mom was in prison for a month after struggling to cross the Mexican border into the United States. My mom came to American seeking a better future where my siblings and I did go hungrier to be able to survive. The poet is describing the word “Migration” that takes a different method in relating what is crossing the border as well as tense perceptive effects that occur when it comes to crossing the border. Rosa Alcala’s poem has persona, metaphor, images and figures speech the author can illustrate the feeling of the poem as attentive vagueness.

In the music video/song “Strange Fruit”, the phrase strange fruit doesn’t really refer to a fruit that is strange. It actually refers to people being lynched and hanging from trees. More specifically, the term strange fruit applies to the lynching of African Americans. This song was performed by Billie Holiday in 1939 at the Cafe Society in New York. The music video was actually a recorded performance from 1959. The song was written and performed because the purpose of was to raise awareness and fight against African American lynching because during that time, African Americans were being discriminated and abused. Billie Holiday in the music video/song “Strange Fruit” displays logos through context and imagery, pathos through her sorrowful tone and facial expressions, and lastly, ethos because she won many awards during her career in singing, and Strange Fruit is one of them.

Similarly, both essays begin by detailing facts about about their respective animals. Dillard’s factual tone explains the daily life of a weasel and the powerful effects of its jaw. She informs her readers of the weasels eating habits and its method of procuring prey. Likewise, Grice explains the lifestyle of the black widow spider. He describes the complexity of its web, the source of its name, and the diet of the black widow spider. However, “The Black Widow” goes into much more detail about the routine life of the spider.

In the poem “To a Mouse” by Burns, the speaker writes an apology to the mouse for the way it gets treated by humans. The speaker describes the mouse as a “sleek, tiny, timorous, cowering beast” that is running away from humans. He tells the mouse that he does not need to run away from him. He says to the mouse, “why dash away, so quick, so rash, in a frenzied flash when I would be loath to run after you”. The speaker means no harm but the mouse’s first instinct is to run when he sees humans because he expects to get chased by humans. The speaker understands the reasons for the mouse sometimes stealing food. The narrator says “I have no doubt you sometimes shiver; What of it, friend? You too must live!” He knows that the mouse must find a way to get food, so it can survive. The little mouse had a home-built to keep warm but the farmer with the plow unintentionally destroyed its home. When apologizing to the mouse the speaker says “Your tiny house lies in a ruin, its fragile walls and-rent and strewn! Now nothing’s left to build you a new one of mosses green.” The mouse plans to have a home for winter gets destroyed. The farmer destroying the mouse's home shows that dreams and plans can be destroyed by something or someone.

The Minefield by Diana Thiel starts with a heartbreaking story of a young boy and his friend running between towns ends horribly when they took a short cut to find food. One of the young boys ran off ahead only to accidentally step on a landmine, taking the young boy’s life. The story was being told by a father at dinner to his family, but the father did not seem fazed by the horrific story of his friend. The narrator states throughout the poem, it seems as if the father is still living in the minefield by the anger busts and the bruises he leaves on his family. With the father’s violent outbursts and the way, the author talks about the abuse is both the father and the narrator suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. The structure the author used of the poem says a lot about what the author is trying to say. As well as the words themselves. The words and the structure may cause the reader to have mixed feeling about the father throughout the poem, do you feel bad for the father for what he has been through or anger for abusing his family?

On the surface, the title choice of “The Chrysalids” seems very strange. Nothing to do with caterpillars, butterflies or chrysalids are mentioned at any time in the novel. Despite this, one of the most important elements in the story is change, and it revolves around metamorphosis.

In Chapter 9, the quote from The Origin of Species talks about similarities of a silkworm to a caterpillar or the cocoon stage. This quote was picked because it has to do with silkworms and butterflies. One of the main focuses of this chapter is Petey. In this chapter, Petey is a caterpillar that lives in Calpurnia’s grandfather’s laboratory. Soon, Petey will turn into a beautiful butterfly. What this quote from the book means is that differences from the silkworm and the caterpillar are known to appear and be alike at the cocoon stage of the caterpillar’s life. This was a good quote to start the chapter because of the introduction to Petey, who is a caterpillar.

In Gascoigne’s metaphor, a mouse that had escaped a trap is unlikely to return, even if given motivation to return to the trap and try for the food again (5-8). The idea of an tiny, innocent animal—representative of sonneteers—caught in a trap which represents their beloved’s chronic rejection, is designed to engender feelings of sadness and pity in readers. Likewise, in Gascoigne’s second metaphor, it is improbable that a fly that has been burned by a flame would approach any flame thereafter (9-12), once again inspiring compassion in the reader for the sonneteers’ emotional pain. In more modern times, flies are seen as less unclean and disgusting creatures than they were in the past, but in Gascoigne’s day, that would not have been the case. The same holds true for mice—in Gascoigne’s day, mice were seen as pests to be rid of at all costs. No one would have sympathized with a mouse. So Gascoigne’s argument changes contextually; instead of creatures to be sympathized with, the mouse and fly—and by extension the sonneteers—are simply nuisances to be rid

I personally have read theses six poems a few times each now. Starting with “Introduction to Poetry,” “How I Discovered Poetry,” “Poetry Should Ride the Bus,” “How Poetry comes to me,” “Making It in Poetry” and “Poem.” I for one will be explicating each poem and discussing how they are similar and different in their own ways. As well as explaining my own thoughts on the poems themselves and summarizing what I believe them to be.

These quotes tells the reader how the simple death of a butterfly can affect the whole future. The author manly uses a sense of reality and regret to help communicate the theme in this

S.S. Carl D. Bradley Nov. 18, 1958, gone poof, pow, sunk. The wreck was never found, they saw 2 people in a life raft. They told us everything. 52 men dead in the water. Where in Lake Michigan could the S.S. Carl D. Bradley be?

Poetry is a reduced dialect that communicates complex emotions. To comprehend the numerous implications of a ballad, perusers must analyze its words and expressing from the points of view of beat, sound, pictures, clear importance, and suggested meaning. Perusers then need to sort out reactions to the verse into a consistent, point-by-point clarification. Poetry utilizes structures and traditions to propose differential translation to words, or to summon emotive reactions. Gadgets, for example, sound similarity, similar sounding word usage, likeness in sound and cadence are at times used to accomplish musical or incantatory impacts.

This is supported in the poem by the description of the moth as a "rigid satin cloth." The satin cloth can be seen like a bridal dress, suggestions of good, but the negativity of "rigid" implies perhaps on the lining of a coffin where a rigid body would lie. In the second part of the octave the speaker describes the scene again. He compares the scene and the assorted characters to "a witch's broth" (line 6), and Carter claims that this part introduces ironies regarding the observer's feelings towards the scene he saw. The speaker views those characters as "assorted characters of death and blight" (line 4). But they are there to "begin the morning right" (line 5) - a positive saying which you wouldn't exact to hear associated with death and blight. This juxtaposing of "blight" and "right" emphasizes the irony. How can the morning be "right" if the scene culminate in death?

Some of the poems and essays I have read during this class were relatable to me. Being away from college, I have struggled with not being at home. I have become a different person when I am at school, but when I am home, I feel like I am my normal self again. Some of these authors of the poems and essays that I have read throughout this class has struggled with being somewhere where they don’t belong and that they are someone else when they are not home. Unlike the other poems and essays we have read throughout the course. I enjoyed reading the ones about “home” because I actually understood what they are going through and that I can relate. Some of these poems and essays include “Going Home” by Maurice Kenny, Postcard from Kashmir”, by Agha Shahid Ali, “Returning” by Elias Miguel Munoz and “Hometown” by Luis Cabalquinto. All of these poems deal with duality.