Analysis Of Ruins Of A Great House By Derek Walcott

The distinctive experience of power and survival is shown in Kenneth Slessor’s poem, ‘Beach Burial’ The use of colour imagery and similes of the men’s inscription being ‘as blue as drowned men’s lips’ and “vast number of dead sailors” “the blue lips of the drowned bodies” is disturbing as it vividly paints a picture of their lifelessness in the audiences mind. Colour and death is used in the line “the breath of the wet season has washed their inscriptions”

Slessor is without doubt one of Australia’s great poets as his poetry invites us to feel and think about human experience in new ways. He shapes meaning in his poems through the use of sophisticated and appropriate language. Within the poem “Beach Burial” Slessor provides various insights on how the human condition is questioned and allows the reader to experience personal encounters with death, loss and grief that he laments throughout this poem, thereby underlining the futility of war. He also demonstrates the everyday struggles during the Great Depression in Kings Cross within the poem “William Street” during the financial state in the 1930s.

The poem at the cemetery, walnut grove plantation, south carolina, 1989 by Lucille Clifton is a six stanza poem with many repetitions throughout the poem conveying the idea of how the slaves that worked in the walnut plantation were forgotten and not honored. The speaker of the poem, who is taking a tour around the plantation and cemetery, expressed anger throughout the poem as the tension slowly escalates ending with repetitions of “here lies”. Putting all the elements of the poem together, paradox and repetition, it perfectly articulates the underlying meaning of the poem, which is to remember and honor the dead slaves, men and women, whom worked in

The Haitian Revolution (1791-1804) is history’s only successful slave revolt, and African enslaved persons managed a monumental feat on a largely insignificant island in the Caribbean under French control. Naturally, numerous persons were and are inspired by the Haitian Revolution in facets of life from aggravating social change to creating high art. The story even remains impactful without racial influence; considering, the dominated persons were long subjugated and unprepared for battle, yet they defeated a world power for their freedom. Concentrating on elevated art forms, Langston Hughes (1902-1967) wrote the libretto Troubled Island grounded in the Haitian Revolution’s aftermath and Haiti coming into its own as a nation. By following the revolution’s leader Jean-Jacques Dessalines, Troubled Island stresses Haiti’s need to cope with the tribulations of banding together and organizing an emerging nation. Moreover, the libretto highlights intraracism among the Haitians following independence, including France’s cultural influence continuing to divide Haitians. Nevertheless, Troubled Island is not a total retelling of actual, historical events, for persons creating a show often alter or add events to fit the operatic stage and emphasizes significant themes.

To begin, the speaker of the poem “Thou famished grave” presents a resentful and aggressive attitude towards death. The poem, addressed to a “ famished grave” (1), personifies a grave as a starving beast that can “roar” (2), “gnaw” (3), and has “dismal jaws” (7). This represents death in a negative way because the description of the beast make it seem unpleasant and to be feared. Furthermore, the poem includes words and phrases when addressing the grave that follow the theme of starvation, such as, “famished grave” (1), “Gnaw thine own sides, fast on” (3), and “I cannot starve thee out: I am thy prey” which emphasizes that the beast of death is starving to take someone’s life. This animal-like aggressiveness adds to the already negative image of the beast. This imagery also shows how the speakers thinks of death since it comes from her words which shows that she sees death in a very negative way. Due to this, the speaker is angry and does not want to give death what it wants, which is to take someone’s life. Additionally, although death is something normally feared, the speaker shows that she is not fearful by saying “I have no fear / of thy dark project” (3-4) when speaking to the grave. She expresses that she does not want to die and her “heart is set / On living” (4-5), which explains her resentfulness towards death. She also understands that death is inevitable as she says, “I cannot starve thee out: I am thy prey / And thou shalt have me; but I dare defend / That I can stave thee off” (6-8). This shows that even though she knows that she will one day die, she still doesn’t want to give death what it wants and will fight as long as she can

This poem talks about nature and death. William Cullen Bryant shares that nature can make death less painful. He says that when we start to think about death, we should go outside, and look around and listen to the natural earth sounds. This is supposed to remind us that when we die, we will mix back into the earth. The poem tells us that when we die, we will not be alone. We will be with every other person that has ever been buried, In the ground, which in this poem is called the “great tomb of man”. It also tells us that even those that are still living will soon die and join in the great tomb of man. This poem is meant to comfort those that are afraid of dying and death in general. At the end of the poem, we are told to think of death as

As one of the most frequently used themes, death has been portrayed and understood differently throughout modern history as well as by poets Christina Rossetti and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in “Remember” and the “Cross of Snow.” It appears in literature as the preeminent dilemma, one that is often met by emotions such as grief, hopefulness, depression, and one that can encompass the entire essence of any writing piece. However, despite Rossetti’s “Remember” and Longfellow’s “Cross of Snow” employing death as a universal similarity, the tones, narratives, and syntaxes of the poems help create two entire different images of what the works are about in the readers’ minds.

When deconstructing the text ‘W;t’, by Margaret Edson, a comparative study of the poetry of John Donne is necessary for a better conceptual understanding of the values and ideas presented in Edson’s ‘W;t’. Through this comparative study, the audience is able to develop an extended understanding of the ideas surrounding death. This is achieved through the use of the semi-colon in the dramas title, ‘W;t’. Edson also uses juxtapositions and the literary device, wit, to shape and

Funeral Rites’ tri-partite structure is reminiscent of the structure of North. North is separated into three sections, with each representing Heaney’s altering attitudes towards death. The first section contains two poems in dedication - clearly personal to Heaney. By introducing North with two personal poems, Heaney situates the reader in a ‘world of warmth, solidarity and almost

It is this dignity that many African people's all but lost in the colonial period...The writer's duty is to help them regain it by showing them in human terms what happened to them, what they lost." (Achebe/Killam Eds. Pg. 159.)

Death is something that at some point will come to each of us and has been explored in many forms of literature. “The Raven” and “Incident in a Rose Garden” are two poems that explore common beliefs and misconceptions about death. Though both poems differ in setting, tone, and mood there are surprising similarities in the literary tools they use and in the messages they attempt to convey. The setting and mood establish the tone and feel of a poem. In “The Raven” we are launched into a bleak and dreary winters night where a depressed narrator pines for his dead girlfriend.

Harwood explores the intersubjectivity between the individual and the Other throughout ‘At Mornington’ through the use of inclusive pronouns, such as “we”. The line from stanza two, “by your parents’ grave in silence” expresses the potency of the individual’s empathy. The silence represents the acknowledgement of the Other, through nonverbally inhabiting the same space. This representation of the comfort of another being, conveys the extent of the acknowledgement, and contends the notions of existential nihilism through the implicit values of “dasein”. The last stanza of the poem contains the line “the peace of this day will shine”, this line reflects on the consequences of death. “We have one day, only one” the epanaleptic repetition of “one” emphasises the finite nature of our life and suggests an assertive tone to the statement. The motif of the day represents the lifetime of the individual; the metaphor of the day represents the cyclic nature of life and alludes to the biblical notion of death and resurrection. The cyclical representation of life and death symbolises the transition from loss to consolation, through the acknowledgement of the other, and through the developed acceptance of the individual’s

Yet an explicit affirmation of this hatred is not necessary; the reader is quick to appreciate the irony and utter absurdity of her situation and that of Antigua. Kincaid makes us want to condemn the imperialistic attitudes which fostered this indoctrination of English values and also the supposition that this culture was somehow inherently superior to any other. By putting her readers in her own position, and by appealing to their sense of the absurd, Kincaid is very effectively able to elicit sympathy.

It can be difficult for a persona to understand a different perspective. The 1914 blank verse poem, Home Burial, by Robert Frost explores the death of a child and the consequences of this disturbing event on a mother and father. The poem is set at the burgeoning of WWI in pre-war western society. At its core this text explores the gender stereotypes of its time. The mother and father embody the two differing representations of grief over their child’s death. After a brief introduction, the text consists of mostly dialogue which gives the audience an insight into the emotional rift between two personas and their different experiences in dealing with the emotional consequences of death. The husband questions the emotional response of his wife using a demanding tone, desperate to try and understand the reasons for her longing actions “What is it you see From up there always- for

The poet uses different techniques to bring the out the impacts of slavery on the affected individuals (the slaves). The “grave/slave(s)” rhymed couplet recurs at