On The Subway Sharon Olds

The use of imagery builds the story and expresses how important Dillard's childhood was in shaping the women she has become today . The excerpt begins with a reflection upon her childhood and growing up a tomboy. Dillard set the stage for “the chase” by explaining the day as “cloudy but cold” (5) with cars lining the snow covered street. Imagery is used not only to set the stage for the day of “the chase” but it is also used to describe the man chasing them as a city man dressed in “a suit and tie, street shoes” (10). Using imagery to describe the man’s appearance helps the reader to understand how unusual the man's appearance was and that the man was chasing them through the city. Dillard builds the suspense of “the chase” by taking the reader through the motions, past a “...yellow house...under a low tree, up a bank, through a hedge…” (12), she builds an image in our minds of the neighborhood. The imagery is used to build up the scene, convey suspense and create emotions for the reader.

When the mother sends her child off to church, she brushes her hair, bathes her, and puts white shoes and gloves on her. This effort put into creating an image of beauty and peace in her child shows that the mother is trying to forget about the suffering of the people who are fighting for freedom that she is doing nothing to aid. When she sees her child this way, she feels that she has

This book is made up of two cycles of poems, each confronting the same subject: the characterization of a black man in white America. In this book, I plan to focus mainly on the first cycle and touch briefly on the second. The first cycle includes four different sections. In section one of cycle one, Eady writes about Susan Smith and Charles Stuart, two murderers who blamed their crimes on nonexistent black attackers. The first poem is called “How I Got Born” (Eady 5), in this poem the fictional young African American man is conjured up. In the upper right-hand corner of the page, Eady writes a note that explains who and what the speaker is: “The speaker is the young black man Susan Smith claimed kidnapped her children” (Eady 5). In the first few lines of the poem he says, “Susan Smith willed me alive/ At the moment/ Her babies sank into the lake” (l. 1-40). So right away he gives us a pretty straightforward explanation for what this poem is about and what this section will be about. In the next few poems, the narrator discusses his “existence” and reason for being created. Eady uses a lot of metaphors, similes and imagery in his poems, and he does a phenomenal job with imagery.

Throughout the book, Walls uses many examples of imagery to create mental pictures for the reader. This makes the writing more vivid and allows readers to feel like they're part of the action. An example is when Walls describes the houses at Little Hobart Street in Welch. She writes, “They were made of wood, with lopsided porches, sagging roofs, rusted-out gutters, and balding tar

In this scene, John Grady and Alejandra take their whole relationship to a new level of intimacy when they skinny dip together in the dead of night. McCarthy’s use of imagery emphasizes the vulnerability of both these teens and uncovers their true natures. McCarthy writes, “she stepped from her pooled clothing so pale, so pale, like a chrysalis emerging” (141). Here, the reader sees the use of imagery as

This literary device is being used when he states, "I see a young Negro boy. He is sitting on a stoop... The stench of garbage is in the halls. The drunks... jobless... junkies are shadow figures of his everyday world". The use of imagery throughout his passage is to evoke emotions like empathy, from his audience. It allows his audience to be able to establish a connection with the images he portrays, and for the audience too also be able to understand how desperately social change is needed in the United States. Another example of imagery would be where he states," black people, brought to this land in slave ships and in chain, had drained the swamps, built the homes... to lift this nation from colonial obscurity to commanding influence...". He uses imagery to put the audience into the Black community's hoes, so that they are able to comprehend that the way Americans are treating them is not right and needs to be changed because they also made the nation great. He is further persuading his audience for social

When telling a story, other elements like plot, setting, characterization, symbol, similes and metaphor also play a significant role. In this excerpt, the writer showed the plot and setting of painful condition of a dying soldier, who was injured in the civil war. She uses various similes and lyrical metaphors. For example, “Every breath he draws is like a stab.” Here by using metaphor “like a stab’, she succeeded to showed the real picture of a dying soldier to her readers. Once again, she uses another simile saying, “gathering the bent head in my arms as freely as if he had been a little child”. This example conveys the picture of John as a young child rests in his mother’s lap. Regarding characterization, by implementing analogies, she displays the altruistic mindset of the brave soldier, who joined the army for her mother and for his country. For instance, when she asked him. “Do you regret coming here”, he was positive at all and replied “I didn't want the glory or the pay; I wanted the right thing done, and people kept saying the men who were in earnest ought to fight. I was in earnest, the Lord knows! but I held off as long as I could, not knowing which was my duty; mother saw the case, gave me her ring to keep me steady”. Even when he is on

Another strategy O’Brien uses represents deep, powerful imagery based on his personal experience in the war. “They’d found him at the bottom of an irrigation ditch, badly burnt, flies in his mouth and eyes.” Another powerful imagery used in his story was describing how Ted Lavender died. “He lay with his mouth open the teeth were broken and there was a swollen black bruise under his left eye.” O’Brien paints gruesome pictures in all readers’ minds about how horrible some individuals die in war. The writer uses imagery to give the reader a better understanding of the severity of

The essay begins by talking about when Staples ended up walking behind a woman on a Chicago street. At this instance, her pace began to increase until, finally, she was sprinting away from him. In the beginning paragraphs, he introduces words such as “victim” and “mean”. By doing this, a vivid picture is easily formed in the mind of the reader of when he came up behind this lady on the street. The situation was displayed in a way that made the reader suspect that something was going to do happen to her. As the passage continues, Staples beings to change this picture and starts to pull emotion from the reader. "It was in the echo of that terrified woman's footfalls, that I first began to know the unwieldy inheritance I'd come into - the ability to alter public space in ugly ways." (205) This newly expressed feeling is a prime example of Staples beginning to draw an emotional response from his audience. He is able to

She’s using it to help her communicate all the violent, horrid things she felt and experienced. For example: “-More like killing, death-grip/holding to life” (Lines13, 14) Once more in lines 16 and 17 “barely moving, more like being closed/ in a great jaw and eaten, and the screaming...” She obviously wasn’t in a jaw being eaten, but because of this terrible and petrifying experience she felt like she was. Rios is using figurative language to describe all the best things that he experienced whereas Olds is using it to make the pain that she felt more

The black lines that seem to frame the woman into a sort of foreground are also present in the implied background, thus melding them into a singular seemingly flat space. The blending of large areas of color leave the space open, and the intent lines of color are the only implication of space or form. “Space is made ambiguously expansive by means of the slight blurs and partial erasures in and around the figures,” (Ashton). This juxtaposition of open and defined spaces easily mirrors the wily nature of women to contain some sort of depth, while at the same time being of shallow character. Lewison makes note of this contrast saying of the woman that, “she is self-consciously seductive, challenging the male to approach while at the same time remaining aloof,” (146). Although there is an understood figure and a somewhat implied background, the work still has the ability to be flat at one glance and especially deep upon another.

The next literary technique used in this poem is imagery. Imagery is a mental image. Hayden states “This man Douglass, this Negro, Beaten to his knees exiled, visioning a world, where none is lonely, none haunted, alien” (Line 7-9). Hayden is trying

In Maya Angelou's’ excerpt, she uses descriptive imagery to shed light on what it was like to be alive in the black community at the time of this special event. Using imagery can display the audible and visual settings of a story. This allows a better understanding for the audience. Moreover, making the audience feel as if they are a part of the story. Angelou writes,“The last inch of space was filled, yet people continued to wedge themselves along the walls of the Store. Uncle Willie had turned the radio up to its last notch so that youngsters on the porch wouldn't miss a word.”

Parker uses imagery in her essay to make the readers actually see what she is going through. She explains what her living situation is like. “This is a smell of urine, sour milk, and spoiling food sometimes joined with the strong smell of long-cooked onions” (167). The smell of her home is overpowering and the reason is because she cannot wash the mattresses or bathe herself and her kids with soap. Her and her three kids live like this, it sounds miserable and unhealthy. It is just downright disgusting. I could not imagine living a life like hers, but she went through every moment taking care of herself and her children. She had no help, no husband, and no friends. Parker puts all this in the readers mind; she makes you see the physical and mental effects of her life. Physically she looks older than she looks, her back is bent from washing