The poem in Up-Hill means to me that someone is struggling. I believe this because they are asking if there will be a place to rest when it later on becomes dark and the hours began to slow down. This person is worried about meeting other wayfarers at night and does not want to be stood up longer in the night than he already has. The person in the story does not want to be weak but yet they need help finding a place to stay. We all want to be strong in life and not want to have to rely on other people for help, especially people who do not have a good relationship. The last time I felt like this person in Up-Hill was when I was starting basketball for the first time in high school. I did no know how hard it was going to be, but at the same
She is living in sad and poor conditions just to give her son the things he needs for a successful childhood. The sons mother lived at places with no carpet, splinters everywhere and boards bordered up the walls. Even in such bad conditions she never gave up on her son. “Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair” she repeats to her son throughout the poem which gives the impression that her son still does not fully understand what his mom went through to raise him. Langston is trying to explain what she has been through while still encouraging him to keep going.
Once I was able to associate these words to emotions and issues present in everyday life, the poem started to make me feel sad. I began thinking about all of the emotions and feelings that everyone hides as they go about life. For example, how the waitress I see once a week may have an eating disorder, or how the singer I look up to just lost her son, or the businessman who got laid off today. Everyone has their own personal battle that they carry everywhere, at any given moment. This explains why the setting is so plain, since the internal struggles people face affect them even at a bus stop. While each person waits, the waitress may be thinking about how much skinnier the person next to her is. The singer could be remembering when she held her baby. And the business man could be planning how to break the news to his wife. No matter how small, everyone experiences a type of trauma or bad experience, and this poem seemed to show what happens when these emotions become bottled up. No one can help each other because they are so stuck within their own issues. The difficulty helping others reminded me of the idea of having to take care of yourself before being able to take care of others.
The speaker's depression stems mainly from his unwanted responsibility and feeling of regret. The basic conflict in the poem, which is resolved in the last stanza, is between an attraction toward the woods and the drudgery of life and responsibility outside of the woods. "And miles to go before I sleep,/ And miles to go before I sleep" (line 15-16).
The speaker of the poem is a hobo that was hiking on the trails. Given that the poem was written in 1928, during the Great Depression, he sounds wistful and hopeful of the mystical Big Rock Candy Mountains. He is talking to some folks he happened to pass by on his way down the track. The speaker ultimately sounds like someone who is down on their luck and only has hope left.
Also, ‘the sun threw a bright dust-laden bar through one of the side windows’, this represents that the little hope in the bunk house only helps to further illuminate the darkness and harshness of society. In a setting, such as the ranch, where dreams are suppressed and suffocated, they take on a greater importance and significance to the mens lives, they rely on the dreams to get by.
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
The poem, Tuesday 9:00 am, illustrates the image of three individuals at a bus stop experiencing unique physical challenges. Denver Butson begins by displaying a working man on fire with flames melting his shoes into the ground below him. A couple feet away, a woman acknowledges the burning man, but her desire to help him is burdened because she is drowning. Standing beside these individuals, another woman yearns to aid the woman drowning, but she is fraught with blocks of ice on her feet as she is freezing to death. Once the bus arrives, the bus driver does not even notice the individual’s lethargic struggle to board and how they did not pay because he is internally contemplating if he actually saw the man who exited at the last stop
“Hills Like White Elephants”, by Ernest Hemingway, is a short story published in 1927 that takes place in a train station in Spain with a man and a woman discussing an operation. Most of the story is simply dialogue between the two characters, the American and Jig. This couple is at a critical point in their lives when they must decide whether or not to have an abortion. Certain themes arise from this story such as choices and consequences, doubt and ambiguity, and how men and women relate. Hemingway also uses many examples of symbolism in “Hills Like White Elephants”, including descriptions of the surrounding scenery, the hills themselves, and the station where the action takes place.
For the Puritans in the early New England colonies life was by no means easy, but there was the possibility to expand their beliefs free from the persecution from Church of England. They had the opportunity to create their ideal society under God with the bible as their law from which they would define how to live. The Puritans set out to create their model society which could spread and cull the impurities from the church. But how did these beliefs and goals ultimately effect their society?
The tone of this poem is what makes it so openly interpreted. It can be used as motivation for almost any path one decides to take in life. The verse “Yet knowing how way leads on to way/ I doubted if I should ever come back” can be related to by anyone who has ever experienced having to make crucial decisions in life. Life is not easy, and it is not worth our precious time to be whimsical in our decision making. Nobody wants to have to backtrack, and this poem portrays that rigorous ‘keep your head forward, shoulders back and your eye on the prize’ mentality that has been part of our culture as Americans for so long. These two very salient lines of the poem also do well to instill an element of mystery and air in the mind of the reader. It is human nature to think what could have been ‘if only I’d done this’ or ‘If that never
This is a wonderful poem with many different themes and ideas. One of the biggest themes is not being afraid to take a chance. Some of the other themes include, not following the crowd, trying new things, and standing for something. This poem stated that the author "took the one (road) less traveled by, and that has made all the difference" so the author is telling the reader that we too should not be afraid to take another path.
The poet begins the poem by motivating and inspiring her son to be fearless using an extended metaphor. He begins comparing the mother’s life and a crystal stair. The mother begins saying, “ Well, son, I’ll tell you: / Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair,” compares an easy and pleasant journey through life to her journey of life that has not been easy and pleasant. The use of extended metaphor comparing the mother’s life to a staircase continues throughout the poem, repeating the line, “Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.” Furthermore, life has never been easy or free of problems and it has never been smooth sailing. The tacks, splinters, and
The speaker refers to the night as his acquaintance. This implies that the speaker has a lot of experience with the night, but has not become friends with it. Thus, because even the night, which has been alongside the speaker in comparison to anything or anyone else, is not a companion to the speaker, the idea of loneliness is enhanced. In addition, “rain” (2) is used to symbolize the speaker’s feelings of gloom and grief, because there is continuous pouring of the rain, which is unlikely to stop. In line 3, “city light” is used to convey the emotional distance between the speaker and society. Although the speaker has walked extensively, he has not yet interacted with anyone – thus distancing himself even further from society. Moreover, the moon, in lines 11 to 12, is used as a metaphor of the speaker’s feelings. The speaker feels extremely distant from society that he feels “unearthly.” The idea of isolation and loneliness in this poem is used as the theme of the poem; and the use of the setting and metaphors underscores the idea that the speaker feels abandoned from society.
The poem always speaks of hope. Every single word Fallain has used as symbol in the poem describes lively the emotion of the main character. The poem has effectively portrayed a lonely, absent minded man kicks the cylinder on a frozen road, and it stops under a sky studded with stars. It describes the man's pathway from trauma and depression to hope and wonderful future. Also, there is a message that the author gives us. Whenever you are hopefulness, do not give up, stay hold and observe, there will be a ray of light for you to follow. Life is difficult or easy depending on you. It is all about your choices. Staying calm and you will make
In the poem "Up-Hill" I think that it means you’re taking a journey and you don't know if it ever gets easier or just stays hard meaning is there a place to rest along the way life where this is no hard spot. The journey to me means life and you don’t know whether life gets easier or just stays hard, meaning if you feel like you’re in a tough spot in life, some people think it’s going to last forever because no matter what it always seems like that.