PAPER Topics

... makes it an important point to describe her after her arrival. The description of the articles of clothing that Porphyria is wearing helps the reader know that Porphyria is from an upper-class family. She was wearing a cloak and shawl, a hat, and gloves. It is apparent that the speaker works for Porphyria's family. He lives in a cottage, somewhat distant from the main house. The cottage is cold until Porphyria warms up the room with her presence and by stirring up the fire. The way the speaker introduces Porphyria is very unique. He states that Porphyria "glided" into the room. With this description, the lover insinuates to the reader that the he sees Porphyria as some kind of ...

... it can drastically change the meaning of the poem, and has therefore been debated among the critics. While most critics believe that the audience changes from men, to women, then to a single woman, or something along those lines, Gregory Machacek believes that the audience remains throughout the poem as "two women who have discovered that they are both lovers of the speaker and have confronted him concerning his infidelity" (1). His strongest argument is that when the speaker says, "I can love her, and her, and you and you," he first points out two random nearby women for "her, and her", then at the two that he is talking to for "you and you." The first stanza begins rath ...

... brought care and concern into the poem. The bright daffodils were crowded, cheerful, and energetic. When the speaker mentioned the daffodils dancing in the breeze, the poem became more lively and active. Throughout the poem, the daffodils were in such harmony with nature, being accompanied by the breeze, the stars, and the waves. The golden daffodils were so beautiful and eye-catching that the speaker takes his mind off of his depressing matters, and places it on the beauty of nature. The golden daffodils are very valuable and precious, with nothing taking their place. "Gay", "glee", "bliss", "jocund", and "pleasure" are words with the same meaning as "happy", and happy is the a ...

... when one of the tramps interferes with his wood chopping: "one of them put me off my aim". This statement, along with many others, seems to focus on "me" or "my", indicating the apparrent selfishness and arrogance of the narrator: "The blows that a life of self-control/Spares to strike for the common good/That day, giving a loose to my soul,/I spent on the unimportant wood." The narrator refers to releasing his suppressed anger not upon evils that threaten "the common good", but upon the "unimportant wood". The appparent arrogance of the narrator is revealed as well by his reference to himself as a Herculean figure standing not alongside nature, but over it: "The grip on earth of outsp ...

... that everything had changed. That it had changed so fast like the tablecloths magicians pull from under stuff on the table but the gasp from the audience makes it not matter. The passage was comparing going to junior high school to a tablecloth the magicians pull because junior high school was a big change to the boys. The gasp! from the audience meant the change did not matter because in the long run everything will be O.K. The fifth and last passage is a personification. It is a personification because the passage is saying that the arroyo taught them to look the other way. It stated, "That was the first time we stopped going to the arroyo. It taught us to look the other wa ...

... the poem as well as the natural softness to her disposition. In the third stanza, this is most obvious: "She played it quick, she played it light and loose; / My eyes, they dazzled at her flowing knees; / Her several parts could keep a pure repose, / Or one hip quiver with a mobile nose / (She moved in circles, and those circles moved)." Here, there are almost a dozen leading or strong trailing "s"'s weaving through the words, outlining the form one can picture as her "several parts keep a pure repose" and "one hip quiver"s as she "moved in circles, those circles moving." Roethke clearly paid close attention to the physical side of this woman as well, making these small observations that w ...

... His master, Robert Mumford, tried to break his pride constantly by exerting harsh and swift punishments. He possessed no civil rights and in the eyes of the law he was not a “person”. His masters were oft to treat him with inhumane cruelty. Similar to Venture Smith’s life growing up in the slavery system, Douglass witnessed brutal beatings given by slave owners to women, children, and the elderly. Young Frederick was grossly mistreated and it did not get any better until he was sent to live with Mrs. Auld and her husband. Mrs. Auld instilled in Frederick the will to learn to read and write. This deed proved to be Frederick’s rude awakening to a world of knowledge that is purposely ...

... (141) if he was only concentrating on the self. Wordsworth was concerned for all responses from all mankind and not only his personal response. He emphasized and focused on the common man in the Preface to Lyrical Ballads by writing in a common language that the ordinary man can easily understand and appreciate. There are no phrases or figures of speech in his poems that would not be found in conversation between the ordinary, working man. "Because men hourly communicate with the best objects from which the best object is derived; and because, from their rank in society and the sameness of their intercourse, being less influence of social vanity they convey their feelings and notions in ...

... this grave is the woman's own. It is also possible the woman's body already rests beneath the soil in a casket. If this is at all accurate, then her spirit or soul may be the one who is looking at the "house." Spirits and souls usually mean there is an afterlife involved. It isn't until the sixth and final stanza where the audience obtains conclusive evidence that "Because I Could Not Stop For Death" believes in an afterlife. The woman recalls how it has been "...Centuries- and yet feels shorter than the Day I first surmised the Horses' Heads were toward Eternity-" (913). To the woman, it has been a few hundred years since Death visited her, but to her, it has felt like less than 24 hours ...

... this would not be adultery suggests that she has a strong faith and is ethically bound to abide by the principals of her religion. His argument is to put down the religion by saying even the flea is mixing our blood, so why shouldn't we? That suggests that the flea is one of God's creatures and so it should follow the principals of God as well because it was created by God, so the mixing of their blood isn't wrong. In the third stanza Donne's girlfriend is on the virge of killing the flea and he says let it live. To him it represents their union as man and woman. He is scared that she will sin when she kills the flea because it would be killing part of each of them and the flea which ...