Sorting Laundry

Elisaviette Ritche's poem Sorting Laundry conveys the speaker's relationship with the person being spoken to as a withstanding and loving partnership. This analysis of the woman's relationship with the man she loves is discovered through symbolic use of words such as "head over heals" "wrinkled to be smoothed, or else ignored" "and seams still holding our dreams,"(Ritche, pg 841). All of these referring to laundry but symbolic of the two's relationship. The extended metaphor giving the idea to the reader that the kind of relationship being  discussed is flawed, but works out. The two deeply love each other and enjoy one another's company even after some time: "recycling week after week,"(Ritche, line 17, pg 841). The tone in the first 14 short stanzas, all describing the items the speaker is folding and revealing their symbolism, is reflective but shifts in the last few stanzas. Once the speaker calls to mind a former lover of hers upon discovering his shirt amongst the pile, the speaker becomes more worrisome. The speaker ponders what would happen if the person being addressed would leave her, just as her former lover has gone. This idea shows a drastic shift from positive thinking and focusing on the good in the relationship, to troublesome over possibilities of a relationship no more. Overall the change in tone help to depict the speaker's internal worry amidst a situation that seemingly is going so well.

I taste a liquor never brewed

I taste a liquor never brewed by Emily Dickinson is an extended metaphor in which the speaker is comparing an appreciation for nature and summer with alcohol intoxication. It is made clear that the speaker is talkng of large consumption and intake of nature's beauty with the diction used "air, sun, summer days." The speaker gives figuative meaning to lines such as "inns of molten blue," to refer to the bright blue summer sky. This soaking in of the sun, done by the speaker, enjoying nature's blessings, cannot restrain himself from more and more admiration. "I shall but drink the more,"(Dickinson, line 12, pg 797)! While others become disinterested with nature after some time, the speaker admires all the more, that which the heavens praise. "Till seraphs swing their snowy Hats and Saints to windows run to see the little Tippler,"(Dickinson, lines 13-15, pg 797). The poem depicts a prasing and cheerful attitude and reaction from the seraphs and saints, one that would not be expected or likely if the poem was refering to alcohol intoxication.

Batter my heart, three-personed God

Paradox is one important and notable element in the poem Batter my heart, three-personed God by John Donne. The speaker, being "betrothed" to evil, seeks God to change themself, and the only means to do so, according to the speaker is imprisonment. "Take me to you, imprison me, for I, except you enthrall me,  never shall be free,"(Donne, lines 12-13, pg. 840). The paradox of imprisonment is used to show the speaker finds it necessary to put them in jail in order that they may be free. This seemingly contradiction  in fact shows some truth. God should lock them up so as to be with God and imprisoned from the evils that plague them. Imprisonment yields freedom from sin, temptations, and evil. Furthermore, the last stanza is also paradoxical: "Nor ever chaste, except you enthrall me,"(Donne, line 14, pg 840). The speaker will not be chaste if God does not grant them renewal and new form.The speaker wants God to ravish them into being one with God, and for God alone: chastity. There is a somewhat double meaning to this ravishness, the speaker being seduced into wanting God and on the flip side, being taunted and lured into sinfulness.

The Convergence of the Twain

In The Convergence of the Twain by Thomas Hardy imagery is used to convey the deep vain of the tremendous Titanic ship, marked with a lifestyle of wealth and taking immense form on the glassy sea, summoned by force to meet a terrible fate. Stanza IV depicts the showiness and wealth the ship is a symbol of: "Jewels in joy designed, to ravish the sensuous mind,"(Hardy, lines 10-11, pg.778). The speaker in the poem condones such a lavish lifestyle of jewels and riches and in a way, through the use of imagery it is understandable how the speaker sees the titanic in a picture of grandiose, pride, and vanity. "The smart ship grew in stature,grace, and hue,"(Hardy, lines 22-23, pg 779). The imagery evoked by these lines further the idea of the extravagance and huge the appearance of the ship and how it can be portrayed as being vain in it's greatness. Furthermore, the speaker goes from the opening stanza, the ship in solitude, standing lone in the sea, to meeting it's fate of ultimate consummation: convergence with an equally extravagant and vain structure, the iceberg, perfect that they are united to the same fate of coinciding together. Just as "The Immanent Will" or "Spinner of the Years" prepares this outcome, the force commands the result in the final stanza: 'Now!' Though, who The Immanent Will is or Spinner of the Years is unknown, the imagery of such a force or creature is shown as having stronger or more ultimate control over the fate of the Titanic, willing it to crash and sink.

Barbie Doll

When first glancing at the poem Barbie Doll by Marge Piercy, I knew the topic center around the unrealistic and superficial emphasis others might place on women, and women might place on themselves, to look so much like that plastic figure us girls all played with at one point in our lives. Upon reading, the poem is divided into stanzas, which first state the normality of a girlchild fawning over figurine dolls and all things girly. At the end of the first stanza however, there is a transition to a more harsh line: "You have a great big nose and fat legs." This diction chosen by the author suggest the often harsh commentary of others when one doesn't meet their expectations. Others have the vision of perfectly pretty barbie doll in their mind and will pick at girls who have any "flaws." The irony of the poem is that the girl is actually very intelligent, but may be weak enough to succumb to the pressures from society to conform and adapt as they would like her to. Doing everything she could she even would "exercise, diet, smile and wheedle," (Piercy,836). The idea that society can eat one alive and impact someone enough to change themselves is seen clearly when "her good nature wore out like a fan belt,"(Piercy,836). This simile shows the complete transformation in her entire personality, her character wasting away until all that is left is what others have made her to be. In the final stanza, the girl has given up herself to conformity, sacrificed herself for a false "ideal" image. This, ironically, causes her "death." This death is not literal but more referring to a death of her old self identity, and uniqueness, even that which was ridiculed. "She cut off her nose and her legs and offered them up,"(Piercy,836). Ironic that the characteristics that people think would make her more acceptable and better, in a sense kill her. Only is she pretty to others when she is not even herself. The final tone of this passage, marked by the line: "Doesn't she look pretty? everyone said." shows the irony that she isn't beautiful in others' eyes until she has "cut off her nose and her legs." 

Hunters In The Snow

Hunters in the Snow by Tobias Wolff follows the hunting expenditures of three "friends" who think friendship is about insulting one another, being rash and crude, and even shooting each other? Initially, the short story was to me like reading about some unclassy hick folk who get their laughs making childlike and immature jokes. However, the story does get more meaningful and the characters do reveal themselves rather in a more respectable light with their more honorable actions and treatment of each other as the book goes on. Both Frank and Tub both go through what I think to be a slow but sure development and turnaround, proving to be dynamic characters. Having before teased each other rudely, now they share more mature feelings and talk more intelligently, the sensitive topic of love is actually conversed seriously when Frank asks: " 'Tub, have you ever been really in love...I mean really in love...with your whole being,' "(Wolff,197)? They feel comfortable enough with one another to talk like adults and share their innermost feelings, what true friends do and what I had thought Frank and Tub were incapable of. They even consider themselves real friends out loud: " 'Frank, when you've got a friend it means you've always got someone on your side, no matter what. That's the way I feel about it, anyway,' "(Wolff,198). Frank responds: ' "You don't know how good it feels to hear you say that,' "(Wolff,199). This furthers the idea that wherever they used to be along the line of friendship, now the relationship is more secure and the realization of how cherished it is is made known to both Tub and Frank. Over the course of just a short read, both characters seemed to have evolved immensely into a more loving friend to another, their personalities still silly but seemingly much more developed and changed due to their time spent together really sharing and talking with each other.

My Mistress' Eyes

William Shakespeare's poem: My Mistress' Eyes is ultimately about the speaker criticizing the lies of most love poetry and it's characterization of women, and the truth of his lover so contrasting from the perfect descriptions his ears have been fed. I found the poem to have a disappointed and somewhat harsh tone up until the final lines of the work. Throughout the gist of the work, the speaker describes his mistress as having "coral lips" over red, "dun breasts," "no roses in her cheeks," and "eyes nothing like the sun,"(Shakespeare,885). However negatively the mistress is portrayed thus, suddenly there is a shift symbolized with the words "and yet" which turns to the females side and womens' possible let down realization that men may not be who they thought either. I came to analyze the last two lines as meaning this because of the text: "And yet, by heaven. I think my love as rare as any she belied with false compare,"(Shakespeare,885). This shows the common similarity that men and women often share high expectations and are taught lies which reality cannot live up to. I found that men and women must share this same downfall led on by this belief.