Because I could not stop for Death Questions 8.29

1.     What does the alliteration in line 7 say about the speaker’s life? Exp. Irony (2) Civility (8) as reasons for acceptance of ride. What is death personified by?

a.     Repetition often reflects routine and predictability. In line seven it is hinted that she is an animal of habit.  This carries over to her social place and manners. The speaker respects Death because he is patient and civil with her. He waits upon her schedule as he never tires or becomes impatient. Death is personified as a man driving a carriage.

2.     Explain the allegorical details in stanza 3.

a.     Stanza three is the speaker explaining how peoples’ lives pass. Everyone has a childhood that ripens into maturity (the lush wheat fields represent this), and finally depart with the sun setting on their lives.

3.     What is the “House” (17) where the carriage paused before driving on? Purpose?

a.     A grave often makes a slight hill over the buried. The speaker’s tombstone marked grave was significant because it is really the last home a person resides in.

4.     4. Account for speaker’s impression of centuries having passed?  Where is she now?

a.     The dread the speaker felt at comprehending her death was swiftly approaching most likely made her final day agonizing. In death, the narrator has no worries and with endless time before her, there is no real need to mark it as religiously as in life.

5.     What hypothetical experience is emphasized by alteration in stanza 4? Correction in line 13?

a.     The sun passes the narrator and death along, leaving no bright sunlight. The chill she must have felt is emphasize by “ gossamer…gown” and “tippet…tulle”. It sound almost like teeth chattering in the cold.

b.     Line thirteen switched from describing the speaker passing things to the sun passing the speaker. It actually show very accurately how life goes on as individuals fade. The sun’s light, life, and warmth pass Death and the dead by.

6.     Effect of frequent alliteration on the tone of the poem?

a.     The echoing of other lines and words within the poem lends it an eerily lyrical quality. It is reminiscent of many things, the least of which are a beating heart, forgetfulness, and the clip-clop of hooves.

Chimney Sweeper 8.28

1.     How is this boy diff from normal chimney sweepers?

a.     The speaker has a typical view of his life. Bleak and often short, chimney sweeps’ lives were characterized by horrible conditions. The narrator acknowledges this and takes it for the truth. The boy the speaker describes claims to have seen a heavenly vision. He envisions that Angels will take them form their black-filled lives by being obedient to their masters. This child is strengthened and does his work joyfully and willingly.

2.     Possible significances of sweepers being “locked in coffins of black”?

a.     The thinly veiled metaphor involving an angel describes the children being released. It is an allegory for how angels will lead the children to heaven after their atrocious, gloomy lives are finished.

Coy Mistress 2.28

1.     What is the speaker urging his sweetheart to do? Why is she coy?

a.     He wants them to sleep together while they are young, but she hesitates as it would mean the loss of her virginity,

2.     Outline speaker’s argument? Is it valid?

a.     Three parts to his argument, he says she can deny his love indefinitely, but they will grow old and unable to be together forever, and finally they should enjoy their time when they are young and full of vigor. I agree with the speaker because neither beauty nor life lasts forever, so it is best to use them to their fullest while they’re available.

3.     Vegetable love appropriate? What simile contrasts with it?

a.     The speaker is saying he would love her steadily until it outlasts even empires. In the third section he talks about striking swiftly and being fires in life, unlike the vegetable comparison which is slow.

4.     Explain the figures in lines 22, 24, & 40 and their implications.

a.     22 is essentially saying that time flies faster than most realize, passing many by without a pause.

b.     24 the vast eternity is time stretching out in front of and behind humanity. This implies how an individual’s life is just a grain of sand in a desert of time.
c. In 40 the speaker says they should grab the moment while it lasts.

5.     Explain last two lines. Sun =metonymy for what?

a.     The sun is a way humans mark the passage of time, so it has become associated with how time passes. The man tells his mistress though they can’t make time stand still for them, they can enjoy every moment so thoroughly that time will seem to pass more quickly.

6.     Poem about love or time?

a.     The poem, although presented as a seduction piece, is more focused on time and it’s passage. The speaker is arguing that they should seize the moment and their actions their lives.

Dream Deferred 8.29

1.     Which image is a metaphor? Where/why placed thusly?

a.     The final possible transformation in line eleven is a metaphor. It being last piece of imagery in the poem suggests finality, an ending. It is also the most violent of the ideas, itself exploding to words at the end.

2.     Does learning the poet is African American affect the understanding?

a.     The question of whether or not the dream referred to in the poem is equality instantly comes to mind upon discovering the poet was African American in the 20^th century. The 1900s were a time of struggle for blacks to acquire equality in America.

Duchess Explication

            The poem, “My Last Duchess” by Robert Browning is a revelation describing the life of a wealthy, slightly disturbed egomaniac. The poem is very much a monologue, almost a boast. The way he describes the subject, a former companion he had executed, is very casual. This relaxed manner is very telling of how far above others the Duke considers himself and his lineage.

My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name

With anybody's gift…

The very evenness of the poem’s line length is deceptive. Equal numbers is usually a sign of balance, but in this case it is symbol of a sociopathic mind. A sociopath is one whose conscious is impaired. The Duke sees no wrong in having a living person sentenced to death for no reason but being too joyful and not only worshipping her husband.

There is only one stanza; it contains the beginning, middle, and end of the poem. Perhaps the Duke presents it this way to show how omnipotent he believes himself. There is no doubt, worry or indecision in the poem. A solid body of words is both intimidating and assuring. It might dwarf those uneducated below him, but it presents at least an image of solidity and confidence. Most look to people who are confident in their own abilities and the Duke fits the mentally ill bill.

"Traveling through the dark" Questions 8/27

1.     Speaker’s dilemma? Kind of person is he? Doe he make the right decision? Why does he call his hesitation “his only swerve”?

a.     The speaker’s dilemma is whether to save life or make his own existence easier. He chooses the latter. For a quick journey, the speaker does quite well. Although saving another living creature is looked upon as good.

b.     The speaker is a practical man. He gives no thought to pushing a deer off the road and refers to his hesitation in doing so his only mistake.

2.     What different kind of imagery and contrasts give life to poem? Symbolic overtones?

a.     The car gives light and humanity to the dark, forest-filled night. The clash of humanity into nature is very central in this poem. Perhaps the speaker is an intruder into the natural course of things, as was the car that struck the deer. This portrays humanity in a negative light.

3.     Rhyme?

a.     Lines two and four in each stanza contain slant rhyme. Stanza one: car cold, stanza 2 side/still, and stanza 3 could/hood.

b.     “Red” the word in line three of stanza three doesn’t have a connecting word.

Flea Questions 8.26

1.     What happens right before the poem? What happens between the 1^st&2^nd and 2^nd&3^rd stanzas? How does the female character behave and what does she say?

a.     –Directly preceding the poem the flea in question sucked blood from the narrator and began to suck blood from the woman.

b.     Between 1&2 the Flea continues his work on the woman.

c.      The woman squashes the flea in between the 2nd and 3^rd stanzas without compunction.

d.     The female says that neither she now the narrator are now the flea’s prey. She is rather callous and more than a bit scornful of the narrator and his intentions. She eliminates his ace with little effort.

2.     What has already happened between the two characters? What has she denied him? Why has he survived? His objective?

a.     The woman has denied the man entry to her bed.

b.     It was only a mental blow, not a physical one, so the narrator was not in any real trouble.

c.      The speaker’s objective is to seduce the woman into sleeping with him.

3.     What is the speaker’s argument in stanza 1? Is it logical?

a.     The man argues that their blood has already mixed inside the flea, so there is no shame in joining blood in person. It isn’t logical because there is far more to consider when in person rather than unwilling siphoned off someone.

4.     What are: parents’ grudge, living walls of jet? What three things will the woman kill by crushing the flea? What three sins will accompany this?

a.     Parents’ grudge is the loss of her virginity

b.     Living walls of jet refer to the flea’s body

c.      Suicide, homicide, and sacrilege. The first two represented by their respective blood, the third destruction of the marriage bed.

5.     Why/how does the woman triumph? Speaker’s response?

a.     She destroys their bond by killing the flea.

b.     He says her honor is blemished by “killing” the flea. Ironic considering what he is requesting of her.

6.     Actions that follow poem?

a.     Either the speaker uses force on the woman or she leaves him.

7.     “The Apparition” and “The Flea” are two different seduction poems? How so?

a.     The first is morose and serious while the second is humorous and clever.

The Flea Explication 8/27

            Humor, persuasion, and passion all blend in Jon Donne’s “The Flea”. The Flea is presented as a persuasive speech from one man to his, hopefully, lover. However, it truly describes a different bond, the one between Earth and her creatures.

            The structure with three stanzas lends itself to the idea of the Earth. Terra Firma contains the start, maturity, and fall of creatures. Within the stanzas it takes the reader through the steps of life. The discovery of the flea, the flea’s life being observed by our sharp narrator, and finally the grimly squishy finale.

            The woman being wooed by the speaker is Mother Earth. She provides sustenance for the creature, but she also destroys the Flea in the end due to the inevitability of time wasting all creatures on this planet. Impassive to the pleas of another creature, this human, she ends life, continuing the natural wheel.

            The enticer is but a human man trying to discern meaning in the Earth’s actions. He believes that all life is connected, “It sucked me first, and now sucks thee,/ And in this flea our two bloods mingled be;” but is unsure as to how the Earth is both a giver and taker, “Cruel and sudden, hast thou since/Purpled thy nail in the blood of innocence?”. He comes to the correct conclusion that Eath has no conscience or emotions

 Will waste, as this flea’s death took life from thee.

The Road Not Taken

1.     Does the speaker feel that he has made the wrong choice in taking the road “less traveled by” (19)? If not, why will he “sigh” (16)? What does he regret?

a.     Although the speaker in “The Road Not Taken” never expressly says the less-used path was the right choice, we can infer he means it by line twenty. Perhaps the speaker gives a “sigh” because he wishes it were possible two take both roads, even if they were at different times. However, it was obviously impossible to go back.

2.     Why will the choice between two roads that seem very much alike make such big difference many years later?

a.     The road is supposed to symbolize life and when that is take into account, small choices are quite important. Life doesn’t have an undo button, so the speaker couldn’t really go back. Once you pour a cup of water out of a glass, you can never get the exact same drink from the cup.

In the poem “The Road Not Taken” authored by Robert Frost, he explores how small one human is in the larger picture of life and conversely how small doesn’t mean insignificant. He mentions being only one traveler and he could only look at both paths, not venture them both. The woods surround the speaker. They know where the roads lead and who has walked them. The tree’s life is unaffected by the singular being. This is a symbol for how tiny one human is in the world.

To the speaker the choice in physical and mental paths make all the difference. Although the rest of his life is not detailed, he could have gone on to rule nations or discover a cure to some disease. Many people most likely were affected by the speaker, if not in such dramatic ways. What deviation the path made to the speaker is unknown, but in his limited world the choice caused some sizable reaction else it wouldn’t have

After Apple Picking Questions 8/18/13

1.     How does the poet convey so vividly the experience of apple picking? Point out effective examples of each kind of imagery used. What emotional responses do the images provoke?

a.     Frost uses imagery and a storyline-like progression to take you through the process of apple picking. He doesn’t simply stick to visual images either. The pressure of the ladder, the sway in the branches, and the physical strain all allow the reader to feel what the speaker does. The smell of apples entices us through the poem. The constant talk of sleep shows us the speaker’s tiredness and perhaps lends a sense of otherworldliness to the poem. Dreams and their effects are often mysterious and the poem even mentions this in line nine.

2.     How does the speaker regard his work has he done it well or poorly? Does he find it enjoyable or tedious? Is he dissatisfied w/ the results?

a.     In After Apple Picking readers get the sense that not all is well. The speaker is not quite happy with all the apples picked and frets over any dropped ones, even though they go to make cider and are not wasted. He mentions fatigue and a desire to sleep multiple times, maybe a subconscious desire to escape the unhappy world within which he was placed. Being dissatisfied would certainly cast a shadow over any work.

3.     Why does he shift to the present tense (18) when he begins describing a dream experience differentiated in the poem?

a.     The speaker does this because his dream is seeping into his real world life. The lack of restful sleep could easily cause him to grow confused

4.     The poem uses the word sleep six time. Does it, through repetition, come to suggest a meaning beyond purely literal? If so, what attitude does the speaker take toward this second signification? Does he fear it? Does he look forward to it? What does he expect of it?

a.     Sleep is symbolic of many things.  Death, regeneration, mystery, and spirituality are all commonly associated with sleep. The speaker is rather torn. Physically his body craves rest after his long hard day at farming, but mentally he is unsure of what sleep will bring due to previous experiences. He does not see his own light rest as helpful, comparing a small woodchuck’s slumber as more restful.

5.     If sleep is symbolic, other details may also be. How would you interpret the ladder, season of year, pane of glass. What denotation does the word essence carry?

a.     The ladder, reaching out toward heaven, is a reflection of his greatest wishes. Like most, he wishes to escape earthly troubles. God and heaven are often portrayed as being above humanity in the stars and sky. Greater thins are also portrayed as being above lesser ones.

6.     How does a woodchucks sleep differ from a human’s rest?

a.     A woodchuck hibernates in the winter, conserving his energy in the harshest season. He hides from a season and it’s dark days. The sleep of an animal is also untroubled, free from the human worries that plague the speaker.

All appearances point this poem towards a sense of longing for permanent repose. The speaker’s life has been spent toiling the earth and his body and mind long for rest. Heaven and sleep are classical ways to express death. Mentioning both of these things point towards the obvious answer. As the land around him fades for winter, so too does the speaker.