Poetry Page 51

            Robert Frost’s 1914 poem “Mending Wall” is less about an actual wall than about the divisions between people, and how civil relations with one’s neighbors depend heavily on how they mutually define their space and work to maintain the separation.             The context is rural New England; indeed, Frost spend much of his life…

The word “ecocriticism” was likely first used in William Rueckert’s essay “Literature and Ecology: An Experiment in Ecocriticism” (1978) and was later accepted in critical vocabulary when Cheryll Glotfelty, at that time a graduate student at Cornell, revived the term at the meeting of the Western Literature Association in Coeur d’Alene in 1989. She recommended…

In her essay “Taking Women Students Seriously,” Adrienne Rich discusses the historical struggle for gender equality. While it may seem that there has been progress in achieving gender equality, with men taking on more household responsibilities and women pursuing careers outside of the home, this perception might not accurately reflect the reality. Despite ambitious women…

The poems “Out Out-“, “Two Tramps in Mud Time”, and “Mending Wall” by Robert Frost all share a common theme of expressing a strong perspective on both nature and people. Through the use of various linguistic and literary techniques, Frost effectively conveys his attitudes and values to his readers. In “Out Out-“, which takes its…

Adrienne Rich’s essay “Split at the Root: An Essay on Jewish Identity” explores her personal journey as a mixed Jewish-Gentile individual in a predominantly non-Jewish society. She discusses the pressure to hide one’s true identity and conform to societal norms, focusing on how religion, ethnicity, and social characteristics are used as means of suppression. Rich…

Aunt Jennifer’s tigers are pictures that she is sewing into a tapestry. The tapestry could be one of those quilts that you can hang on the wall, or curtains. The details that are associated with her hands are being terrified, but lying still, they flutter through the wool and they are weighed down with the…

In life, there are numerous expectations. Individuals make choices in the hopes of achieving the best outcome and desiring that those choices lead to happiness. Occasionally, the outcomes of these choices do not align with what was originally intended. In Adrienne Rich’s poem “Living in Sin,” a woman discovers that the romanticized notion of love…

Medusa by Carol Ann Duffy The poem Medusa explores the theme of jealousy and anger; the poet illustrates this using the extended metaphor of a Greek mythological creature Medusa, whose story describes her as a beautiful maiden that is turned into a hideous creature after being raped by Poseidon. The poet furthermore links this metaphor…

The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood describes the story of Offred, a Handmaid, that is a woman ascribed a breeding function by society, and who is placed with a husband and wife higher up the social ladder who “need” a child. Through Offred’s eyes we explore the rigidity of the theocracy in which she lives,…

Explain how Hughes uses setting to reveal the characters’ psychological states and to convey their sense of loss. I Used To Love You “Early Autumn” by Langston Hughes describes everyday life situations between people. Hughes uses the essay to show how irrational decisions can alter lives. He mentions the time of day “nearly sunset” and…