"Ambulances" by Philip Larkin.
CRITIACAL EVALUATION "Ambulances" by Philip Larkin uses the every day incident of someone being taken away in an ambulance to convey the ideas of human life. The poem discusses the idea of the closeness of death; it's randomness and its inevitability. I am going to look at how effectively Philip Larkin uses this everyday occurrence to lead to the general or universal statement: death will come to us all at some point no matter who you are. I will show this by discussing the use of word choice, theme and setting. In stanza one, the impression that an accident can happen anywhere at any time is created by the feeling of menace. This is shown by the thought that ambulances can "come to rest at any kerb" suggesting that it doesn't matter where you are an accident can happen. The use of the word "any" helps to emphasise this point and convey the theme of the randomness of death. The idea that death comes to us all is suggested by "All streets in time are visited". The word "All" emphasises the fact that everyone dies, and the word "time" indicates that it is just a matter of time. I think that Larkin wanted to portray the idea that everyone will make their journey in an ambulance at some point. The ambulance is only symbolic for the doorway to death. At the beginning of the stanza the ambulances are described as "closed like confessionals," this sets the feeling inside the
Compare and Contrast Horses by Edwin Muir and Pike by Ted Hughes
Harry YandleEnglishMr Evans Compare and Contrast “Horses” by Edwin Muir and “Pike” by Ted Hughes ________________ Both “Horses” by Edwin Muir and “Pike” have a title which is a clear statement of intent on what the poem is about. However both of these poems seem to symbolise something more complex, on top of the simple animal poem which it could be interpreted as. Both Ted Hughes and Edwin Muir, ‘animal poets’ have a pastoral lust for the countryside and were writing around the time when Darwin published his “Origin of Species”; This could explain why both poets seem to portray their respective animals rather negatively and yet in conclusion, the poets seem to relish nature despite being fearful of it; “I must pine // Again for that dread country crystalline”. Edwin Muir has a paradoxical wishing for the dreadful country side as it has been taken away from him and hast lost the magic and down-to-earth innocence he had as a child. Hughes’s poetry however dwells on the innate violence in the natural world and on instinctive predatory behaviour; yet he sees to view it as appropriate. He attempts to reconcile what at first appears to be a horrible violence in nature. Perhaps human beings are no different from a creature such as the pike, driven by impulse and appetite in a universe that follows no moral law but eat or be eaten. Hughes clearly views
How has Duffy used classical myths in order to comment on the nature of relationships between men and women in The Worlds Wife(TM)?
How has Duffy used classical myths in order to comment on the nature of relationships between men and women in 'The Worlds Wife'? Carol-Ann Duffy wrote a collection of poems called 'The Worlds Wife' in which she mocks men and shows various Greek mythology and fairytales from a woman's perspective. She uses various literary techniques such as enjambment and cynical reference to portray and comment on the use of classical myths, in order to illustrate the nature of relationships between men and women. This essay will focus on four of these Greek myths, Medusa, Eurydice, Mrs Tiresias and Mrs Midas. The style of writing in which Duffy undertakes shows her to be very indiscreet in what she says and very orthodox, as she writes completely, almost the opposite of what many people think when it comes to characters in her poems. In the world's wife, Duffy has focussed a great deal on mythical characters, but manipulates them to the extent that she interprets them to be the opposite of what they are truly known to be in Greek mythology. Duffy, also a radical feminist, focuses on the woman's perspective, whereas Greek mythology is greatly depicted from a male's perspective, whereas Duffy looks at what the women had to put up with. Firstly, Mrs Midas, in Greek legend was the wife of Midas who wished that everything he touched be turned to gold, this wish was nonetheless granted.
Compare and contrast how the writers of "My Last Duchess" and "Remember" portray different views of love
Compare and contrast how the writers of "My Last Duchess" and "Remember" portray different views of love. Love has as many expressions as people who experience it. For some it is a romantic life-enhancing one, for others it is a negative painful experience. In the poems "My Last Duchess" by Robert Browning and "Remember" by Christina Rossetti were are offered two widely different views of love. One is a gentle, romantic, poignant message, the other a cynical sadistic monologue. Both are also linked by the separation by death: one implies murder, the other an impending more gentle natural death. The poem "Remember" is a petrachan sonnet of 14 lines. Sonnet form was a poetic device usually used to express emotions and feelings of love, suggesting that this poem will be more romantic than "My Last Duchess". The octet (first 8 lines) presents the problem, in this case the narrator's fear of impending death and the rupture between the two lovers: "Remember me when I am gone away ... / When you can no more hold me by the hand." The Sestet (final 6 lines) presents the solution to that problem, and a final more optimistic future. "My Last Duchess" is in the form of a dramatic monologue. This is a poem of one long stanza in which the Duke, through the language that he uses to describe his former wife, reveals his own character and attitude towards love. It is written in rhyming
Commentary on 'The Wasps Nest'
Commentary on 'The Wasps Nest' Rosenberg's 'The Wasps Nest' is a poem that on a literal basis tells the tale of a pair of wasps building their nest in a persons mailbox and the struggle of that person about whether to destroy the nest. Yet Rosenberg uses the idea of the nest as a microcosm of the human reality to explore the fragility of our existence in a world where we think ourselves masters of all that we survey. Rosenberg uses a sharp sense of contrast to crate a struggled tone within the poem. This is intended to examine Rosenberg's juxtaposition of strength and weakness, his strong sense of setting and powerful onomatopoeic description in the body of this essay. Rosenberg's key technique is his use of contrast between strength and weakness to expose our inherent fragilities. This contrast is tellingly revealed when he talks of "the fragile cradles of love", a metaphor which sums up the entirely of Rosenberg's poem. There is a sense of strength in the image conveyed through the word "cradle"- it brings to the reader's mind an idea of castles and physical strength that the walls and stone bring. Yet this "cradle" is "fragile" - a word more commonly used to describe a glass object than stone, but which highlights that within this bastion of strength, where people appear to be in control of their own destiny, they are instead at their weakest. This idea is reinforced as
How does Ben Jonson use language and structure to convey the message of the poem "On my first Sonne"?
Commentary Assessment Task - Stage 3 Writing Draft Grade 9 Task: How does Ben Jonson use language and structure to convey the message of the poem "On my first Sonne"? "On my first Sonne" is a poem where Jonson describes his reaction to sorrow when his first son dies. Jonson confronts conflict, loss and despair when "Ben Jonson his best piece of poetrie" was "exacted by fate, on the just day". He uses his son as an inspiration in this poem and describes his different stages that he has gone through by using language and structural features in this poem. The structural layout in this poem suggests that a progression of ideas is taking place. The first five lines indicate struggle, conflict, loss and despair. He experiences shock and guilt as he says, "My sinne was too much hope of thee, loved boy". The feeling then develops to acceptance in line six, where he asks rhetorically "For why will man lament the state he should envie?" Jonson then follows this statement with various points trying to argue his bitterness and guilt. Simultaneously, he resolves his feelings in the last lines by saying "For whose sake henceforth, all his vowes be such," Throughout the poem, modality in verbs changes, this supports the idea mentioned above. Jonson uses low modalities and conditional phrases at the beginning of the poem to show doubt, confusion and guilt. Because of the progression of
English Literature Coursework - Nostalgia
Compare and contrast three poems from the English Literature Anthology where the speakers of the poems display strong nostalgic thoughts through theme, structure, language, mood and tone of the poems. Three poems where the speakers show strong nostalgic thoughts for the past are Piano by D.H. Lawrence, Poem at Thirty-Nine by Alice Walker and Crabbit Old Woman by Phyllis McCormack. They all display the common theme of wanting to return to the past, away from the pain, loneliness and the trials and tribulations of adulthood. In this essay, I will analyse how the poets convey their feelings through their use of literary structure, theme, language, mood and tone. The theme of nostalgia is expressed through each of the three speakers' different experiences. In Piano, the speaker is taken "back down the vista of years" and re-calls happier memories from his childhood. This happens when he hears a piano being played which is the trigger so that his "manhood is cast/Down in the flood of remembrance". This indicates that the poet yearns for the past and he feels less of a man when he reminisces. It also suggests that when he remembers his childhood and his memories rush towards him, reducing him to tears. In Poem at Thirty-Nine, the speaker remembers how she "learned to see bits of paper as a way to escape the life he knew". This shows that she remembers lessons like the value of
How does Wilfred Owen portray the horrors of war through his use of language in Dulce et Decorum Est?
How does Wilfred Owen portray the horrors of war through his use of language in Dulce et Decorum Est? Dulce et Decorum Est, a poem by Wilfred Owen, explores the many horrors and cruel ordeals of World War One. Through his use of linguistic techniques, vivid imagery and dramatic descriptions, Owen seeks to convince the reader that it is far from honourable to die for ones country, as the title of the poem in fact suggests. He does so successfully, presenting his opinion through a series of images designed to obliterate the misconception that war is admirable, as well as differentiating and varying his techniques throughout the poem. In the first stanza, Owen describes the state of the soldiers to allow the reader to visualise the cruel reality that war was for them. Their situation is made more realistic through the use of first person plural as displayed in the line "we cursed through the sludge". Unexpected and contrasting descriptions of the soldiers such as referring to them as "bent double, like old beggars under sacks", and associating them with animals by referring to them as "blood shod", also changes the reader's perception of what conditions were like during the war. In relation to their harsh portrayal, Owen uses similes such as "coughing like hags" to help produce a pitiful sense of anguish for the soldiers, as well as, for emphasis on their weariness, and both
With specific focus on Wilfred Owen's Futility, Anthem for Doomed Youth, Dulce et Decorum est, and Mental Cases evaluate the methods the poet uses to bring across his convictions, feelings and ideas.
With specific focus on Wilfred Owen's Futility, Anthem for Doomed Youth, Dulce et Decorum est, and Mental Cases evaluate the methods the poet uses to bring across his convictions, feelings and ideas. "Who longs to charge and shoot, Do you my laddie." This jingoistic wartime poem by Jessie Pope ignites Owen's anger at these false impressions of war. This is evident in such poems as Dulce et Decorum est, originally penned towards Pope, hence the initial title, To a Certain Poetess. Owen's "senses were charred" at the sight of the "suffering of the troops", such accusations about the nature of warfare fuelling the malice of his work. Owen never openly retaliates, instead opting to include his resentment towards writers like Pope in his poems. Owen frequently conveys his convictions of lost youth in Anthem For Doomed Youth by referring to "the hands of boys", evidently refusing to acknowledge the maturity of the men. Owen's numerous references to religious symbols heightens the effects of his poems. In Anthem, we hear the "demented choirs of wailing shells." Angelic choirs are ironically reversed as Owen negates Christian ritual as being unfitting for those who die amid screaming shells. In Mental Cases, we also bear witness to Biblical images, asking if we are: "Sleeping, and walk hell But who these hellish?" Owen often compares war to Hell, comparing soldiers to creatures
Critical Analysis of The Forge by Seamus Heaney
Critical Analysis of The Forge by Seamus Heaney 'The Forge' is a sonnet with a clear division into an octave (the first eight lines) and a sestet (the final six lines). While the octave, apart from its initial reference to the narrator, focuses solely on the inanimate objects and occurrences inside and outside the forge, the sestet describes the blacksmith himself, and what he does. Interestingly, the transition from the octave to the sestet is a run-on or enjambment containing one of the key metaphors of the poem, the anvil as altar: Set there immovable: an altar Where he expends himself in shape and music. One effect of this is to enable us to experience the anvil or altar as a magical point of transition between the material and immovable world of objects and the fluid, musical world of human consciousness. The rhyme scheme of the sonnet is: abba cddc efgfef, a departure from the standard Shakespearean (abab cdcd efef gg) or Petrarchan (abba abba cde cde) sonnet form. The unrhymed 11th line He leans out on the jam, recalls a clatter is perhaps the most striking feature of the rhyme scheme, and, combined with the poem's second run-on, serves to emphasise the cacophony and disorder of the remembered horse-drawn carriages. The threefold full rhyme nose/rows/bellows gives a pleasing finality to the end of the poem, especially in contrast to other lines which tend more
