Author: DIANA BACHAN

How do these love poems, “Bleecker Street, Summer” and “The Fist,” compare with other love poems you’ve read?

The love poems “Bleecker Street, Summer” and “The Fist” are very different than other love poems I’ve read. Although both are love poems, they seem to suffer pain in love. When one thinks of love, thoughts of light, happiness, joy and relief come to mind. For these poems, it seems as though love is quite stifling and almost only physical. He compares his idea of love to nature specifically the ocean or beach in “Bleecker Street, Summer” but on the other hand, love is suffocating in “The Fist”. Although love is comparable to pain to him, it is also his means of living; without it he wouldn’t be alive. Walcott seems to have a fascination with the pain of love and finds it intoxicating this way; quite honestly, that idea is refreshing because love truly is not always a happy time. Love comes with hardship and can also be suffocating.

The voice in the first poem is very sincere. Its basically a mother giving her son advice and telling him how difficult life was for her. She’s trying to encourage him and remind him to persevere through the difficult times. If she can still continue to “climb” then so can he. From the perspective of the poem and language, especially the short lines, you can visualize an older woman in an oppressed society who’s genuinely tired from what she has been through. She shares her toils with a young boy, being her son, in hopes times will be better. She personifies her life to physically have these imperfections from hard work and struggle. In the next poem, “Motto”, although Hughes seems sincere, it still is rhetorical. He expresses his feelings and message in an informal manner. Hughes uses slang such as “dig” as well as speaking colloquially to possibly relate to the reader. His concluding message could be interpreted to treat others the way you’d want to be treated in return. If you think deep enough you could say “Motto” and “Mother to Son” can relate to each other being that “Motto” is a message in response to society that put the struggle on the speaker of “Mother to Son”.

 

Wharton wants us to realize that you basically can’t be too sure of anyone in your life whether connected as friends, family, or love interest. As lovers, Delphin was unfaithful to Mrs. Slade in that he was interested in Mrs. Ansley while he was already engaged. Mrs. Ansley is friends with Mrs. Slade whom she was jealous and wished illness upon Mrs. Slade because she was intimidated. She had a “thing” for her friend’s husband. She even held this grudge after many years of friendship to this woman who had no idea about these letters written to her late husband and meetings at the Colosseum. This story just goes to show that everyone has a hidden agenda and you truly cant trust a soul.

The structure of Joyce’s story keeps the reader’s mind curious as to what or who it’s really about. At the beginning, a reader may think Lily is the main character and her place in the story is critical to the plot and message. However, as you read on, other characters are introduced such as Gabriel who seems to take over your attention. The beginning seems like a light, joyful story about a family and Lily’s place in the story as the caretaker’s daughter. Once you meet Gabriel and see everyone’s concern with where he is you begin to wonder ‘Why is he so important? What is everyone waiting on him for?’ Reading on, at the dinner table, Gabriel’s way with words in his speech as well as a few descriptions given by Joyce we see themes of love and death. Instead of a light story, there’s a very in-depth thought-provoking underlying theme about life and death and love in between.

Chekhov chose to depict these two people meeting each other but not much more because he wants to show the line of thought in which one goes about these emotions and approaches someone based on attraction. For a setting such as Yalta, a resort town, in which people come on vacation and let loose, Chekhov probably wants to show the impact of setting and mere beginnings. He also shows a change in their acquaintance after spending time together: “Then both continued eating in silence, like strangers, but after dinner they walked side by side; and there sprang up between them the light jesting conversation of people who are free and satisfied, to whom it does not matter where they go or what they talk about.” I think the author limits his story in this way because it keeps it interesting just as in human interaction, the more you leave unknown the more interested someone becomes. In a way, he’s showing an example of human interaction in the most finest and purest for in which there is no underlying desire but companionship.

Blake uses imagery and metaphors in his various poems and proverbs to give the reader a deeper sense of what hes saying. For example, in “The Gates of Paradise” Blake states, “Every Harlot was a Virgin once,/ Nor canst thou ever change Kate into Nan.” He is basically saying a prostitute was once a virgin and you can’t change one person to another. Next in “London” he paints a picture of faces he sees as he walks down the street and its a path marked by pain and oppression. Blake says in every face he meets there are marks of weakness and woe where men cry and children (Infants) cry of fear. He paint a picture of the chimney sweeper possibly blackened by the cinders and the soldiers sighing as if blood runs down the Palace walls. It’s a gruesome scene he paints with vibrant and touching words. Lastly in “The Chimney Sweeper” he depicts a small man crying in the cold snow who seems to be forced to do the chores of others who seek to praise God, the priest and the King. Another unhappy scene to picture as though Blake seems to show a side of society that is neglected in the light of this specific time period.