Author: NOAH HAKIMIAN

In Yehuda Amichai’s The Diameter of the Bomb, the author uses imagery to bear witness to tragedy or more difficult aspects of human life. When the author says that “[t]he diameter of the bomb was thirty centimeters
and the diameter of its effective range about seven meters,
with four dead and eleven wounded[,]” it shows how lethal the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is (Yehuda Amichai). The author’s description allows the reader to envision the unfortunate situation in their mind. We read about four innocent Israeli deaths. Amichai’s poem is extremely impactful because situations similar to the one in the poem occur on a regular basis.

 

 

“The Second Coming” by William Butler Yeats is an apocalyptic poem because the poem details an apocalyptic setting and great change is portrayed in the poem. The poem uses imagery in saying “[t]hings fall apart; the centre cannot hold” to set an apocalyptic setting. Many people view the apocalypse as a time where the world is falling apart. However, many people don’t realize that apocalypses signify times of great change. Eventually, the poem moves from a time where the world is being destroyed to the return of Christ in saying “[s]louches towards Bethlehem to be born[.]” This apocalyptic poem outlines a time of great change in the world after depicting the destruction to the world.

In Roman Fever by Edith Wharton, the author wants us to consider the fact that nobody, including our friends, lovers, and family, is completely trustworthy. Grace and Delphin have an affair in this short story. This shows that we don’t know everything about our friends, lovers, and family. Grace’s husband, who is now dead, had an untrustworthy wife that he thought he knew. Mrs. Delphin Slade is unaware of her husband’s true intentions. This shows that their truly isn’t anyone on Earth that can be trusted completely.

In The Gilded Six-Bits by Zora Neale Hurston, the presence of money, or lack of it, shapes the story and the lives of the characters and their personalities. Joe’s wife Missie May cheats on him with a wealthy man. This shows the presence money plays in this marriage; Missie May cheats on her husband to feel “rich” with her wealthy partner. Joe quickly forgives his wife for cheating on him and even let “her cook him some breakfast” (Hurston 6). Joe and Missie May lack money, so Joe chooses to ignore the fact that his wife is cheating on him because the man she is cheating with is wealthy and will give Missie May, and ultimately Joe, money. The lack of money in Joe and Missie May’s lives allows the two of them to have an extremely unhealthy marriage and horrible individual lives.

In The Gilded Six-Bits by Zora Neale Hurston, betrayal and infidelity play a crucial role in the story. Joe and Missie May “had been married more than a year now” (Hurston 4). All of a sudden, Missie May betrays Joe and committed infidelity with a man named Slemmons. Missie May’s betrayal of Joe destroyed his dreams of having kids, a family, and happiness. This shows the role betrayal and infidelity play in The Gilded Six-Bits.

Emily Dickinson’s poem utilizes dashes in order to emphasize the importance of a specific sentence. Every time theres’s a dash, the reader takes a slight pause in their head. If the reader were to read the line “[w]inter [a]fternoons-” without the dash, they may miss the significance of this line. The dash allows the reader to envision the imagery and mood of this sentence with the dash. Dickinson uses the dash effectively, as in the case above, to emphasize the purpose of the sentences to the poem.