"Anthem for Doomed Youth" explication

Wilfred Owen uses alliteration and a mixture of euphony and cacophony in his poem “Anthem for Doomed Youth”. Wilfred Owen was an English poet who was also a young soldier in World War I. In this particular poem there is a direct relation to the soldiers, especially the young, who died in war. The first line in the sonnet describes asks a rather disturbing question, “What passing bells for these who die as cattle?” A passing bell was a bell rung after a death to signal prayers, an already unfathomable concept made even more depressing because of the young corpses. Following that question, Owen uses alliteration in many of his lines such as “stuttering rifles’ rapid rattle/The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells; and bugles calling for them from sad shires/ holy glimmers of good-byes/ The pallor of girls’ brows shall be thier pall/ dusk a drawing down of blinds” In accordance with the alliteration, Owen simultaneously infuses both cacophony and euphony when describing the events of the funerals. He describes the sounds of the guns going off in respect for the fallen soldiers and how the sound of the rifles cannot ignore the sound of the orisons, or prayers. Though the sounds of rifles or mourning choirs are not pleasing, Wilfred Owen makes them sound pleasing in description. The sounds of the consonants in the vocabulary of the poem makes it more appealing in terms of auditory senses, yet when making connections to what the poet is actually talking about, the somber effect of what the poem is actually about starts to take effect.The poem itself is almost a paradox in terms of language when describing the eeriness of the event. The story behind the poem is not beautiful, but the words Owen uses to describe the story and illustrate what is happening, makes it almost pleasing to hear about. It really is, in that way, an anthem, in terms of being a choral composition or a hymn-like poem, but in no way is it uplifting, which makes sense since it is an anthem for doomed youth.

had i the choice

“Had I the Choice” by Walt Whitman discusses the speaker’s choice to exchange a writer’s greatest merits to the “undulation of one wave”. He gives various examples of works from William Shakespeare to Homer as well as the intricate characters and the meter or clever wit of the words on the page. The speaker desires to master the rhythmic patterns the waves possess and apply it to their verses. At first glance, it is easy to say that the poem is free verse. The metric patterns are completely different when reading the poem casually, however when read closely it does have a show a meter. It is hard to decipher and figure out because not all feet are the same nor do each line follow the same pattern or rhythm. There are some lines with iambic structure and such as lines one, eight and nine. I think I understand this because even though it does not follow a pattern and it is all over the place, it is kind of like the waves he mentions in the poem. The waves flow in the same motion, yet they do not singularly do the same pattern every time-just line the lines and stanzas in Walt Whitman’s poem. It is also a little ironic because he claims to want to trade any of the great bard’s merits to be like the waves when he is being like them as he writes this poem. It shows that poetry and art can resemble the beauty found in nature and the fact that great poems can have different types of meter and rhythm.

"Traveling through the dark" explication

    The speaker in “Traveling through the dark” by William Stafford has a dilemma that is very heartbreaking. They have to make a moral decision to the events that happen to them as well as the readers reflect on their feelings towards what he/she does. The speaker finds a dead deer on the side of the road and decides to roll the body into the canyon so people don’t “swerve” and hit it, for Stafford writes, “to swerve might make more dead”. The speaker soon discovers that it is a doe who has just recently been killed and also pregnant. Her fawn was still barely alive and thus the speaker’s problem arises. Eventually, after silently deliberating, they decide to push both deer into the river. In hindsight, there really was nothing he/she could have done, especially in a setting where the stakes are high. The second to last line is particularly unnerving. Stafford writes, “I thought hard for us all-my only swerving-” When the word “swerve” was mentioned before, it was not emphasized at all. After finishing the poem, readers realize that Stafford was foreshadowing a kind of fatal occurrence using the word in that particular phrase. In the last pair of lines, the meaning behind “swerve” still relates to the theme of hesitation and being so close to an awful demise. Though the poem is rather grotesque in subject, the imagery in the poem is beautiful. Stafford describes the woods and road around him as well as how the dead deer was cold but the side of her belly where the fawn was warm-symbolizing life and death. There are other symbols such as the overwhelming darkness that is apparent throughout the poem (and obviously in the title) as well as the presence of the river symbolizing his change in character. As for the rhyme scheme and musical devices, it was difficult at first to spot the pattern and variations in the poem. With help from the questions, I was able to see that in the first stanza, the  last words of the first and fourth line were assonance. Same in the third and fourth stanza. In the third stanza it appears again but this time in the first and third lines.  In the last couplet, the ending words have a consonance. I find it interesting how the quatrains all have assonance-which is repetition at the beginning of the word and how the last couplet had consonance which is repetition on the final consonant sounds. I also wonder if the word “canyon” is important because it does not really pair with another word in the scheme. It is also peculiar because the puts the deer in the river instead of the canyon as if to hide what they have done. The poem altogether makes one reflect on actions and morals in times of darkness in this creep poem about life and death in a single moment.

"The Legacy" by Virginia Woolf

    In “The Legacy” Woolf writes about a man figuring out his wife after she has passed away. Gilbert Clandon begins the story by giving away his wife, Angela’s, tokens that she left for her friends and acquaintances. It is apparent that Angela’s death may have been suicide. Gilbert mentions that Angela left all the tokens in a particular order like it was “as if she had foreseen her death”(132). The way her death is described is also very interesting. The text never said her actions were intentional. She steps off the kerb and gets hit by a car. It also states that ever since they got married she wrote in a diary. By the end of her life she had fifteen of them filled and she was very secretive about what was written in them. Woolf writes, “When he came in and found her writing, she always shut it or put her hand over it. ‘No, no, no,’ he could hear her say, ‘After I’m dead-perhaps’”. The first page of the story already says so much about their relationship. Their marriage was great, despite the diaries she kept from him. It could be argued that he was being a supportive husband and abiding by his wife’s wishes and keeping something she valued private, after all, “It was the only thing had not shared when she was alive”. It could also be argued that it was suspicious that he could brush it off so easily and he never was aggravated or curious enough to investigate or question her about it. Gilbert sees Angela’s secretary, Sissy Miller, come by the house and he gives her a pearl brooch that used to belong to his wife with the message, “For Sissy Miller, with my love.” Ms. Miller is clearly mourning still and is even on tears upon seeing Gilbert. He remembers that Sissy has also lost her brother recently, two weeks before Angela’s death. Before she leaves, Sissy Miller tells Gilbert that if he needed anything, he could come get her. Her exact words were, “‘If at any time, there’s anything I can do to help you, remember, I shall feel it, for you, for your wife’s sake, a pleasure…” (134).  There is a sexual undertone that makes one wonder what exactly she means by her statement. After she leaves Gilbert begins to read Angela’s diaries because he has decided that reading them must be his legacy. In the beginning he reads about days they spent together-all the trips he took her own and the things he would buy her and how she was so happy to be with him. He enjoys reading how fond she was of him and it is interesting that all he is reading in her diaries is about him, as if she spent every waking moment with him. Something else that is interesting is that she writes, “But it seemed selfish to bother him with my own affairs, when he has so much to think about. And we so seldom have an evening alone”. She continues writing about other people she meets, especially one character whom she refers to only as B.M. As soon as she starts writing about other people and not Gilbert, he begins to read less and less details. As B.M. appears more and more, he starts to become intrigued again. He eventually finds out that they were having a secret affair while he was working and wanted Angela to run away with him. She could not make up her mind, which infuriated Gilbert. The last sentences in her diary that she ever wrote were, “‘He has done what he threatened’ ‘Have I the courage to do it too?’” (137). He had to know why she stepped off the kerb and he had to know who B.M. was. He called Sissy Miller who told him that B.M. was her brother. That was when Gilbert realized his legacy. She did not step off the kerb to die, not really, she stepped off to escape. I mentioned in my last blog post, about “Solid Objects”, that the similarities between the male protagonists being in parliament and how that affects their lives. I also noticed the parallels in relationships, obsessions, and the ability to escape from the world around them. Both John in “Solid Objects” and Angela were infatuated with this escape from reality as well as how John and Gilbert were both ruined by their jobs in parliament, or in a high class respected profession that ultimately did not bring them happiness. “The Legacy” really does make one think about what people leave behind and why they leave in the first place.

"Solid Objects" by Virginia Woolf

     “Solid Objects” by Virginia Woolf tells the story of a man slowly losing his mind or actually finding real purpose and happiness in his life. The story centers on two young men named Charles and John. John has a prestigious career in the British Parliament who has a very busy life, “many papers to keep in order-addresses to constituents, declarations of policy, appeals for subscription, invitations to dinner, and so on” (206). It is clear that he detests his job because in the beginning of the story when he is walking with his friend Charles, he yells “Politics be damned!” (202). His friend is supportive of his career until John begins to develop a new passion. While they are at the beach, John finds a piece of glass in the sand and takes a particular liking to it. It was not a special piece of glass as Woolf writes, “the smoothing of the sea had completely worn off any edge or shape, so it was impossible to say whether it had been a bottle, tumbler or window pane; it was nothing but glass” (203). John soon fantasizes about the story behind the glass and creates these detailed imaginative possibilities such as being “worn by a dark Princess trailing her finger in the water as she sat in the stern of the boat” or being on the “oak sides of a sunk Elizabethan treasure-chest”. Over the course of the novel he begins to develop a collection of small, round solid objects made from either glass, china, amber, rock, or marble. He becomes so obsessed and infatuated with these little solid objects that he misses a train to address his constituents for re-election because he eyes a piece of broken china and eagerly pursues to posses it. It feels as though this all happens in a short amount of time, but actually this happens over many years. In the beginning, John is described as young and towards the end of the story he begins to look old and was “too silent to be asked to dinner” (208). People stopped visiting him and his political career was over. Instead of travelling to fancy events and obligations regarding his upper class status, he was going to the decrepit and broken places of London. He found that the most beautiful and luxuriant objects were “pieces of waste land between railway lines, sites of demolished houses, and commons in the neighbourhoood” (207). When his friend comes back at the end of the story, he asks John why he has given up and John replies to him saying that he hasn’t. This is a prolific statement because it shows that John is not embarrassed or upset at how his life has changed. He thinks it is a new beginning for him instead of ruining his life as Charles sees it. It makes readers reflect on whether or not John really did make a self discovery and find joy in his life or if he is going insane. One parallel that I noticed with the second short story I read by Woolf (“The Legacy”) which was that both male protagonists were members of Parliament. In “The Legacy”, Gilbert Clandon is proud of his position, however he is also seen as self absorbed, even in the wake of his wife’s death. It is an interesting parallel because it shows how one life in Parliament is versus another and that maybe this prominent and rewarding job does not guarantee happiness.

Dover Beach Explication

Matthew Arnold creates a tone of despair and melancholy through the serenity of the coastal French beach. He introduces Dover Beach with lovely imagery of the sea and the moon-visualizing this alludes to a soft and relaxing tone as he continually describes the atmosphere . The poet describes the sounds of the sea along the cliffs of England’s shore and the “grating roar of the pebbles” as they glide back and forth from the water. These images as well as delicate syntax create a beautiful environment but hint to an increasingly more depressing tone, especially when he ends the stanza with, “With tremulous cadence slow, and bring the eternal note of sadness in”. He then begins this connection with the playwright Sophocles, who is known for writing infamous tragedies, and how he looked upon the Aegean Sea and watched the waves as Arnold has done and how they brought him the same sort of sadness. Arnold writes, “ the turbid ebb and flow of human misery”. Water is known in literature to signify change; in this poem the water is described so beautifully, but there is also this emptiness like nothing is being gained from it because the water recedes back into the ocean. The writer mentions a body of water called “The Sea of Faith” that he describes as being once full, but now all he feels are the waves “retreating, to the breath of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear and naked shingles of the world”. Arnold could be talking about how people are slowly separating themselves from religious faith and like the water becoming empty and only flowing back and forth barely touching the shore with melancholy and withdrawal. The last stanza in particular is especially potent due to it’s effective language. It is almost like a prayer; he asks to let people be actually true to one another amidst the world, which seems to be “like a land of dreams”. However the way in which people start to lose their faith in it turn the world into a place devoid of peace, love, joy, light, certitude, and help for pain. He mentions in the very last line of the poem the “ ignorant armies” which could symbolize people quarreling over things such as rights to land or property or human beings and not really seeing the various beauty and wonder the world has to offer them. The overall tone would be a juxtaposition of both sadness and beauty. The delicate imagery creates a sense and feeling of beauty, while the syntax and figurative language suggest a hint of melancholy because people do not really notice the beauty in the world.  

Critcal Article Review-Binyavanga Wainaina's "How to Write About Africa"

    I read “How to Write About Africa” by Binyavanga Wainaina. The entire article was a satirical instruction guide for writing a book about Africa. The author’s words were crude and almost making fun of how people view Africa and how they need to help the continent and somehow revigorate their lives in the process. Though their words are harsh-they are also humorous and provide this image of what we typically see in books, advertisements, films etc about the nation, which is usually the same thing done over and over again. I think the author makes a very good point at how people not only picture Africa but also what they write about it. Everything about the culture from its geography, food, domesticity, tribal living, the people, and the myriad of problems associated and plaguing the society as a whole is included, but pretty much only what people want to hear/what they already know. It talks about including certain characteristics that are crucial to “your book’s success” supposedly such as talking about how much you love Africa and how your amazing liberalist ideals and outlook on life helped save the savaged nation from doom-as if your actions alone changed the continent and it’s people forever. It also mentions to write about Africa as if it were a country instead of fifty-four individual countries and not to mention all the beautiful landscapes and geography because all readers care about are the dying, warring, starring, and abused lives of Africa but at least that way, as Wainaina puts it,is-because you care. The writer must have the good guy have traits such as being poor or having a complex domestic life, the bad guy must have his/her own certain qualities, the woman must have disfigured genitialia and sagging faces that made you want to write a book about them and show them as if every woman in Africa looks like that. The best part about Binyavanga Wainaina’s article is that it makes you reflect on stories that other writers and artists have told about Africa and everything the author writes about in this piece is inherently true in all of the New York Times Bestsellers and Hollywood blockbusters. I tried to think of stories that broke his assumptions or judgements on what people write about when they visit or are inspired by Africa (besides Heart of Darkness) and it was very difficult. There might be stories out there that differ from what the author believes to be evident in every anecdote about Africa ever, but the majority seems to be all the same. In terms of Heart of Darkness, I think Conrad did differ away from this a little bit by showing just one Westerners adventure through the continent and how it did not focus on the poverty or the starvation or disease. It is interesting to hear today all the backlash about how racist or insensitive Conrad was being but it also causes people to see something different. Conrad had a clear story he wanted to tell and though it wasn’t strictly about Africa, he still managed to show the brutality and the honest cruelty the nation was facing. People can have different opinions on the matter but it does not change the fact that Wainaina makes an exceptional point. In the end, it is all about what we care.