- Oct 2016
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Shantih
Om Shanti
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Quando fiam uti chelidon
Translates to: “When shall I be as the swallow?” This is referring to Philomela (daughter of Pandion, King of Athens). In the story, she was transformed into a nightingale or something like that.
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O Lord Thou pluckest me out
This part of the poem feels like it is a reference to the lost souls trapped in Hell and are demanding to be removed by telling the Lord, but it doesn't seem like they are repenting in any way, just demanding.
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Well, if Albert won’t leave you alone, there it is, I said, What you get married for if you don’t want children?
This phrase is pointing out the character's antiquated thoughts towards women and they role they play when it comes to marriage. She mentions how Albert is the one at fault, but blames his wife as the one who should have known what she was getting into in the first place.
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And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief, And the dry stone no sound of water. Only There is shadow under this red rock,
This part of the poem is creating a contrast with nature because we usually see objects of nature as something lively, but here they are being represented as something lifeless.
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- Sep 2016
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Jane
Who is Jane? And why is she the last person the speaker mentions?
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page ages
Sounds like a tongue twister, as if the speaker is trying to make sense of her speech trying to waker herself up from a never-ending trip.
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coral
The author is playing with words and making me question what words really mean. ex coral as in the color? Or coral as in coral reef?
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Another one
Did Dj Khaled get inspired by this poem?
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promises
The narrator is taken away by the woods and admires every single detail of it. The narrator is describing how this specific woods is peaceful and would like to stay longer but the "promises" are taking them back to reality. These promises could probably be the responsibilities of life that take the narrator away from the admiration and back to existence.
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wood
"Wood" is being used to describe that split between the two paths that lead us in our road to life. The narrator is deciding on which path is best for him, but really can't be sure about it because in the end he can only choose one path. He feels that he chose the right path, but will always have that sense of doubt because he never chose the other path even though he said he would eventually return to take the second path.
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opened
There is something about this town that was once was full of life and welcoming, but now they are only memories to the speaker and he now reminisces about this lonely town.
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cheeks
Here you get a visual of how youth is perceived with flushed red cheeks to symbolize innocence and a time when the speaker was in their prime.
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What is this
The speaker of this poem is now aware of the bad things in life only after her death. As if she was never really aware of this by asking "what is this?" In a way, the speaker is looking back at how good her life was during her time and comparing it now to the newer generations and realizing how corrupted it is becoming.
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Sometimes I think there are a great many women behind, and sometimes only one, and she crawls around fast, and her crawling shakes it all over.
The wallpaper could be symbolic for how women were treated when it came to having a domestic life. The “patterns” on the yellow wall represent the patterns of a domestic life and how women hide behind it because it is not voiced. For example, how she keeps it hidden and writes when she is alone. Here, she is voicing her opinion on how the majority of the women keep quiet, but how only the very few that decide to fight for their rights are considered “very ill.”
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with the years all this fine contempt began to fade; for the words I longed for, and all their dazzling opportunities, were theirs, not mine. But they should not keep the
Du Bois doesn't mention the color of their skin, nor what they do for a living in this sentence, but we automatically know once he mentions, "their dazzling opportunities" and how it was "theirs" and not his.
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faith
There is a constant theme of faith and Christianity throughout this chapter. The author might be subconsciously redirecting us to these terms as a form of coping with the idea that one day science will be as big of an adoration as christianity.
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- Aug 2016
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The idea survived only as art. There one turned as naturally as though the artist were himself a woman
"The idea only survived as art" is describing how in American culture we focus more on the facts in order to consider them as something authentic, while when it comes to art we tend to ignore the feelings it comes with the art itself.
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he began to feel the forty-foot dynamos as a moral force, much as the early Christians felt the Cross.
The author is comparing the "moral force" of the dynamos to the cross as a way to describe it as a holy figure, something worth believing, pure and divine.
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From all my white sins forgiven
"White sins" could symbolize how colonization destroyed mother earth, how we now have to live with those consequences, and how much it has impacted our entire history.
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Earth is eating trees, fence posts,
This is personifying "Earth" as a monster who eats one of its own, but at the same time "Earth" is symbolizing us and how we destroy it in order to industrialize it.
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They Lion grow.
This line repeats itself throughout the entire poem, but never really addresses who "they" are. While lion is being used as a symbolic term for the "they" as a form of fear. It feels like this is representing how we tend to feed our fears instead of conquering them.
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