Home-Coming Analysis Essay Example for Free

Home-Coming Analysis Essay Good morning/afternoon teacher and classmates. Last week, our group was designated to analyse the poem Home-Coming by Australian poet Bruce Dawe, who was born in 1930 in Geelong, Victoria. Out of the four siblings in the family, he was the only one to ever attend a proper secondary school. Previously being a part of the Royal Australian Air Force in 1959, his purpose for writing this particular poem was because of the Vietnam War, which claimed a seemingly endless number of lives. This really angered him and so he dedicated this poem to the casualties during the war. In our analysis of the poem, we noticed that the poem effectively incorporated a variety of useful techniques which significantly enhanced the subtle meaning behind the poem. With the clever use of language and structural devices, Bruce Dawe was really able to augment his views and exhibit his true perspective upon war. Some techniques utilised throughout the passage were similes, repetition and irony, just to name a few. In a nutshell, the poem revolves around soldiers apparently coming home from the destructive course of war to their loved ones. From the title of â€Å"Home-Coming†, the audience gain an implication of relief and happiness and it insinuates a positive atmosphere. However, later on in the poem this is found to not be the case as the status of all the soldiers are revealed to be deceased. As soon as we read this, we quickly picked up on the fact that it was an anti-war poem. In our points of view, we believe the poem resembles an elegy because of its depressing mood. Also, our group thought that the poet was striving to depict the soldiers as unimportant and expendable through a satirical perspective as well as showing us how little respect they gain from laying their lives down for our freedom. To begin with, the first device embedded in the first section of the poem is repetition. The repetition of the word â€Å"day† in the quote â€Å"All day, day after day† presents a tedious mood in which time is moving extremely slowly and almost seems perpetual when we read it. This technique has such a strong and potent effect on the audience as it is applied in the opening lines of the poem, which forces us to have an immediate reaction. Also, the word â€Å"they’re† is continuously written later on in the poem, such as â€Å"they’re bringing them in, they’re zipping them up†. By doing this, Dawe attempts to  show a somewhat mechanical and constant process of the storage of corpses, thus displaying the soldiers with the qualities of inanimate objects and not worthy of have equality to human beings. Repetition is an important aspect in this poem and gives us the stereotypical view on the soldiers fighting at war. In addition to this, Dawe includes a descriptive array of similes that paint very vivid images in the minds of the audience, which allow them to picture the particular scene that the poet is trying to conjure. As a result, the composer is able to manipulate the imagination of readers and stimulate them into thinking about a specific theme through the use of words. In this case, Bruce Dawe induces strong visual imagery that promotes a lonely, mournful and silent atmosphere. An example of this mood is demonstrated in the quote â€Å"telegrams tremble like leaves from a wintering tree†. To base an image upon a â€Å"wintering tree† provides negative connotations whilst also allowing Dawe to take advantage of words to reinforce the depressing mood of the text. Because of this, the strong meaning behind the similes used is an essential component in the poem of Home-coming. Finally, the last technique adopted in the poem sparingly but effectively is irony. Dawe entices the audience to positive emotions such as hope and relief through the title of â€Å"Home-coming† which obviously is supposed to spark happiness. However, in this case, the poet deceptively turns our hope into confusion as the text then turns to a melancholy mood through quotes such as â€Å"they’re picking them up, those they can find†. The intended reaction that Bruce Dawe wants from the audience is shock, because as we read on, the soldiers are disclosed as dead people. This is where the irony lies as the content of the poem and its atmosphere almost completely contradicts the message that the title is insinuating. Furthermore, another instance of irony is the phrase â€Å"frozen sunset†. Once again, these words build up a cold and desolate basis for the mood of the poem. Bruce Dawe has combined a number of techniques such as irony and similes in this anti-war poem that makes the audience wonder about the terrible effects of war and the devastation it can bring to families. It persuades them to  see through the faà §ade of war with the twisted but true contrasts of the title and content of the poem. As well as this, the text tries to make us consider the way that we act in regards to soldiers and we they should respect them more as they are the reason why our freedom is able to be reserved for the future generations.

Supremacist Ideologies in Joseph Conrads Heart of Darkness Essay

Supremacist Ideologies in Heart of Darkness Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness colludes with the ethnocentric attitude of Europeans towards the native people of Africa. At the turn of the century, European imperialism was viewed as "a crusade worthy of this century of progress" by King Leopold of Belgium. Although Conrad was critical of imperialism, his novella reveals to the reader an undeniable Victorian provenance. It endorses cultural myths of the period and reinforces the dominant ideology of the British gentleman. Its Victorian provenance is revealed in the representation of race, which is constructed through the character Marlow. His powerful narrative viewpoint reinforces what Chinua Achebe called Europe's "comforting myths" about Africa and Africans. The text consistently constructs black people as 'other'. This is achieved primarily by Marlow, who acts to construct the natives from the vantage point of the British gentleman. When he "looked at them", he searched not only for their "impulses, motives, capacities" but also for restraint, a value that he champions throughout the retelling of his story. When he can't find it, he remarks "Restraint? What possible restraint?" Marlow's first encounter with the natives is at the Outer Station, where his ambivalence towards them is foregrounded by his obsession with the miraculously efficient first-class agent. The natives are effectively dehumanised because they are presented as nothing more than "black shadows" and "acute angles"; and Marlow is far more interested in the fact that the accountant kept his books in "apple-pie order" than with the dying black men outside. Similarly, when Marlow stumbles across "a middle-aged negro, with a bullet-hole in the... ...t inexorably associates the continent and its people with darkness. We have the natives described as "black shapes", "strings of dusty niggers" and "a whirl of black limbs". This imagery also often associates Africans with supernatural evil. Near the Inner Station: "A black figure stood up, strode on long black legs, waving long black arms, across the glow. It had horns... some sorcerer, some witch-man, no doubt; it looked fiend-like enough" The African landscape is not only culpable for Kurtz's wrongs, but it is also a place of darkness and of evil, a place of paganism, with "the throb of drums, the drone of weird incantations"; a place of "lurking death", cannibalism, disease and insanity - all of Marlow's reality is filtered through the European consciousness, and all of his narrative serves to endorse European supremacist ideologies.

Come a-knocking on Death’s door Essay

The Ode is used as a poetic form for philosophical contemplation. Compare two odes by Keats in the light of this observation How much do you agree with the statement: John Keats was unfortunate in his upbringing to some extent? On one hand there was a chance for a budding surgeon but he gave that away to his literary awakening which drew him to write odes such as the ones I am going to analyse. Personally, learning about his life prior to literature, I feel that the situations he dealt with, at such a young age were remarkable but perhaps had he not faced those decisions, he wouldn’t have come to write such poetry brimming full with philosophical contemplation. John Keats was born on the October 31st, 1795 in Finsbury Pavement, near the centre of London. He learnt to deal with death from an early age as his father died in an accident when he was only eight years old. Seventeen years later in 1810, his mother died due to consumption, leaving John in the care of his grandmother. Subsequently, under the care of guardians he left school to become an apprentice to a surgeon. Unfortunately, before the completion of his apprenticeship, John had a quarrel with his master and therefore left to pursue a stronger path in literature, deftly in the company of his good friend Cowden Clarke. Three years of receiving scarce and negative feedback on his sonnets and poems, John was once again in the presence of a dying man: this time it was his brother. Tom Keats was also taken by consumption in 1818. Though by this time, distinct signs had begun to show in the decent of Keats’s own health. Keats himself was fighting illness and death in his latter years. Despite the fact of his deteriorating wellbeing, Keats continued to delve deeper into love and time. His mental understanding of what lies beyond was perhaps something that I could never even begin to contemplate. His dying wish was to have the words: â€Å"Here lies one whose name was writ in water,† on his gravestone when he died on 23rd February, 1821. Writing his most famous odes in his dying years was a sign of great character; I think that being able to face such a prospect of dying young, his mind matured faster than that of others. Increasingly throughout the odes, I can see that John has indeed spent many thought provoking sessions in front of the artefact he describes. He sees, he feels, he waits and then he writes. The form of poetry which Keats was most celebrated for was the Ode. This style of elaborate and stately lyric poem was lengthened or shortened at the whim of the poet. However, the basic arrangement of the stanzas was patterned in sets of three – a strophe and an antistrophe, of which both had an identical metrical scheme, and an epode, which had a structure of its own. Dating back to the Greek choral songs, the ode has appeared in many centuries over the world. Roman poets such as Catullus took the form of poetry to their own meaning. The ode was generally used to express strong emotions that flooded the poets mind at the time, the poet would be transfixed onto the idea and he would try to convey his meaning through the literary form.

Essay on Oscar Wildes The Picture of Dorian Gray

Oscar Wildes The Picture of Dorian Gray - What is the author trying to say about life through this book? Explain why you think so. I am not to sure on exactly what the author is trying to say through this book. I think he is telling us to live a full and moral life. Well I dont think he expects us to lead a completely moral life, but because of the picture of Dorians soul I think he was trying to say lead a good life. He wants us to know that we can sin, its completely normal, but the more you do it the uglier your soul gets. Hes saying that youth is innocence and it fades with age and sin. And since Dorian remained youthful in appearance the portrait became haggard and ugly. He is also saying that other people cause a huge†¦show more content†¦I really liked the ending of this book. It came to me as a surprise and I like reading books with a twist on the end. I did not expect that to happen at all. I thought he was going to be murdered or turn himself around, or even commit suicide, but just not by stabbing the picture. I also like it because the end twisted and made sense. Not all books can do that. And I liked the idea of killing the soul in the picture, resulting in his own death. It was a very good ending. I think that there is some more to tell at the end. Like there should be an after-word or something like that. I wanted to know what happened when the people discovered his body looking the way it did at the end and if people realized that the picture had something to do with his death. I also wanted to know if anyone had found out about the death of Basil or why that sailor was hunting Dorian at the end. All of these things should have been told, instead the author leaves the reader hanging and having to figure it our for themselves. I guess that can be ok to do, but I always like to know what happens to everyone involved at the end of a good book. Other than the author leaving you wondering what happens to the rest of the character I think the ending was good. It was an excellent surprise, even though the book ended so suddenly. - What came to you as a surprise in this book? There were quite a few things that came to me as a surprise in this book. First of all IShow MoreRelated The Conscience of Dorian Gray in Oscar Wildes The Picture of Dorian Gray2865 Words   |  12 PagesThe Conscience of Dorian Gray in Oscar Wildes The Picture of Dorian Gray Much of the criticism regarding The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde has dealt with Dorian Gray’s relation to his own portrait (Raby 392). While some may argue that the portrait represents a reflection of Dorian Gray’s character, this is only a superficial analysis of the novel and Dorian’s character. 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