... time-shifting and flashbacks, which prevent a reader from adopting too simplistic an interpretation of events. Conrad wrote long novels, short stories and novellas, with his most famous novella being Heart of Darkness (1899). In it Conrad describes a long journey to a place deep inside the Belgian Congo, the heart of darkness of the title. The story is again told by the intermediate narrator Marlow, who retraces his first visit to colonial Africa and his ... growing awareness of the evils he encounters. The story contrasts Western civilisation in Europe with what that civilisation has d...

• Word Count: 10566
• Approx Pages: 42

... and radiant maiden named by angels, never again to be mentioned here on earth (9-12). The unnerving rustling of each purple curtain enraptured me- filled me with extraordinary terrors never felt before (13-14). To calm my beating heart, I repeated, "Someone's here appealing at the entrance of my chamber door- just some late visitor asking at my door. That's all, nothing else.""(15-18). Immediately ... door because I was napping."" (19-23). Then I opened the door wide, and there was only darkness and nothing else (23-24). I stood there for a long time, peering deep into that darkness, won...

• Word Count: 2508
• Approx Pages: 10
• Grade Level: High School

... and more pleasurable aspects of life, however, as with so many of her poems, the tone proceeds to distinctly change. The threatening image in line 5 of the "broadening darkness" is almost one of omnipotence, as it is described as "loftier still". Rosetti's use of this comparison is very effective- the overshadowing evil which the speaker senses is simply much higher up, therefore powerful, than the two birds. The image of the "ravenous hawk" is a very ... is permanent. All of the images used are to reflect a different aspect of the intense happiness which the speaker is feeling. "My hea...

• Word Count: 2526
• Approx Pages: 10
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... they also symbolize pain; with the burning heart as a symbol of a love that is painful and uncontrolled. Not only are these metaphors examples of the protagonists loss of self mastery but the many associations with the dream itself throughout the poem are also strong indicators, as it is the central concept behind the protagonist falling in love in the first place. As the dream itself is the central concept of the poem, many associations are made ... she wants and needs. Although the associations with the dream in the poem are very pertinent aspects proving her loss of self mastery, Lad...

• Word Count: 1603
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: High School

... , while from all around...comes a still voice." When feeling scared of death just listen to nature whom, with it's soothing sounds, will calm your heart until that day in which nature "claim(s) they growth" and are "resolved back to the earth again" in which you "mix forever with the elements" and become part of nature yourself. Bryant says that there is no "couch more magnificent ... sleep - to sleep, perchance to dream...for in that sleep what dreams may come." Hamlet struggles as he tries to decide whether to suffer the "slings and arrows" which life throws at you or to "end the heart...

• Word Count: 898
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

... . In the poem "The Eve of Saint Agnes" the cold imagery plays an important role as it symbolizes the theme of innocence before experience in the poem, the state of loneliness and imprisonment before freedom as her church and religion that imprisons her. The imagery of coldness is described in the setting and background to symbolize Madeline, in her state of darkness, loneliness and chastity before transferring to experience, the contrast to the state of warmth and ... a cold" in the first stanza also described the coldness. And the diction "frozen grass" and "frosted breath," explains fu...

• Word Count: 620
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... ;prison darkness" it does not let humans treat it as a circus act. In the last two stanzas we can see the conflict between the jaguar and the bars that keep it from its real home, and despite the fact that it is physically in a cage; it is not in one mentally. The "bang of blood in the brain deaf the ear" is alliteration, and its sound represents the heart ... pumping in the jaguar's ears, he is very focused, ignoring the sounds coming from the observers and listening ... to the wildness in its blood. "There's no cage to him", his spirit is no more restrained by ... ...

• Word Count: 618
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... Universal spirit, which guides the destiny of human beings, is challenged by evolutionary ideas. The poet moves triumphantly from the state of despondency and despair to the state of spring and zest. Through state of doubt and despair, and anguished question, the poem mounts in a region of firm, though saddened faith, and ends in full hymnal music, breathing hope and fortitude of heart. In spite of its gloomy beginning, the poem finishes as a poem ... of universal faith, a faith which rest ultimately on soul's instinct for immortality. The immortality of human love is, in fact, the theme...

• Word Count: 5237
• Approx Pages: 21
• Grade Level: High School

... ;helpless", "struggling", "striving", and "bound", which radiates an eerie sensation of being trapped in darkness and hopelessness. The parents viewed the baby as "a fiend hid in the cloud" (Line 4), which shows the ingratitude of the parents towards the life of the newborn. Not only do the two poems have different perspectives and diction, they are also constructed differently. Although both poems have two ... secretive and disruptive, which recalls the theme of experience. What is more, the situations of each poem is in absolute contrast with each other; while the children in Songs of ...

• Word Count: 1939
• Approx Pages: 8
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... describing love, the possibility of dealing with emotions of any level arises. Love's rule over the sonnet is met with severe opposition from hate. In "The White City," Claude McKay pens a protest using the Shakespearian sonnet form. This more modern version of the sonnet is used by McKay to introduce a more contemporary theme. His poem describes a heart-felt emotion of a different kind. Though keeping with the iambic pentameter, the Shakespearian form is ... coloring returns at the end of the poem as well. McKay writes of the "tides, the wharves, the dens" as points of contemplation. H...

• Word Count: 655
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

... both fluid and long, yet well-linked sentences for his poem, thus giving the reader a soothing effect, for example, he only has three sentences over fourteen lines, and he uses a sentence such as, "And think, this heart, all evil shed away, a pulse in the eternal mind, no less gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given; her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her ... day; and laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness, in hearts at peace, under an English heaven." That one sentence itself, consists ... by, which may be what he thinks about England, or what natural England looke...

• Word Count: 1482
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... the beating of the old man's heart. The heartbeat could symbolize time; the narrator or Poe may feel as though they are running out of time. The beating of the heart grows louder as the narrator's anxiety and guilt intensifies. The old man's heart also represents the narrator's conscience; he can no longer withstand his secret and therefore confesses his crime. The third major symbol of The Tell-tale Heart is that of the light and dark. The tale begins in darkness, where the ... truth is hidden, in this case, the truth of the narrator's insanity. Previous to the murder, the narrator can...

• Word Count: 1588
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: High School

... Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike. I am not cruel, only truthful " The eye of a god, four-cornered. Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall. It is pink, with speckled. I have looked at it so long I think it is part of my heart. But it flickers. Faces and darkness separate us over and over. Now I am a lake. A women bends over me, Searching my ... results for what she really is. Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon. I see her back and reflect it faithfully. She rewards me with tears ... a part of my heart. But it flickers faces and darkness separate us...

• Word Count: 934
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

... after realizing that death exceeds all the pleasures of life. Keats shows the similarities and differences in the structure of the poem, the tone of voice, the choices of the words and phrases, and scenery of the poems. The structure of "When I have fears that I may cease to be," is a traditional Shakespearean sonnet form. The rhyme is ABABCDCDEFEFGG. The sonnet consists of three quatrains. In the first quatrain, Keats writes "When ... the same questions "Why did I laugh?" Asking, "Why did I laugh to-night?" (1), the poet responds " No voice will tell," (1). This shows that the poet asks...

• Word Count: 1233
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School

... insanity. This insanity does not truly exist, but is what Sir Toby and Maria force upon him. Being a wise man, Malvolio turns this scenario around to mean that the darkness is the madness that exists outside of his cell. In response to his imprisonment, Malvolio says, "I say this house is as dark as ignorance, though/Ignorance were as dark as hell; and I say there ... appears as a love stricken and joyful maiden at the close of the play. Being one of only a handful of characters that can receive as much love as they wish to give, Duke Orsino also makes the transition that many character...

• Word Count: 1772
• Approx Pages: 7

... Explication on Loneliness: Robert Frost and Ezra Pound Everyone has felt lonely at one time or another, regardless of their magnitude of wealth, size of family, extension of the friendship circle, or position in a crowd. It crawls on your skin like a shadow, quickly making it's way into your heart. Once you have experienced this alienation you will never forget it, and you can never adequately explain ... the depth of it. Actually, there are some gifted poets who can express what seems too big for words. Robert Frost's Acquainted with the Night and Ezra Pound's In a Station of the Metro...

• Word Count: 743
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

... gaps in this friendship, the speaker wants to build a stronger relationship. The neighbor will not go behind his father's saying an tradition that, " good fences make good neighbors." The speaker believes that he and his father are almost the same, " he moves in darkness as it seems to him." The poem shows one mans desire to be friends with another man with a heart of stone. Frost made many ... poetic works throughout his life. Some of his more popular poems are as followed, " Mending Wall", "The Death of a hired man", and "After Apple Picking." In "Mending Wall" Frost uses ... free ve...

• Word Count: 424
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

... water and color, as images that personify the use of the mirror. The poem describes a woman who seeks and yet denies the truth about herself and it reveals a woman growing older as she watches the process unfolding before her. This beautifully stated imagery results in a very heart felt poem. The first sentence of the poem uses metaphoric words to describe Plath's reflection in the mirror. Plath stated, "I am silver and ... exact"." It shows that the mirror places no judgment; therefore the mirror shows what it sees and reflects that image. In the first stanza, the author sees her reflec...

• Word Count: 559
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

... or fiend!" I shrieked, upstarting-- "Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore! Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul has spoken! Leave my loneliness unbroken!--quit the bust above my door! Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!" Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore." And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is ... sitting On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door; And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming And the lamp-light o'er him streaming throws his shadows on the floor; And m...

• Word Count: 2614
• Approx Pages: 10
• Grade Level: High School

... join this fantasy bird. He compares this experience to that of dullness. This stanza closes with the man in complete darkness yet he is unhappy nor is he infatuated with the situation. He continues to sit in darkness in the fifth stanza, which makes the man rely on his, other senses. He speaks of the nightingale singing of summer, and the progression of the seasons. He might have chosen spring to summer to ... , for this bird is a symbol of nature. It shows the joy in life. At the end of this stanza the man speaks of three images, the emperor and clown, the story of Ruth, and the "charm'...

• Word Count: 1640
• Approx Pages: 7
• Grade Level: High School

... through me ran' (line 5-6). The link made between the human and nature being one adds to the belief that man is the darkness within the natural world highlighting the romantic interest in nature. In addition you can see the spontaneous overflow of emotion with: '...grieved my heart to think/ What man has made of man' (line 7-8). The use of the word 'heart' creates the contrast of the heart and the mind and captures the essence of the contrast of romanticism and tradition. In both ... stanza three and four romantic imagery is revealed. You see the romantic use of the spring ... ...

• Word Count: 836
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... , receding with the bird-song, fades the narrator into the "forest dim"(21) This celebration, realization, and receding is consistent with the play from beginning to end. At the poems beginning the narrator hears and participates by listening to the bird's song; however with heart-aching and mind-numbed the intensity is too great to conceive of the song or its happiness, without pain or perhaps it is the pain of the happiness that ... , 29-30)" (Almeida 130) With this information the narrator turns his head on the pleasure that only life can contain, and privileges the flight into "verdur...

• Word Count: 1517
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... 's head. There's a strong feeling of suffering, darkness, doom. By contrast, the last two verses' setting is very real, practically taken from an ordinary everyday life. The feeling of alienation becomes more vivid, when we realize the impact it has on these people's lives. The man and the woman are sitting by a table. It's evening time and they are having supper under the stars. The main theme of the poem is a relationship between ... ), in addition, he used capitalization in a specific word ("Deep-), but I couldn't understand why. The atmosphere created in the poem is sad and dark; puzz...

• Word Count: 519
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

... as it plunges the country into literal darkness. However, it is a blinding illumination, a paradox or apparent contradiction. Perhaps she is thinking of something like the blinding of St Paul on the road to Damascus: he is both blinded and given the vision of Christ in the same overwhelming moment. Verse six asks another question. She asks what the uprooting of the trees symbolises. Perhaps it reflects the uprooting of immigrants like the West Indians from ... mystery. Verse 9 brings the ideas together. The mystery is "sweet"; it is thawing the frozen lake that is the woman's heart, fro...

• Word Count: 1229
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School

... are closer to god then adults. In a sense nature, in relation to god, is fully appreciated in the eyes of children. He is saddened to have lost that purity. In the third part Wordsworth finds redeems that vanity with the love of his sister who is pure of heart with nature. Wordsworth describes his love for nature in three parts, in parts like nature except nature is ... ' writes about nature in a different light. In "To Autumn" he gives the season life and a reason. For someone who lived a short life understood that the nature's purpose in our Universe was not to depress or inconvenience...

• Word Count: 702
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School