Bob McKenty suggests in the poem “Adam’s Song” that life is not a stationary event, it is forever changing and that in order to handle those changes humor serves as a good buffer. The tone of “Adam’s Song” changes distinctly at least three times. McKenty uses rhythm, rhyme, and meter to express the essence of change in the poem and in life.
The first couplet of the poem is iambic tetrameter and expresses a sentimental, romantic and lyrical tone. The speaker in the poem at this point could be described as a possibly young and naive lover. The author uses the uniformed meter, assonance and ending rhyme with few surprises to declare the traditionally romantic and lyrical “love poem” style verse of the first two lines “Come live with me and be my love./Come romp with me in Eden’s grove”. McKenty uses an irregular change in meter and internal rhyme in lines 3 and 4 to begin the emphasis on the inevitable changes of life “In unabated joy, not shy/But unabashed by nudity…” In the second couplet the idealism of the first two lines also changes to…
Plath’s Daddy Essay: Clusters of Images
Clusters of Images in Daddy
Imagery in literature provides the writer with an instrument for establishing a viewpoint or perspective. The author can use an unlimited amount of symbols, similes, and metaphors that produce an atmosphere for the reader to visualize the story effectively. In the poem “Daddy,” written by Sylvia Plath, the author utilizes numerous clusters of images to represent the fury and wrath of a crazed woman haunted by her father’s frightening and domineering disposition. Plath uses this imagery to depict the emotional chaos controlling fathers inflict on their offspring.
One of the most prominent groups of images Plath uses to show the turmoil and fear the narrator feels for her father is comparing him with Nazi Germany, the devil’s hoofs, and a vampire. Evil, mean-spirited images flourish within “Daddy.” The speaker characterizes her father as a Nazi. Phrases like, “With your Luftwaffe” (l. 42), “your neat moustache and your Aryan eye” (l. 43), and “Panzer-man, panzer-man” (l. 45) fill the poem with images of Deuts…