When deconstructing the text ‘W;t’, by Margaret Edson, a comparative study of the poetry of John Donne is necessary for a better conceptual understanding of the values and ideas presented in Edson’s ‘W;t’. Through this comparative study, the audience is able to develop an extended understanding of the ideas surrounding death. This is achieved through the use of the semi-colon in the dramas title, ‘W;t’. Edson also uses juxtapositions and the literary device, wit, to shape and reshape the meaning of the drama when studied in alliance to the poetry of John Donne. This alliance has been strengthened by the parallel of Vivian Bearing’s and Donne’s interpretation of life, death and eternal life. This enables the responder to recognise the higher concepts of death and its meaning.…
One’s identity may be questioned when suffering; ultimately suffering is what creates one’s sense of self or what destroys it. The poetry of John Donne and the play W;t, 1993, by Margaret Edson, both illustrate and explore a sense of suffering and identity. In John Donne’s poetry, suffering, both emotionally and physically allows the speaker to understand their identity in more depth, in comparison to Margaret Edson’s play, W;t, Vivian’s suffering leads her identity to be stripped away. In Donne’s sonnet, ‘If poysonous mineralls’ we are shown suffering religiously and emotionally, through one’s sin’s, questioning god’s justice, which leads to a realisation of one’s identity. In Margaret Edson’s play, W;t, Vivian’s emotional suffering leads to a loss in her identity. In Donne’s poem “Hymn to God my God, in my Sickness”, physical suffering and illness can allow one discover their true identity. W;t portrays Vivian’s life with cancer as a journey, where her physical suffering is slowly represses her individuality.…
In Anne Bradstreet’s poem, “ In Reference to Her Children”, Bradstreet reveals the mixed emotions she experiences after her children move out of the house. Throughout the poem, Bradstreet metaphorically speaks of her family. She refers to her home as the nest, and her eight children as birds. At the beginning of the poem, Bradstreet pridefully boasts about nurturing her children. However, pride eventually turns into grief once her eldest son moves away. Bradstreet continues to grieve over the five eldest children as each one starts his or her own life away from home. She fears that her children will not survive in the real world. Nevertheless, Bradstreet places her trust in God and begs her children to remember her as a loving mother.…
Although Anne Bradstreet has never met the child she refers to in this poem since she has not given birth yet, it is evident that she is filled with love for him/her. She tells her husband to take very good care of them, just like she would do if she survives. I think her example of love is a great example to everyone, especially for us Christians. The love that she shows is unconditional and sacrificial, just like the love Jesus has for us. I think Anne Bradstreet’s possible death is also symbolic to Jesus’ death; she would be dying for her child, and Jesus died on the cross for His children as well. The difference, of course, lies in the fact that we can have a relationship with Jesus even though He died for us, but I still think there is a lot of significance between the two. She wants her husband to do whatever it takes to care for her children if she cannot be there, and God always cares for His children as well.…
The poem “Father and Child” by Gwen Harwood shows Harwood’s father teaching her the concepts of life and death, from when she is a young child in “Barn Owl” up to when she is around forty at the time of his death in “Nightfall”, coming to accept the idea that life is not never-ending. In part one called “Barn Owl”; she has learnt to accept death as a component of life. The persona of the poem experiences a loss of innocence with the discovery of the tragedy of death. Before shooting the owl, the child believes they are the “master of life and death,” with the noun, “master,” reflecting the power that the child feels and the ignorance that the child has about the nature of death. This description of the child is later contrasted in the fourth stanza, “I watched, afraid by the fallen gun, a lonely child who believed death clean and final, not this obscene bundle of stuff.” The emotive term, “afraid,” represents the change in the persona’s attitude after being exposed to the harsh reality that is mortality. However, the rhyme and last line “what sorrows in the end, no words, no tears can mend” releases an element of inexpressible sadness that she has towards the death of her father showing that although she accepts death, it still upsets her as it did in “Barn Owl”. Father and Child” Nightfall” is more metaphorical and symbolic suggesting a more mature persona like an adult. The poem represents a human’s journey over time of learning to mature and accept death.…
. In the poem it says “Children sold away from me.” In the poem, it is talking about her children being sold and causing her family to be split apart.…
Through the comparative study of John Donne's poetry and Margaret Edson's play W;t we are shown the individual context of both writers and their perspectives on relationships and death. Donne represents his assurance of life after death in his Holy Sonnets. Additional to this in his earlier poetry, his valuing of deep relationship being critical to the human experience is reflected by his renaissance belief. Edson's individual post-modern context is apparent in the appropriation and rewriting of Donne's ideas to reflect her own perspective. This is further emphasized in the choices made by each composer to represent their ideas in different textual forms.…
Margaret not only writes novels but also expresses her feelings and views through poems. Most of her poems reflect a lot of dismay and loss, which is connected to the death of her father and “the realization of her mortality” ("Margaret Atwood," Poetry Foundation).…
These include reprimanding a child with non-verbal and verbal cues to guide them through life. In the second paragraph, the poet talks of hearing voices of the murdered children. One can interpret this along with ghosts and the long time implications of long-term decision. The woman can forget the actions, but in some way, they will come back to haunt the individual. In this same paragraph, one finds references to the rites of passage that a child undergoes. They include love, relationships, marriage, and heartache. Again the author uses expressions of regret to show that a woman who aborts a child can expect to miss the rites of passage that a child goes through when transiting from childhood to adulthood. It is every mother’s dream to see a son or daughter walk down the church aisle with a loved one to signify the first step in starting a family and bringing forth another generation into the world. The tumults, aches and cries that the poet describes show that life is worth it. Women should not look at child rearing as a burden, but a duty to prepare a young one for the rigors of…
His work suggests a healthy appetite for life and its pleasures, while also expressing deep emotion. He did this through the use of conceits, wit and intellect – as seen in the poems “Hymn to God my God” and “Death Be Not Proud”. The questions of life, death and love shown in Donne’s poetry are also then expressed again through W;t as Vivian recounts and expresses her feelings during her time of sickness. Wit re-embodies Donne’s experiences of agony and self evaluation, thereby revitalising the feelings expressed and felt by Vivian…
One September day, in Queensland Australia a baby girl was born. September 13, 1956 Anne Geddes was born into her family as their third daughter. Anne and her four sisters grew up on a cattle farm. The Geddes girls grew up true country girls, horseback riding and helping out with the cattle farm. Around the age of seven or eight, Anne had an epiphany of her future. As she saw her mother hanging clothes outside on their porch, and for some reason she had the need to be a photographer. Just like any girl Anne loved magazines, especially her favorites Life and National Geographic. She loved these magazines because she was drawn to their high quality and unique photos. These magazines were just an ongoing inspiration to Anne, and she knew that she would love to be a photographer. When Anne finally turned 17, she got a job with a group of hotel tourists to travel all over. Everyday Anne would take literally hundreds to thousands of pictures everyday so she would be able to remember every single thing she did that day. A few years later, Anne ended up getting married to Kel Geddes in Hong Kong in 1983. After her marriage Anne started to think that she would love to finally go into photography. She started her own small business taking pictures for family friends and neighbors, anyone that wanted pictures done she would do. She loved taking pictures and she was really good at it. As people saw her photos more and more people wanted her to take their pictures and her small business was not so small anymore. In 1984 she had her first daughter as Anne and her family moved to Sydney…
In stanza two, Poe tells us about the mature love he and Annabel Lee share, even though they are just children. By using climax, which is a Poe specialty, the story takes a dark turn when the angels become jealous of their love and result in killing Annabel Lee. Poe gives us a feeling their love was not welcomed by all. He blames her death on the angles because they envied her – his beloved. But Poe is so sure of their love, saying it is stronger than ‘those who were older then we” and “far wiser than we.” The author paints a picture of Annabel Lee who is gentle and persistent in her love, and she has complex emotion that may darken or complicate her love. The third stanza adds more emotion by stressing the tragic and irreversible nature of her death. Poe’s use of repetition, speaks intimately with the voiceless dead as well as with the…
Lines 7–8, “’Twere profanation of our joys / To tell the laity our love,” mean —…
Question 1.1. What is Anne's overwhelming mood during the second half of 1943? (Points : 2)…
The overall purpose of the poem was to convey the narrator’s hatred towards her mother’s decision to have a “planned” birth. In the first stanza the narrator explains how her mother “had taken a cardboard… and made a chart of the month and put her temperature on it, rising and falling to know the day that they would make [her],” this exemplifies how her mother carefully recorded her ovulation cycle in order to know which days she would have the greatest probability of conceiving a child. Differentiating from her mother, in the next line of the stanza the narrator states that she “would have liked to have been conceived in heat, in haste, by mistake, in love, in sex…” possibly because she would have wanted her parents to have been completely in love and as a result of their love they would have received the gratifying experience of barring a child. Perhaps the narrator wanted to have been conceived “by mistake” because if she were to ever ask her mother how she was conceived, she would have thought that the story of being conceived by the basis of “the little x on the rising line” of the calendar would have been rather bland compared to a story of lust and romance. However, in the second stanza her view of her mother’s decision is altered when a friend of the narrator reminds her that “ [she] seem[ed] to have been a child who had been wanted…” which then allows narrator to ponder the notion of how greatly her mother wanted her that she endured the physical pain of “pressing [her] out into the world that was not enough for her [mother] without [her] in it…” It is at that moment when the narrator has a feeling of jubilation that is demonstrated when the narrator expressed how “nit the moon, the sun, Orion cart wheeling across the dark, not the earth, the sea— none of it was enough, for her [mother], without [the pregnancy of her child].” I am lead to believe that this poem can…