The Power of People to Control their Day
Albert Einstein once expressed, "All that is valuable in human society depends upon the opportunity for development accorded the individual." Hazel Hall demonstrates the power held within people to prevent advancement in their role and importance in his poem “Heavy Threads.” Opportunities give people the power to choose between being productive and useful or lethargic and futile.
Personification displays the potential of daily events to bring meaning to people's lives. For example, directly after the day starts, the speaker states, "I know that hours of light / Are about to thrust themselves into me / Like omnivorous needles into listless cloth" (3-5).
Cloth is multi-purposed and dynamic, thus susceptible to change for better or worse. …show more content…
For example, after discussing the opportunities provided every day the speaker changes mood and admits, "But I know they will do nothing of the kind. / They will prick away" (12-13). The "pricking" is a symbol for persistently trying to do something but being refused constantly. Since these needles, which represent opportunities, prick "away", they will eventually stop attempting to change the person's day-- which will inhibit the day from becoming productive and contentful for the person. In addition, after confessing that he or she will not become useful on this day, the speaker states that, "It will look like the patch quilt my grandmother made / When she was learning to sew" (15-16). A beginner made "patch quilt" is made of many randomly selected cloths and indicates that the day will become disorganized and worthless. Assuming that her skills improved drastically, the speaker's grandmother is a symbol of a transition from awful to marvelous: a transition that the speaker wants, but is evidently not trying hard enough to achieve, as seen by his complaining. A person must support the inevitable change that opportunities
Albert Einstein once expressed, "All that is valuable in human society depends upon the opportunity for development accorded the individual." Hazel Hall demonstrates the power held within people to prevent advancement in their role and importance in his poem “Heavy Threads.” Opportunities give people the power to choose between being productive and useful or lethargic and futile.
Personification displays the potential of daily events to bring meaning to people's lives. For example, directly after the day starts, the speaker states, "I know that hours of light / Are about to thrust themselves into me / Like omnivorous needles into listless cloth" (3-5).
Cloth is multi-purposed and dynamic, thus susceptible to change for better or worse. …show more content…
For example, after discussing the opportunities provided every day the speaker changes mood and admits, "But I know they will do nothing of the kind. / They will prick away" (12-13). The "pricking" is a symbol for persistently trying to do something but being refused constantly. Since these needles, which represent opportunities, prick "away", they will eventually stop attempting to change the person's day-- which will inhibit the day from becoming productive and contentful for the person. In addition, after confessing that he or she will not become useful on this day, the speaker states that, "It will look like the patch quilt my grandmother made / When she was learning to sew" (15-16). A beginner made "patch quilt" is made of many randomly selected cloths and indicates that the day will become disorganized and worthless. Assuming that her skills improved drastically, the speaker's grandmother is a symbol of a transition from awful to marvelous: a transition that the speaker wants, but is evidently not trying hard enough to achieve, as seen by his complaining. A person must support the inevitable change that opportunities