The Guitarist Tunes Up: Poem Analysis

In reading the two assigned poems and short stories, there were points in which I struggled and felt I had a fair understanding of the writings. In the first poem, “The Guitarist Tunes Up”, I didn’t have much trouble in my annotations, therefore I was able to make connections between different diction and metaphors fairly easily. In determining the speaker of the poem I struggled slightly because when I was reading the poem I felt like the speaker should also have been the guitarist as there was a strong sense of familiarity between the speaker and the bond that a guitarist shares with their guitar. What led me to believe otherwise was the third person narrative throughout the poem which would suggest that this poem was written from an observer’s …show more content…
Once I’d gotten into annotating, I was able to determine the tone, the argument, the speaker, audience, and situation effortlessly (also due to the blatant nature of the poem). In the short story “A Question of Blood”, I had the most difficulty in trying to determine the argument. I had trouble here because I had found starting annotating this story to be a challenge as well, I was not entirely sure of the ideas that Haycox intended to put forth in this story. Once I developed an idea of what I thought the argument was based on my interpretations, I was able to determine the audience, the dramatic situation, and the tone. In “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been” by Joyce Carol Oates, I didn’t have much trouble in reading this story and understanding, although I believe it may have multiple meanings. Given this, I believe that I had many different options in formulating an argument for this story. The tone in this story wasn’t a challenge to figure out as the overall atmosphere presented in the story was intense. I found this story easier to interpret overall than the first story as it was an intense and straight forward issue at