Dream Further In William Stafford’s poem, “Fifteen,” the speaker, a boy who is fifteen, meets a man who lives the life as the speaker always admired and dreamed of. William Stafford uses metaphor, imagery, and repetition, in order to create a visual image of the speaker’s experience in “Fifteen” to emphasize the his situation in that scene and what he feels in those moments. Stafford starts off the poem by saying, “South of the bridge on Seventeenth” (1). This slightly reveals the speaker’s wish of being an adult, because bridge on seventeenth means that end of the bridge of seventeenth, eighteenth ,which is an adult age, will come up. Comparing the bridge to an actual stage of age reveals the speaker’s thought of wanting to be an adult when
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Speaker finds the motorcycle on the side of the road and describes it saying, “I admired all that pulsing gleam, the shiny flanks, the demure headlights fringed where it lay” (6-8). It shows the way the speaker interpreted his first impression of the motorcycle; and it definitely reveals the speaker’s admires towards the motorcycle. By describing the motorcycle very visually, the readers can expect what the speaker feels about the motorcycle and that he really likes and wants it. Also, when the speaker meets the owner of the motorcycle, the speaker describes the rider by saying, “He had blood on his hand, was pale- I helped him walk to his machine” which reveals the speaker’s thoughts of his will to chase after his own desires and dreams even if he trembles like the rider (18-19). As the speaker looks at the rider, who is an adult, we can observe that he is admiring the rider riding the motorcycle and experiencing the life of an adult. Dreaming further with the motorcycle, “I thought about hills, and patting the handle got back a confident opinion”, the speaker shows that he is imagining himself riding the motorcycle over hills and on the bridge (12-14). Imagining himself going anywhere makes him shortly experience the freedom and the achievement of his will that he yearned for. The imagery allows Stafford to deliver his message through the description of boy’s
Speaker finds the motorcycle on the side of the road and describes it saying, “I admired all that pulsing gleam, the shiny flanks, the demure headlights fringed where it lay” (6-8). It shows the way the speaker interpreted his first impression of the motorcycle; and it definitely reveals the speaker’s admires towards the motorcycle. By describing the motorcycle very visually, the readers can expect what the speaker feels about the motorcycle and that he really likes and wants it. Also, when the speaker meets the owner of the motorcycle, the speaker describes the rider by saying, “He had blood on his hand, was pale- I helped him walk to his machine” which reveals the speaker’s thoughts of his will to chase after his own desires and dreams even if he trembles like the rider (18-19). As the speaker looks at the rider, who is an adult, we can observe that he is admiring the rider riding the motorcycle and experiencing the life of an adult. Dreaming further with the motorcycle, “I thought about hills, and patting the handle got back a confident opinion”, the speaker shows that he is imagining himself riding the motorcycle over hills and on the bridge (12-14). Imagining himself going anywhere makes him shortly experience the freedom and the achievement of his will that he yearned for. The imagery allows Stafford to deliver his message through the description of boy’s