Sylvia Likens

The title at 39 is very significant and could be interpreted as the age she wrote this poem or at what age her father died. She explains the situation her father is in at that point in time which is very important to her, this poem is written in free verse and short lines. The poem is not very structured so it seems like she is thinking about this rather than writing it, flowing from one thought to another and finally coming to a conclusion. By repeating the phrase ‘’How I miss my father’’(1)…

What is one mistake someone can never come back from? Suicide, it’s irreversible. The book I read is entitled Sad Perfect, a novel created by Stephanie Elliot. In this work of fiction, there is a very good lesson to be learned about suicide and mental illness. Wrote in second person point of view, one can actually feel like it is themselves experiencing the events. Sixteen-year-old Pea tries to act like a normal high school girl, but only very few people know about her eating disorder, which…

The Story of an Hour is a short story by author Kate Chopin, that was published in 1984. The story was originally published in Vogue, on December 6th, titled "The Dream of an Hour”. Louise Mallard, the main character, has heart problems. Therefore, at the beginning of the text we are told that she must be informed of her husband’s death in a careful manner. Her sister Josephine delivers the news. The reader is also told that Louise’s husband’s friend, named Richards, had learned about his…

Sylvia Plath; Along with authors such as Virginia Woolf, Simone de Bauvoir and Marguerite Duras, is one of the biggest female authors of 20th century. The Bell Jar shares more characteristics with Sylvia Plath’s life than just a semi-autobiographical novel. The main character of the book, Esther travels to New York to work as an intern in a fashion magazine, just like Sylvia Plath did. They are both poets, who lost their fathers at the age of 8 and both Esther and Sylvia Plath slowly falls into…

The pressure to conform to beauty standards that don't resemble yourself lead to feelings of shame and inferiority. In The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison she writes in chapters naming them each season of the year. In this chapter she talks about the season Winter. There is a new girl introduced at school named Maureen Peal who is a light-skinned, wealthy black girl who the whole school loves. Claudia and Freida dislike her and the attention she receives from everyone so they search for flaws in her…

Mary Oliver reveals conjectures people make about other people and other cultures in her poem, “Singapore.” Oliver shares a woman’s experience in an airport bathroom. The speaker in the poem is inwardly conflicted, and her internal thoughts displayed throughout the poem alter. At first, the poem reveals the speaker’s thoughts towards a woman working as a custodian at the airport as degrading and poignant. The speaker judgmentally feels sorry for the woman and takes pity on her. The speaker’s…

Sylvia Plath is known for being a feminist writer before the women’s rights movement. She wrote numerous poems and books including The Bell Jar. The story is about a women that is slowly losing her sanity and includes all of her family and friends. The time frame makes the story more intense because treatment then was very harsh against mental illness. But they didn’t know how much more damage they were actually causing. Mental illness can’t be forced out of a human but it can be helped if the…

In the “Mirror”, by Sylvia Plath, shows the lack of confidence women face with image/reflection and the hours associated with aging through personification and metaphors. The author is accomplishing numerous forms of figurative language devices. Symbolism to show images only last for a very short time and resulting, the speaker’s attitude toward truthfulness. In the next couple paragraphs I would like to focus on the theme, tone/attitude and figurative language device used in this poem. The…

Poetry is forms of writing that can help numerous people write their views and feelings in a modest way. Gabriel Okara, Louis MacNeice and Rudyard Kipling all convey their worries and memories through their poems, ‘Once Upon a Time, ‘Prayer Before Birth and ‘If’. All of these three poems have a common theme, which is childhood. “Once Upon a Time” by Gabriel Okara is a free verse poem. The poem is written in a first person point of view and contains irregular stanzas. The speaker could be a…

Sylvia Plath’s 1963 novel “The Bell Jar”, briefs the story of an amazing, gifted poet, Esther Greenwood, whose falling apart piece by piece due to the pressure of society. Throughout the novel Esther gave many signs on how she's slowly falling apart. When working for the Ladies’ Day magazine in New York, Esther develops a mental illness. An illness that makes her unable to sleep then leads to her not being able to read and write. She then tries to commit suicide multiple times due to the lack of…