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Grade 11 English Independent Study

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Grade 11 English Independent Study Assignment 2: Growing up 1. A) & B) After finishing the selection titled “Eighteen” by Maria Banus, I was completed surprised on how genuine the authors feelings were. Normally when I read poetry it is difficult to understand the meaning of numerous amount of it, if not all of the lines but this one was different as if it pertained to me. This poem made me feel rather sad and miserable because there are a lot of grievances that one may bring up about growing into an adult. Everyone always says how enjoyable your teenage years are, how invigorating the experience is to live life to the fullest and to enjoy it before it comes to end, but a lot of people may disagree. This analogy is incorrect to …show more content…

This specific selection reminds me of a show on television where a girl dealt with severe acne that completely covered her face in a horrific manner. This of course resulted in deep pits on her face after puberty leaving her “burnt” just like the character in the poem was after her sad adolescence. My prediction of the outcome of the characters’ life is that he/she now has time to enjoy her life since they have settled out their inconveniences because the good times are ahead of them and the bad times have expired. There are two significant poetic devices that are prominent in this selection that greatly help in feeding the reader information on how the character actually feels. One of these is a simile which is found in line three, “My mind charges the world like a bull.” In this simile, Banus compares the teenage dominant mind of a person to how angry, fierce and furious a bull can get, especially when someone ticks it off. A bull is commonly accepted as a dangerous animal only in short intervals and during a certain time period which is when for example, the color red is flashed in front of the animal’s face. This can be similarly be considered the same situation in the eyes of someone observing the moodiness of adolescents during puberty. Although adolescents are no way dangerous like a bull, they are more than likely to be snappy other people and hurt another’s feelings compared to when

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