A poem is an experience, not a thought. It is an experience both the author and the reader share with one another. Authors of poems use tones, keywords, hidden messages, irony, and diction to create their work. They use these tactics so the reader thinks about what they are reading and try evaluating what the message is that the reader wants to get across. In the poem “Snow” by Louis MacNeice, he uses these same characteristics to get the readers mind active in the words. Let’s examine the poem “Snow” and see what the meaning behind this poem is. To begin thinking about this poem, we should stop and try to imagine the background of the poem. A tone could include mysterious, since the meaning is not seen right away, but it could also be thoughtful because he allows us to think in a different way. We know there is a main character which could be the author, but are not given his name. The setting is at a house where the first snowfall is mixing with the flowers left from the summertime. The time-period is not given to us in the poem, so we are unsure of that. Finally, when thinking about why MacNeice wrote this poem we can see there is a connection between the weather he is seeing outside and the world around us. The title is very simple and can cause any reader to think the same thing. Snow according the Merriam Webster Dictionary, the word snow has one main definition. Snow is “the precipitation in the form of small white crystals formed directly from the water vapor of the air at a temperature less than 32 degrees.” In other words, it is the frozen crystals that fall from the sky during the winter season. Just by the title we should be able to tell what the poem will be about, but MacNeice puts a turn on the wording of the poem to catch the reader off guard. This raises the question if MacNeice wanted the poem to be about a snowfall, or does he have a deeper meaning underneath the title? As the poem continues there will be more references at what the poem is about. The first sentence gives the reader an oxymoron to think about. MacNeice talks about spawning snow, which we could figure out from the title, but he also includes the thought of spawning pink roses against a window. This can be confusing to
b. The snow symbolizes Ann’s depression. Cold is obviously associated with snow, which is how Ann feels about the cold. In reference to the text, Ann says “Wad something along the window sills to keep out the drafts. Then I’ll feel brighter. It’s the cold that depressed.” The depression is resulted from Ann’s isolation and she is always trying to fix it. A lot of the times in the story the snowy cold drafts creep through the window sill and makes Ann feel even more depressed.
This poem brought me back to my home town and the wonders and beauty that it brings around winter time, and made me nostalgic with memories of past winters with my family and slightly saddened for those who have never seen the magical ability snow has. This poem reminded me that there are people who live in states where their change in seasons is not as noticeable, as the ones that I grew up with and have come to miss. Similar to many of the romantics, natures true beauty can transform the mundane into a work of art that would never have existed
Beep! Beep! Beep! I wake up to an alarm screaming in my ear. I smack the alarm to shut the yelling off. It was a January day, in the middle of the cold, brutal winter. I finally got up after sitting in bed for what felt like hours, and looked outside like I do every morning. I noticed that there was no sign of grass to be seen. All that could be seen was white, frozen blanket of thick snow. I started to get ready for the school day and I just prayed that school was going to be canceled. As soon as I was fully ready I stepped outside and my food sunk down a foot and a half below the snow! I could not believe it that school was still open. As soon as I got to my car that was completely covered in snow, my mother comes out and yells that school was closed. I felt a huge wave as release and I ran back inside and went right back to sleep.
David Sedaris’ essay, “Let It Snow” is a reflection of Sedaris’ past. A single day from his childhood in North Carolina where Sedaris and his siblings were home due to school being closed for few days because of bad weather. The story reflects solely on the relationship that Sedaris’ mother had with him and his sisters, and how it was affected by her drinking problem. Although the story revolved around the children the mother was the main character.
The poem “That Winter,” is the seasonal poem describing the environment has changed by using imagery. It’s impressive for describing the poem with imagery. From lines 1 to 6 on “That Winter” poem:
Throughout the text, Michael mentions the snow. Considering the book’s about a blizzard, that’d be normal, right? However, in my view, the snow symbolizes something, like dreadful times. Scattered around, the context surrounding the snow can be interpreted as how you feel during those times. For example, later in the book, when the students realize just how bad it is, they explain it as, “There was no higher ground, no place left for us to go”(Northrop 158). Here, a relation to people feeling as if there’s nowhere else to go, so they’re trapped in the horrible event occurring can be made. Results tend to be mourning over those poor times in people’s lives. Similarly, Michael connects that to how we view bad situations. Early on in the book, description of the snow is showed as it being “small flakes”, “like grains of sugar… the flakes had fattened up and
To start off with, the snow creates a setting within the story. For example, in the text it says, “I sat up and looked at it for a while. It was like how you can’t see out the window into darkness at night, but anyone out there can see in, if that makes any sense.” (Northrop, page 69) This piece of text demonstrates how the snow creates a setting because the snow surrounded the high school and made the characters feel captive. Similarly, at the beginning of the novel, it says,
Snow here could represent dullness or loneliness. Frost feels that everything or everyone around him are filled with loneliness, no excitement and everything seems to be the same. Line four in the poem says that “But a few weeds and stubble showing last.” Here it tells us that although dullness, emptiness, or loneliness covered almost everything around him, he could still see some life or excitement somewhere in between. Yet this small bits of life and excitement were nothing compared to the overwhelming emptiness. In the next couple of lines, Frost seems to have forgotten all about the weeds and stubble he saw and put his attention back to the empty, snow covered surroundings. He then looks at the woods near the field and that too have been covered in snow. He also mentioned that all the animals are covered in snow in their lairs. These two lines again emphasize how Frost feels. He knows that there are live around him, yet those life are also filled with emptiness. Soon he even realized that not only the surroundings that were filled with loneliness, but Frost himself are also in it as line eight says, “The loneliness includes me unawares.”
In “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”, Frost describes a thick patch of woods that are a long way from anything. He does not go into great detail describing them, leaving that to the reader’s imagination. He merely describes them as “lovely, dark and deep.” This lack of detail is to help us focus not so much on all the things that are there, as the things that aren’t. He mentions that the horse must be thinking that this is strange to stop here, with no barn near. The only thing that is nearby is nature. The lake is frozen and the trees and ground are covered with snow. During a snowstorm, sound does not travel very well. It is very muddled and muted. The only sounds that are mentioned in the poem are the bells on the horse’s harness and the wind. So, the rider is stopping to smell the roses. He is taking a break from the world around
In the second stanza it is the semantic field of cold: ‘winter’, ‘ice’, ‘naked’, ‘snow’. All these lexical items give us a feeling of cold which evokes loneliness, unknown, fear.
Although this poem also is connected with nature, the theme is more universal in that it could be related to Armageddon, or the end of the world. Even though this theme may seem simple, it is really complex because we do not know how Frost could possibly
“The cherry hung with snow” indicates there is a comparison between winter and spring. This works for the poem, helping it to clarify the stages of life. Cherry trees have beautiful flowers in the spring, at which time life all around flourishes.
“Snow Bound”, a poem describing the joyous day for a boy who experienced snow for the first time. Author, John Greenleaf Whittier uses imagery perfectly. “The blue walls of the firmament, no cloud about, no earth below-a universe of sky and snow.” The author describes the setting of the poem by his use of rich and creative imagery.
Coupled with his depiction of Dublin’s immobile status through his characters, James Joyce also exemplifies his theme of paralysis through snow. In Daniel R. Schwarz’s psychoanalytic criticism of The Dead, he explains that “the snow imagery focuses our attention on a world outside Gabriel…where as ice, it suggests the emotional sterility of a world reduced to social gestures, empty talk, and loveless relationships” (Schwarz 123). However, I disagree with Schwarz and believe that James Joyce uses snow to symbolically represent the cold and dead Dublin due to its uncertain political period. When Gabriel first enters his aunt’s party, “A light fringe of snow lay like a cape on the shoulders of his overcoat and like toecaps on the toes of his galoshes; and as the buttons of his overcoat slipped with a squeaking noise through the snow-stiffened frieze, a cold fragrant air from out-of-doors escaped from crevices and folds” (The Dead 23). This symbolism comes back at the end of The Dead through Gabriel’s later thoughts on how the snow “was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills…falling upon every part of the lonely churchyard,” and touching both the living and the dead, symbolizing that not only Gabriel, but his entire country, both the living and the lifeless had been united in
Also, the snow representation was important because it seem to be universal; it brings the dead and living parallel with each other. The snow covered Ireland entirely; the snow was covering the people of Ireland the ones who were living and who were dead in spirit, with life. I believe the snow falling over all Ireland and the universe as a metaphor. Since snow represent death I think the snow falling over all Ireland means death has fallen on the people of Ireland because they are not living they are repetitive in everything they do afraid to shine they have been placde in a paralysis