Poetry Questions (ch 7&8)

Incident (pg. 832)

1. The title is very key with the meaning of the piece. It emphasizes the reality in which this is the only "incident" the boy remembers. The last stanza is so effective because it emphasizes by overstatement that the boy is continuously affected by this moment. It's probably not all he remembers, but it is the most significant.

New England (pg. 833)
1. Learn to walk on frozen toes

wind is always north-north-east

who boil elsewhere

They have become mad with the heat and their prosperity. They also become wild and out of control from all of the drinking that they do.

2. The speaker is curious about those in a warmer climate. He hasn't met them and has to form an opinion from what "we're told." Because his knowledge of these things is somewhat second hand, the speaker seems to look down on their lifestyle. Learning that the poet is from Maine emphasizes the envy/wonder at the way of life in the warmer states. He seems to be saying bad things to make himself feel better about his own situation.

Barbie Doll (pg. 835)

1. Barbie dolls are made to look "perfect"- just how many people want to look. The girl in the poem wasn't perfect looking. The contrast is supposed to emphasize the goodness of the girl and show the corruption of a society that praises the perfection of a plastic doll before the perfection of a person's heart/attitude.

2. The image of a fan belt is fitting because it is the part of the engine that keeps the motor from getting overheated. In this case, the part of the girl that cools her anger and frustration wore out and she overheated.

3. Her strong arms and back served to help the girls with the hard physical labor of cutting off her own legs. Her manual dexterity helped her to snip off her nose without seeming to do any damage to other parts of her face.

4. Puberty isn't good magic. It is a time of awkwardness and a time when most remove the mask of innocence. The last lines show the reader how everyone felt bad for criticizing the girl and they try to make up for it by calling her pretty when she's dead. Her ending wasn't happy because she had to die to earn praise from others. The satire targets the vainness of society and says not to be too beauty conscious because you'll miss out on the bigger picture.

Ozymandias (pg. 838)

1. The sculptor's hand, the king's heart. Metonymy.

2. Ozymandias: powerful ruler at one time, vain, thinks of himself as a god, cruel, looks down on everyone else.
3. Ozymandias is a symbol of the corruption of powerful leaders/governments.

4. Theme: corruption of power over time. Stated by the words on the plaque and the look on the face of the collapsed statue. The man (statue) is surrounded by nothingness and waste and no one remembers him. He may have thought that people looked up to him as a god and he will always be remembered, but he is soon forgotten.

The Unknown Citizen (pg. 843)

1. scab: a low or contemtible person

Eugenist: a specialist in eugenics (the study of hereditary improvement through choosing who mates and produces offspring)

2. The citizen was "unknown" because he was completely normal. He did nothing (that the Bureau knows of) that was radical in any way. The people who are usually remembered are the ones who made an impression- this man didn't because he was so regular.

Allusion to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers where the unidentified soldiers from WW1 were placed.

3. The title shows us that Auden doesn't feel especially interested in this man. He feels that he did nothing to make himself any different than thousands of other Americans. Auden does feel that this citizen showed good character and morals. he had a wife and childern and enjoyed going out with his friends, he served in the army and was in a Union and worked hard, but we know nothing about how he felt about any of this.

4. The poem satirizes the "average citizen" from the point of view of a government agency. It warns us that being average means sacrificing the individual. It also satirizes the way we judge people based on the way they choose to live their life.

APO 96225 (pg. 846)

1. Dramatic irony. The speaker's attitude toward his story is one of sympathy for the young man, but also the need to inform the readers. He feels that people don't really understand the disconnect that there is when a family member goes to war.

2. The American public wanted to know what was going on in the war (like the mother), but once they got some facts they were upset and withdrew some of their sympathies. This left the soldiers (the son) to feel abandoned.

Mr. Z (pg. 848)

1. profane: vulgar; coarse

kosher: conforming to Jewish dietary laws

exotic: having the charm of the unfamiliar

ethnic: of or pertaining to particular religious, racial, national, or cultural group

2. Mr. Z was motivated by his mother's race to not become like the racial stereotype expected of him. He got a good education, took on the beliefs of white men, avoided his cultural background, and married a blue-eyed woman.

3. The author is satirizing the society for rejecting race. He doesn't give Mr. Z a name because that is probably what the people he was trying to fit in with did. The author likes Mr. Z, but he doesn't like the way he rejects his race and his background.

4. Chameleons blend in with their surroundings, which is what Mr. Z and his wife are trying to do.

Plant without roots: Mr. Z has rejected his background (roots) and because of that he can't grow within his society. He can't grow within white society because he doesn't have a background there either.

The author is judging Mr. Z because of his rejection of who he is.
5. Dramatic irony. (Ln. 8, 16, 19-20)
6. Mr. Z is "black."

"Out, Out-" (pg. 853)

1. A newspaper article with the same incident wouldn't be colored with the same emotions as the poem. It would deal only in the facts.

2. "They" refers to the doctor and the boy's family. The ending of the boy's life is fitting. The family going about their business adds to the realistic effect of the poem. It shows us the vanities of human nature. A more tearful and sentimental ending would be worse because it would remove the reality of it and the disconnected feeling of shock.

3. Metonymy

On His Blindness (pg. 857)

1. spent: exhausted; depleted of energy, force, or strength

fondly: with love or affection

prevent: to keep from happening/ to make impossible

post: assign to a station

2. talent= natural abilities or qualities, a unit of money from ancient times. Milton's talent is writing.

3. Three servants were each given money by their master according to their abilities and told to use it to make even more money. Two of the servants used their talents to double their money and were rewarded by the master. The other servant was afraid of his master and hid the money given to him in the ground. He was not rewarded by the master and was left behind.

The poem is similar to the parable because the speaker has an ability that he must use to make a profit. It is different when the speaker first questions God, but then goes off to do His bidding.

4. The point of the poem is to show the reader that if they have a talent, they should use it to make a profit and they will be rewarded.

in Just (pg. 856)

1. The balloon man is called "goat-footed" because of the way he stands. This alludes to Pan, a Greek god with the bottom half of a goat. He was the god of spring, fields and groves, and fertility. This enriches the poem by reinforcing the idea of spring and youth. The balloon man brings children running, and the god Pan bring children to life.

Leda and the Swan (pg. 859)

1. Leda was raped by Zeus in the form of a swan. One of the children that was born as a result of this union was Clytemenstra, who is the one who murdered Agamemnon (her husband). The broken wall and burning roof could be referring to the end of the Trojan War when Agamemnon would go home and be murdered by his wife.

2. This poem also serves as a warning abou the dangers of strange unions. The question in the last two lines asks if Leda accepted the knowledge that Zeus had when he raped her. I think she did know what her children would do, but she slept with Zeus anyways because then she would get the glory over others from being loved by a god.

Life with Father (pg. 862)

1. Sunday is represented in the poem to reinforce the fact that the children are getting a rest from the attacks of their father when he is drunk. "Last night's raving" means that the father gets mean when he drinks. He beats the children when he gets home from the bar. The "demon" is an allusion to both the devil and the drink.
2. Yes
3. The title becomes ironic with this information due to the fact that it is life with mother that keeps the children fairly safe. Or it's possible that the controlling influence of the mother is what drives father to drink in the first place.
4. The funnies "save" the children by making fun of a situation that is very similar to their own. The allusions are all tied together with some kind of social restraint. There is something blocking the characters in each situation from finding true happiness.
5. The children fear the abuse that comes when the father is drunk, but they also wish for the richness of his love that comes when he is sober. The father's drunken stupor is like the giant's beanstalk because it first has to be planted and then climbed in order to achieve the drunkenness. The stupor is something of his own doing just like meeting the giant came from climbing the beanstalk. Father's drunken stupor makes him think that he can have everything, including money, which he doesn't have. The poverty of the family is shown by the children having to get up even on Sunday to take care of chores, and by the father dreaming of gold. He uses his money to pay for the alcohol that puts him into the stupor and this is how his "dream gold" is gone.