Loss Bradstreet’s ‘‘Upon the Burning of Our House’’ is concerned primarily with the poet’s great sense of loss, along with her attempt to mediate this pain through her faith in God. Throughout the middle third of the poem, Bradstreet offers an emotional itemization of her material losses and suggests the psychological toll such losses have…
Tag: Themes
Sympathy by Paul Lawrence Dunbar – Themes
Racism The central metaphor of the caged bird in ‘‘Sympathy,’’ with the bird forced to perform within confinement, could be taken as suggesting the slavery African Americans endured in the United States for two and a half centuries. Though Dunbar lived after the emancipation, the legacy of slavery continued through various social, legal, and psychological…
Shoulders by Noami Shihab Nye – Themes
Universal Love Much of Nye’s poetry is about humanitarianism and people caring for one another. ‘‘Shoulders’’ is no exception. A father carries his son across the street. He looks both ways, twice. He is very careful to get his boy safely to the other side. In lines 13–16, Nye says that people must be willing…
On My First Son by Ben Jonson: Themes
Grief In ‘‘On My First Son,’’ Jonson provides a glimpse into deep, fatherly grief over the loss of his first child, Benjamin, who died from the plague on his seventh birthday. Through simple, straightforward language, Jonson expresses this grief while, at the same time, attempting to assuage it. In the first two lines of the…
The Old Stoic by Emily Bronte: Themes
Salvation As positively as Stoicism was viewed by the educated middle class of nineteenth century Britain, that culture was nevertheless a deeply Christian one, and it was quite usual for Christian ideas to insinuate themselves into Victorian endorsements of the ancient philosophy. Bronte¨ does an excellent job of avoiding this temptation, but she moves in…
Mushrooms by Sylvia Plath: Themes
Feminism The main theme of ‘‘Mushrooms’’ can be seen as the feminist struggle and growth to greater selfawareness. This is treated through the symbolism of the mushrooms, which can be assumed to stand for women. This interpretation, it might be argued, is the one that is most consistent within the context of the poem. However,…
Jazz Fantasia: Themes
The Jazz Age The 1920s were the beginning of the Jazz Age, when musicians were experimenting with the earliest forms of jazz music. The sound came with the blacks migrating from New Orleans and mixed with the already established ragtime style. In ‘‘Jazz Fantasia,’’ Sandburg praises musicians of 1920, who had just begun to play…
I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud – Themes
Nature Perhaps the key term in the poem is ‘‘lonely,’’ which describes the poet’s state of mind as he walks in nature. He does not say merely that he was alone. He refers to a specific lack of a sense of community, or connectedness. He is isolated, and in the poem he uses the image…
The Hollow Men: Themes
Death Death pervades ‘‘The Hollow Men’’ from beginning to end. The artificial men are empty yet full. They reference a holiday centered on the tradition of burning an effigy of Guy Fawkes, an act in which death is implicit. A second implication of death is also part of this metaphor. Indeed, the hollow men of…
Elena by Pat Mora: Themes
Language and Languages Mora’s poem ‘‘Elena’’ is concerned with the narrator’s native language of Spanish and the English language of her adoptive country, the United States. For Elena, these two languages are symbolic of the conflict between the familiarity of her native land and the challenges posed by relocating to a new country. The Spanish…