Tag: themes

theme of irrationality of war in the man he killed by thomas hardy
Poems

War and its Irrationality in Thomas Hardy’s Poem“The Man He Killed”

Charity

Thomas Hardy’s (1840-1928) poem The Man He Killed is a lyrical monologue of a soldier who has returned from war. He’s speaking about the war to his friends and native villagers in a pub. In its 1902 original publication in Harper’s Weekly magazine, the poem’s setting is a scene inside the Foxx Inn pub.

Hardy moved a lot between London and Dorset in his life, finally settling in Dorchester. These areas were popular for their antiwar stances on the ongoing second Boer War in South Africa, which lasted from 1899 to 1902. The Man He Killed is just one of the antiwar poems the poet wrote to show the senselessness and negative effects of war.

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Symbolism of the audiotapes in Cathedral by Raymond Carver
Short stories

 Cathedral by Raymond Carver: Audio Tapes as a Symbol, and What they Reveal about each Character

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Raymond Carver’s 1983 short story Cathedral is about awakening and eye-opening experiences that go beyond the physical world. It vividly illustrates the difference between merely looking and seeing; hearing and listening that creates a connection. 

The author portrays this so well through the main theme of blindness and other symbolic elements. And more notably, the narrator’s character development, which goes from shallow and insensitive, to gaining the ability to look within themself and see things through another’s perspective. 

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Stone Mattress
Books, Short stories

Layers and Layers of Experience: “Stone Mattress” by Margaret Atwood

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Eventually, our life experiences shape who we become. As it is with human nature, some of these experiences we can control, while others we can’t, so we react. However, the ways we choose to react with love, hurt, or forgive are all our choices.

“Stone Mattress” is Margaret Atwood’s latest collection of short fiction that she calls ‘tales’ rather than ‘short stories’. The first three tales are connected by narrations and reflections of a poet’s two wives, and lover. While the other stories do not share characters or plot, the entire book is connected through major themes of aging and old age. In “Stone Mattress”, Atwood includes characters that are in their senior years, reflecting on what life has offered, making amends, or retributions.

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Poems

The Theme of Regret in ‘The Road Not Taken’ by Robert Frost

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Robert Frost’s famous poem ‘The Road Not Taken’ has been anthologized in plentiful collections and quoted in a multitude of settings, some without even knowing it.

Motivational speakers, pastors, promotion, and award speeches all tout its main theme of individualism and ‘following your own path’. How they took a different career path or made an infamous decision and that has put them at that podium. The poem’s last three lines often sum up these powerful talks,

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