One Perfect Rose

A single flow'r he sent me, since we met.
All tenderly his messenger he chose;
Deep-hearted, pure, with scented dew still wet—
One perfect rose.

I knew the language of the floweret;
"My fragile leaves," it said, "his heart enclose."
Love long has taken for his amulet
One perfect rose.

Why is it no one ever sent me yet
One perfect limousine, do you suppose?
Ah no, it's always just my luck to get
One perfect rose.

What are some themes in this poem?

What is the tone? What are some word choices that convey this tone?

What are some examples of imagery?

How does the use of repetition function in this poem?

How does rhyme function in this poem?

from A Certain Lady

And when, in search of novelty, you stray,
Oh, I can kiss you blithely as you go ....
And what goes on, my love, while you're away,
You'll never know.

How is this an example of ambiguity?

Aunt Jennifer's Tigers

Aunt Jennifer's tigers prance across a screen,
Bright topaz denizens of a world of green.
They do not fear the men beneath the tree;
They pace in sleek chivalric certainty.

Aunt Jennifer's fingers fluttering through her wool
Find even the ivory needle hard to pull.
The massive weight of Uncle's wedding band
Sits heavily upon Aunt Jennifer's hand.

When Aunt is dead, her terrified hands will lie
Still ringed with ordeals she was mastered by.
The tigers in the panel that she made
Will go on prancing, proud and unafraid.

What are some themes in this poem?

What is the tone? What are some word choices that convey this tone?

What are some examples of imagery?

How does enjambment function in the second stanza?

What does the tiger symbolize? What does the wedding band symbolize?

Mrs. Linde functions as a foil to Nora in Doll House. How so?

Ballad of Birmingham

The mother smiled to know her child
Was in the sacred place,
But that smile was the last smile
To come upon her face.

For when she heard the explosion,
Her eyes grew wet and wild.
She raced through the streets of Birmingham
Calling for her child.

How is antithesis used in this passage?

Figurative Language

"There is a recurrent spot where the pattern lolls like a broken neck and two bulbous eyes start at you upsidedown" ("Yellow Wallpaper" 516)

"You think you have mastered it [pattern in the wallpaper], but just as you get well underway in following, it turns a back-somersault and there you are. It slaps you in the face, knocks you down, and tramples upon you. It is like a bad dream" (519)

A violet by a mossy stone
Half hidden from the eye!
--Fair as a star, when only one
Is shining in the sky. (She Dwelt among the Untrodden Ways 649)

Cure then, thou mighty winged god,
This restless fever in my blood;
One golden-pointed dart take back:
But which, O Cupid, wilt thou take? (On Her Loving Two Equally 612)

"[Christine] could feel the pressure he was under, like a clenched mass of something, tissue, congealed blood, at the back of her own head. She thought of Don as being encased in a sort of metal carapace, like the shell of a crab, that was slowly tightening on him, on all parts of him at once, so that something was sure to burst, like a thumb closed slowly in a car door. The metal skin was his entire body, and Christine didn't know how to unlock it for him and let him out." ("Scarlet Ibis" 554)