Item 1: Dreams
Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.
Langston
Hughes
http://www.poemhunter.com.
Rhetorical
devices:
·
Simile: Broken-winged bird, barren field = the life
·
Metaphor: Cannot fly, frozen with snow (the life is very meaningless)
Message: don’t live for survival without
nothing but live for dream, aspiration, ideal goal.
Item 2: Lesson on life
There was a man who had four sons. He wanted his
sons to learn not to judge things too quickly. So he sent them each on a quest,
in turn, to go and look at a pear tree that was a great distance away. The first son he sent in the winter, the
second in the spring, the third in summer, and the youngest son in the fall.
The first son said that the tree was ugly, bent, and twisted.
The second son said no it was covered with green buds and full of promise.
The third son disagreed; he said it was laden with blossoms that smelled so
sweet and looked so beautiful, it was the most graceful thing he had ever seen.
The last son disagreed with all of them; he said it was ripe and drooping with
fruit, full of life and fulfillment.
The man then explained to his sons that they were all right, because they had
each seen but only one season in the tree's life. He told them that you cannot judge a tree,
or a person, by only one season, and that the essence of who they are and the
pleasure, joy, and love that come from that life can only
be measured at the end, when all the seasons are up. If you give up when it's winter, you
will miss the promise of your spring, the beauty of your summer, fulfillment of
your fall.
http://www.truthbook.com/stories/dsp_viewStories.cfm?storytypeID=1
Rhetorical devices: Metaphor (pear tree: the life of people)
Message: Don't let the pain of one season
destroy the joy of all the rest. Don't judge life by one difficult season.
Persevere through the difficult patches and better times are sure to
come.
Item 3
Cartoon about wage-bonus in banks during
the economic downturn. Photo: The Guardian
Rhetorical : Irony (a pig like the potential banhks in the world).
Message : during the economic downturn, the imbalance in operating causes the
banks cannot resolve the ‘’giant’’ debt despite high bonus and tax revenue.
I like this poem. I think rhyme is also one of its rhetorical devices (die-fly, go-snow)
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ReplyDeletethere is also a rhetorical device in itme 1: reprtition: How fast...
ReplyDeleteIn the second item, I think this story also tells us that we can't judge people or things at one side like we can't not see a tree in just one season. Every thing must be considered from other point of view.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, the first also has another rhetorical which is Rhyme: Die-Fly; Go-snow. You can hardly recognize it maybe because it doesn't appear in next 2 two lines
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ReplyDeleteHi, I think your entry is good in general.
ReplyDeleteIn item 1, it is a short but meaningful poem. I agree with Jamphuong and Nga Kiều that rhyme and repetition can also be detected in this poem.
In item 2, on the one hand, I think we should also pay attention to the circle Winter- Spring- Summer- Fall- Winter... as well. And I have a question that why did the man send the oldest son in winter, and so on till the youngest son in fall but not the reverse order? It might be because in the very first part of life, we could find it beautiful as Fall but later in Winter, it's ugly, etc. I wonder whether the order of seasons mentioned and the season circle have any meanings that I cannot detect.
On the other hand, I agree with Lê Hồng Ngọc's idea. We should touch all the bases when judging something.
In item 3, I think BAD DEBT should be considered as in the picture. As far as I understand from the picture,
UK banks is 'depicted' as a big fat pig which is 'well' fed with abundant tax revenue ans bonuses. However, it is the fact that this 'pig' is not well at all. It seems to be tired, slow and 'blind' with tiring eyes and patchedup body, especially the big hole named BAD DEBT. That is to say that UK government is in lack of efficient policy to run the banks. They keep pouring as much money as they can into banks but the hope to improve the situation is let in vain because of bad debt. I wonder whether they really run out of solution or just 'ignore' bad debt problem by asking a very 'innocent' question: "Do you think we've fed it?"
Anyway, I like this picture. It's impressive.
In item 2, I'm not really agree with you about the order, because Spring and Summer are also beautiful
DeleteIn item 3, first, in fact, the 2 guys asked "Do you think we've FIXED it?". I don't think that they couldn't see the hole. Moreover, this cartoon is about the bonuses for the employees at UK banks during recession, so we should pay attention to the feeding trough: While UK banks need money from the government to survive, they still use a lot of money to reward their employee.
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