Monday, January 30, 2012

Entry 1_ Lê Hồng Ngọc


Entry 1_Lê Hồng Ngọc
Item 1: Poem

Love and Friendship [1]

(A poem by "Emily Bronte")







Love is like the wild rose-briar,
Friendship like the holly-tree
The holly is dark when the rose-briar blooms
But which will bloom most constantly?

The wild-rose briar is sweet in the spring,
Its summer blossoms scent the air;
Yet wait till winter comes again
And who will call the wild-briar fair?

Then scorn the silly rose-wreath now
And deck thee with the holly's sheen,
That when December blights thy brow
He may still leave thy garland green.

Rhetorical devices:
o   Rhyme: air-fair; now-brow; sheen-green;… 
o   Metaphor: Love (wild rose-briar – deciduous plant); friendship (holly-tree - evergreen); spring, summer (good times, the youth); winter (rough times)
Message:
Friendship may not be as romantic as love but love comes and goes, it is the friendship which is always there to comfort you in rough times and lasts eternally.


Item 2: Fable


The Story of the Butterfly [2]
A man found a cocoon of a butterfly. One day a small opening appeared. He sat and watched the butterfly for several hours as it struggled to squeeze its body through the tiny hole. Then it stopped, as if it couldn't go further. So the man decided to help the butterfly. He took a pair of scissors and snipped off the remaining bits of cocoon. The butterfly emerged easily but it had a swollen body and shriveled wings. The man continued to watch it, expecting that any minute the wings would enlarge and expand enough to support the body. Neither happened! In fact the butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling around. It was never able to fly. What the man in his kindness and haste did not understand: The restricting cocoon and the struggle required by the butterfly to get through the opening was a way of forcing the fluid from the body into the wings so that it would be ready for flight once that was achieved. Sometimes struggles are exactly what we need in our lives. Going through life with no obstacles would cripple us. We will not be as strong as we could have been and we would never fly.
Rhetorical devices:
o   Metaphor: Butterfly (a person); the cocoon (hardship, obstacle).
Message:
            In our lives, sometimes we need solve our own problems by ourselves to evolve because once we manage to overcome the obstacles, the tremendous insights and experience we gain will be helpful to be better people.

Item 3: Cartoon [3]


              

Rhetorical devices:
o   Irony (taking photos and videos instead of saving the drowning men)
Message:
 Today, people are becoming too indifferent with others.






5 comments:

  1. In item 1, I think that “ Love is like the wild rose-briar,
    Friendship like the holly-tree”.
    The rhetorical device is simile

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you so much for your comment. I agree that it is simile in the first 2 sentences. However, in the rest of the poem, I think it should be metaphor.

      Delete
  2. the item 3 is a meaninggful picture. In my opinion, it also gives us the message that: today, we overuse the mobiephone.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks a lot for your comment. I really like this picture too because it shows an upset truth about human today. Instead of saving the drowning man, those people are taking photos and video to post to the internet. It rings a bell that today we are too indifferent with others and its also give a message about the strength of the technology.

      Delete
  3. _in item 1, I agree with Dung Nguyen that there's rhetorical device else: simile (love id like... and friendship like...)
    _i like your second item: brief and meaningful. you can extent that the buterlly is also visual metaphor for the life of people not just one person.
    _item 3, i have same idea with you.

    ReplyDelete

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