Saturday, April 6, 2013

What figurative language (personification, simile, metaphor) is used in the poem "We Real Cool" by Gwendolyn Brooks?

A series of implied metaphors in this poem are used to emphasise
the way in which the group of youngsters, who are portrayed as the speakers in the poem, the "We"
who address the reader, as being "cool." These implied metaphors are in turn strengthened by
alliteration, which is the repetition of the initial consonant sound. Examples include "We / Sing
sin," which suggests that the young men are engaging in some kind of sinful act with their
"singing," and "We / Jazz June" likewise creates an image of their intensive dancing and
hedonistic enjoyment of life which distracts them from the final sentence of the poem, which
points to the way in which there is a cost to such enjoyment of life which cannot be ultimately
ignored. Thus, although there are no direct examples of figurative language in the poem,
arguably, you can see some of the descriptive details as being implied metaphors in their
presentation of the young men. You can't "Sing sin," but it does present them as being characters
fully indulging in their vices.

No comments:

Post a Comment

How is Anne's goal of wanting "to go on living even after my death" fulfilled in Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl?I didn't get how it was...

I think you are right! I don't believe that many of the Jews who were herded into the concentration camps actually understood the eno...