Kate Scott
April 14, 2009
English 09
Mr. Salsich
Forgiveness:
An Essay about a Short Story and a Poem
In Naomi Shihab Nye’s poem she used a lot figurative language. In her poem she says, “[I’m] dumping out a whole drawer at once.” This is figurative language. She is not actually dumping a drawer out, but she is dumping all of the mean things she has done or said to her brother, hopping he will forgive her. She also uses imagery in her poems to remember the times she had with her brother. She talks about the day when she saw “[his] face bleeding” after she pushed him in front of a bike. She uses many metaphors as well. One of them is, “you're Wall Street and I'm the local fruit market.” She is telling us how different she and her brother are but “that’s fine.” She doesn’t care that her brother isn’t like her because she knows that family is the most important thing.
The short story, “Sonny’s Blues” by James Baldwin can relate to “The Little Brother” poem. In Mr. Baldwin’s story little Gracie dies and Isabel, the narrators wife, heard a thump. Even though she has a lot of kids and hears bangs all the time, that one time “something happened to her to make her afraid.” She knew that something was wrong and she was right. This reminded me of Ms. Nye’s poem when her little brother “disappeared into the streets of Dallas at midnight,” and she new that he was never coming back. In both stories they had an instinct that told them something was wrong. Also in both pieces of writing they talking about forgiveness. At the very end of Sonny’s Blues, Sonny “Looked towards [the narrator] and nodded”. This nod symbolized forgiveness. It reminded me of the very end of “The Little Brother” poem when she is laying out all of her memories asking for forgiveness. Over all, the story and poem are very similar.
Both authors no what it is like to love a sibling. They have both experienced something that has pulled them apart, and they want them back in there life’s. Both Authors understood the word forgiveness very well.
3 comments:
KATE
Good start, I thought you got your main point, forgiveness, across very well. However, there are a lot of typos, but you can fix them with just a quick re-read. In this sentence, "Also in both pieces of writing they outtalking about forgiveness", it probably is just another typo, but just some re-wording will do. Lastly, remember to label your special tools! So, overall just read it over, to make sure everything makes sense, and you've got yourself one HUMDINGER of an essay!
Dear Kate-Great read! I really enjoyed you're use of quotes in the second paragraph! One thing you forgot was a title. I have made this mistake before and its a very easy way to lose points. Another thing you may want to expand is you're closing paragraph. I felt it to be a bit too short and blunt. But all in all, if you take Parker's advice you will have a great essay!
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