Posted by Katie Hartman (67.172.174.151) on July 5, 2005 at 5:31:47 p.m.:
Katie Hartman
English 301
Jeanne Guerin
Essay #3-Rough Draft
July 5, 2005
“Hardships and Satisfaction”
Poems could possibly be the most difficult piece of literature to read and comprehend. The confusing wordage used throughout the writing can through you off guard and hide the real meaning of the poem. Understanding elements of poetry and where they are and how to find them make reading poems much easier. When there is a beat through rhyming it is easier to stay involved in reading and even similes help readers relate the authors feelings to something easy to relate to. One element of poetry that helps the reader visualize throughout reading the poem is imagery. Imagery is used in Jimmy Santiago Baca’s poem “Green Chile” and Sandra Gilbert’s poem “Mafioso”. Ethnicity can also provide deep meaning in poems because of the background in culture that it provides. Both Baca’s and Gilbert’s poems “Green Chile” and “Mafioso” are able to show similar ethnicity in both writings and a wonderful use of imagery to further show their ethnic roots. P1
Imagery is able to give the reader enough information to build a picture in his or her own mind. Bedford St. Martins describes imagery as “a picture or a sculpture, something concrete and representational within a work of art”. When the reader is able to form a picture about the poem then it becomes easier to understand the poem because it is like the reader is actually in the poem. Many people understand thing better if they see it and imagery provides a visual picture of the story played out through the poem. Objects described in great detail by the author provide good imagery for the reader. The use of imagery can also provide ideas of what the setting is in a poem or how the people in the poem react to certain actions. Imagery can provide a lot of information to the reader while at the same time creating a picture of the story they are trying to tell. P2
Ethnicity is something that every person has in them no matter what happens to them, how they act, or how they are treated. Ethnicity has to do with culture, language, and origin. All of which a group of people can have in common in order to be of the same ethnic group. Having background information on who the poem is about can help understand what is going on throughout the poem and why it is going on. Ethnicity provides a little touch on something different because there are so many different types of ethnicities. Reading a poem can be confusing until the reader comes across something that hints to a certain ethnicity, then the poem that seemed confusing at first soon becomes more clear. Ethnicity is definitely shown in both “Mafioso” and “Green Chile” significantly throughout the poems. If not expressed directly through words the ethnicity can be found through descriptions, hints, or even imagery. Imagery is a great way to find insight into what the ethnicity of the poem is and why people are acting the way they are or even why the author is writing about what he or she is. P3
Imagery is fervently present throughout the poem “Mafioso” by Sandra M. Gilbert. The life of an immigrant is described in all the pain and suffering it beholds. The trip through Ellis Island is described in truth about what the immigrants had to go through. “ready with country clubs and dynamos to grind the organs out of you”(Gilbert, 581). The inspections in Ellis Island are characterized as painful and heartless. Similes are also used to show the imagery of the travel to the United States from Sicily. “was it only you that they transported in barrels like pure olive oil across the Atlantic?” (581). Imagery helps the readers really understand and feel what the immigrants had to encounter as immigrants. Descriptions such as “the wind colder than the impossible snows of the Abruzzi,” (581) describe how the immigrants felt as they stop before all the Americans as they arrived. The imagery really portrays the life of an immigrant in a way that is extremely powerful, much more powerful than to just plainly describe it. P4
The ethnicity of “Mafioso” helps to understand what is being explained throughout the poem, exactly why it is being explained, and the meaning behind it. Names such as Frank Costello, Lucky Luciano, Al Capone, and Mafiosi give the impression that these men are not from America. And the fact they are in a prison, San Quentin, gives the impression that they were possibly in the Italian mob. The ethnicity of this poem is easily traced back from Sicily, “O Mafioso, bad uncles of the barren cliffs of Sicily-“(581). Ethnicity gives explanation of why Ellis Island is discussed and why the immigration process is so vividly described. P5
Imagery in Jimmy Santiago Baca’s “Green Chile” is able to portray the many experiences of chile and the meaning is has to the narrators life. The narrator’s grandmother is described with a “mysterious passion on her face”(Baca, 578) as she cooks the chile around the stove. The chile is describes as “voluptuous, masculine, an air of authority and youth simmers from its swan-neck stem, tapering to a flowery collar, fermenting resinous spice”(578). This explanation gives meaning to the importance of chile to this family and even community. The way the narrator intensely describes the chile and the ritual that goes on shows the experience and excitement that chile brings to them. Such descriptions as “my mouth burns and I hiss and drink a tall glass of cold water”(578) show imagery that gives the reader something he or she can almost feel or relate to. Imagery in this poem focuses on the chile and how the grandmother cooks her chile and that gives you a sense of respect for the dedication and hard work she puts into it. P6
The title “Green Chile” and lines such as “ All over New Mexico,”(578) give hints that ethnicity is Central American and Mexican. Ethnicity is this poem provides meaning the way that chilies have a lot more meaning to the people of Central America. “sunburned men and women drive rickety trucks stuffed with gunny-sacks of green chile, from Belen, Veguita, Willard, Estancia, San Antonio y Socorro, from fields to roadside stands,”(578). Picturing roadside stands gives you the vision of hard working people out in the fields all day then driving to small stands on the side of road trying to sell cheap green chile. The commitment in the kitchen to cooking the chile reflects the hard work people put in growing the chile and selling it. P7
Imagery helps the reader feel what the characters are truly feeling and it can grab you into the story right along with the characters as well. Ethnicity provides understanding for the actions and experiences throughout the poems. In Gilbert’s “Mafioso” understand ethnicity helped understand why Mafioso and his uncles had to go through Ellis Island and why they had to endure the pain and hardships. The imagery in “Mafioso” brought to life the experiences at Ellis Island and how it felt to be looked down upon and the pain people had to go through to enter America. “Green Chile” by Jimmy Santiago Baca uses imagery to beautifully describe the feature of chile and how it was prepared. Understanding the ethnicity if that poem put into perspective the hard work that had to be put into the chile. The hard lives the men and women led were necessary in order to provide the green chile. Imagery and ethnicity provide insight into the meanings of poem and makes a difficult piece of literature to read and comprehend not so difficult after all. P8
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