Paragraph of Analysis of "To His Coy Mistress"

     The relationship between "To His Coy Mistress" and the  "live fast, die young, make a pretty corpse" is all-too clear in the second stanza, exhibited by gruesome imagery that contrasts with the rest of the poem. Whereas the first stanza laments that the speaker cannot focus on the object of his affection's beauty for all eternity, expressing in an admiring tone, and the last stanza states in a passionate tone his desire to live in the moment, the second stanza has a much less affectionate tone. He discusses the "deserts of vast eternity" (24), i.e. death, similarly referencing a "marble vault" and  "worms" (26-27). This discussion of death is a complete reversal of the rest of the poem, intended to shock the object of his affections from her comfortable refuge of her coyness into his awaiting arms. In other words, he intends to make his mistress uncomfortable so as to reduce her coyness and increase his attractiveness in the grand scheme of things. He is telling her that she will certainly make a pretty corpse, but that the only one to enjoy this pretty corpse will be the worms, causing her "quaint honor [to] turn to dust" (29). He is telling her not to waste his affections by holding him away until he dies, at which point so would his affections as "all [his] lust" turns "into ashes" (30). Rather, the two of them, by the speaker's thinking, should enjoy the time they have, else her beauty will ultimately have had no purpose- the "beauty [that] shall no more be found" will have been wasted (25). So as not to simply jar her from her complacency and cause her to hate him, he provides himself as a solution for her newly discovered problem of her beauty's ephemeral nature.

The Stranger II: Bk. 1 Ch. 6 - Bk. 2 Ch. 1

Mersault's incomprehensibly impersonal tone in the novel is also evident in his interactions with others. Mersault can see that the magistrate "couldn't understand" why he waited, because this part of Mersault's story is inconsistent with the model that the magistrate has built for Mersault's psyche (68). Mersault's mind cannot be comprehended by the people around him because his absurd philosophy is different from the ideologies of every person around him such as Christianity. He denies that he believes in God, indicative of his absurd philosophy. When the magistrate begins to preach about God, Mersault nods his head, but when the magistrate asks Mersault a second time whether he believes in God, Mersault finds his answer of no "obvious" (69). Mersault believes that his absurd philosophy is perfectly logical, even though it makes no sense to those around him - especially those who believe in a higher power that cares about humans, a god of some sort, which is inherently inconsistent with absurd philosophy.

Paragraph of Analysis of "Woman Work"

Thesis: The first fourteen lines compose an urgent, rapid tone representative of the woman's life that slows and relaxes in the latter half of the poem.

In the first half of the poem, the women talks about all of the things she has to do. She says that she has "got the children to tend / the clothes to mend / the floor to mop / the food to shop" (1-4). The implication behind repeated, anaphoric "got" is that it is an obligation; the repeated infinitives mimic the imperative meaning of the phrase "to do." The rhymes of the poem draw attention to the repeated infinitives and to the short, clipped style of the poem, in turn illustrating the rapid events and necessities of the woman's life. These come together to form the stressed tone of a lady with too many things to do to relax, a situation altogether too common in the typically rushed lifestyle of the modern day.

The Stranger I: Bk. 1 Ch. 3-5

Mersault is pessimistic, having lost all aspirations for anything better because he believes that it will not make him happier. His boss claims that he had lost ambition, but he had said that "I learned very quickly that none of it really mattered" (41). By a similar token, he thinks that it "d[oes]n't really matter [whether they] get married" (41). In both his relationship and his job, Mersault believes that advancement will buy him nothing. Either he believes that progress does not make one happier, or that progress can only cease to make one unhappy. This is indicated by that he "wasn't dissatisfied" with his life (41). The double negative, illustrative of litotes, serves to demonstrate his detached tone as well as offer the possibility that progress may only be able to reduce unhappiness, not increase happiness. Mersault may be correct in this respect, as wealth correlates with happiness below a certain quantity of wealth, i.e. the amount of wealth required to reduce one's unhappiness, but being richer than sustainable does not increase happiness, so you cannot become happier due to wealth - merely less unhappy. Therefore, Mersault's lack of aspiration may be a logical response to the world - but, as with suicide in an absurd philosophy, an unsatisfying one.

Paragraph of Analysis of "One dignity delays for all"

Thesis: This poem takes a cynical tone towards the general populace because they value the dead more than the living.

Dickinson focuses her poem on a funeral, ironically the area that she feels people center their attention too much on. She spends two stanzas presenting this image, from the "coach [...] and footmen" (5) to the "dignified Attendants" (9). In doing so, she illustrates for the reader how much people value the dead, and how much time they spend on a mere corpse. By contrast, Dickinson does not mention the living being that the corpse once was, just as those who might see a funeral procession passing by and feel pity for the corpse would not consider the same person worthy of thought if they happened to pass on the street. Dickinson illustrates by her focus how people have internalized these relative importances to be considered normal, despite the ridiculousness of valuing a body over a living person.

Picture of Dorian Gray VIII: Ch. 18-20

Morality is not an accumulated quantity; it is a rate of change of quality of the soul. The quality of a person's life is the aggregate of the morality of their actions, and morality is the change in a person's quality over time. If someone is doing an act that is morally right, than their quality is increasing, and vice versa. This is illustrated when Dorian says "I am going to be good" (160). The specific meaning of "good" in this context refers to morality, not quality. The future tense indicates that his future deeds will be "good," and therefore the quality of his soul will, from that point on, be increasing. He is not stating that the overall quality of his soul over all of his life will ever be "good," nor that he can compensate for killing Basil. Instead, he is claiming that he will improve the quality of his soul, that he will be morally good. That he is "going to be" morally sound indicates that he has changed. The judgement of a person's quality of soul is a meaningless value, because people change; Dorian's past self has been morally wrong and his future self will be morally right, but measuring the overall quality of his soul will simply return the average morality of his life. If his "soul," such as it were, were to be judged, then this quality, average morality will not necessarily refer to how he would, theoretically, act in such a place. For a proper judgement, Dorian's soul would have to be judged at every instant in his life, and in those instants in which he is morally sound, he goes to "heaven" or some equivalent, and vice versa. In summary, a person cannot be judged based on their average morality; instead, they must be judged in any particular moment based on the morality of that moment.

Picture of Dorian Gray VII: Ch. 15-17

Wilde uses biblical imagery to describe the scenery surrounding Dorian when Dorian goes to get opium. Wilde describes the scene as having "here and there a lantern gleam[ing]", where "the light shook and splintered" (137). The heavy light here implies the presence of God. Furthermore, the description "shook" provides an emotion of fear and awe that would be invoked by God. Furthermore, "gleam" is a verb that describes intense, bright light - an appropriate term to describe divine light. By contrast, Satan is present in "a red glare" (137). Red is a color that can imply demonic presence, and thus the "red glare" could be interpreted figuratively as "the angry glare of Satan." The presence of both God and Satan implies a scene of judgement, namely of Dorian's soul, for which the possibility of salvation is uncertain. Thus, the biblical imagery call to mind that Dorian will ultimately have his soul face divine judgement, and foreshadows that Dorian will not escape his crimes forever.

Picture of Dorian Gray VI: Ch. 9-11

Oscar Wilde has stated that he sees himself in his character Basil. This is visible in several of Basil's statements, which mirror the preface; Basil expresses views that are indicated to be Wilde's by means of their statement in the preface. For instance, Wilde states that "to reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim" (vii). Basil states that "art conceals the artist far more completely than it ever reveals him" (84). The similar diction - namely, in the phrase "conceal[s] the artist" and the repeated word "reveal" - are illustrative of the word echoes that associate Basil with Wilde. Similarly, Basil states that "art is always more abstract than we fancy," but also that "form and colour tell us of form and colour - that is all" (84). By comparison, Wilde states that "all art is at once surface and symbol" (vii). Both Basil and Wilde discuss the dichotomy of art - that art is simultaneously the direct statement and the underlying meaning. Wilde expresses this through a direct statement of the duality, whereas Basil makes two apparently contradictory statements that come together to form a paradox. Both Basil and Wilde express very similar sentiments regarding the purpose of art, and this is illustrative of the similarities between them that Wilde refers to when he states that Basil Hallward is representative of how he sees himself.