Ostensibly, the speaker muses about the sound a scythe makes mowing hay

in a field by a forest, and what this sound might signify. He rejects the idea
that it speaks of something dreamlike or supernatural, concluding that reality
of the work itself is rewarding enough, and the speaker need not call on
fanciful invention.
Form
This is a sonnet with a peculiar rhyme scheme: ABC ABD ECD GEH GH. In
terms of rhyme, Mowing does not fit into either a strict Shakespearean or
Petrarchan model; rather, it draws a little from both traditions. Like Petrarchs
sonnets, the poem divides thematically into an octet and a sextet: The first
eight lines introduce the sound of the scythe and then muse about the
abstract (heat, silence) or imaginary (elves) significance of this sound; the last
six lines present an alternative interpretation, celebrating fact and nothing
more. But Mowing also hinges, like Shakespeares sonnets, on its two final
lines. In terms of meter, each line comprises five stressed syllables separated
by varying numbers of unstressed syllables. Only one line (12 ) can
reasonably be read as strictly iambic.
Vocabulary
A fay, as one can probably tell from context, is a fairy. A swale, in New
England, is a low-lying tract of land. Orchises are terrestrial orchids.
Commentary
Full of alliteration and internal rhymes, this poem has a pleasing sound.
Mowing is about mowing, but it is also a meditation on art, poetry, love, and
how to live. It alsolike so many of Frosts poemspossesses a winking
element of wordplay (an element often overlooked by critics).
As a statement about art in general and poetry in particular, the poem tells us
that the Real, the common voice, the realities of work and laborthese are

sweet; poetry inheres in these things and need not be conjured through willful
imagining, flights of fancy (elves), or an abandonment of the everyday. In fact,
anything more than the truth is debilitating to art. As a statement about living,
the poem seems to say that working in the world, embracing and engaging its
facts through action, is a prerequisite for knowledge about it. Truth comes
before understanding, and truth must be worked for. And so the challenge for
the liver of lifeand for the poem, and for the reader of poetryis to work to
embody that physical, factual, sensory truth.
But the poem also raises questions about the very act of culling a poem for
meaning. In our labor of reading poetry, should we only read for facts, and not
venture to interpret or project, because [t]he fact is the sweetest dream that
labor knows? Or should we nonetheless try our hand at analyzing, at
extracting meaning where meaning is not clearly stated?

Langston Hughes As I Grew Older begins about a dream that the

poet had long time ago. The poet says his dream, bright as the
sun, was right in front of him until a wall rose between him and his
dream. The poet is an old man now and he is thinking about his
dream which he dreamt long time ago. He thinks he has almost
forgotten his dream. He remembers that his dream was not fulfilled
as a strong barrier was created by his fellow white people who will
not let his dream come true. The wall seems to grow forever and
ever and it has become it has become so taller that it rose until it
touched the sky. The dream which was as bright as the sun has now
turned dark. The wall has become a long dark shadow and has been
blocking his dream. The dream being replaced by a shadow, the
.poet has become black
The poet lies down beside the shadow which means he feels
defeated and helpless. He finds that his dream is no longer above
him and so he feels vanquished. Instead of his dreams, he finds the
thick wall and the shadow above him. A plausible interpretation
can be that the dream of freedom and independence is no longer
real for the blacks and it has been overshadowed by the wall
.created by the fellow white people
Dark hands refers to the poets own hands, the color of his skin,
.who will be able to break through the wall and find his dream

The poet wants to break the wall and shatter the darkness that is
keeping him from attending his dream. He wants to break the
shadow into thousand lights of sun and thousands of whirling
.dreams
:ANALYSIS
THEME: The poem is in negative effects of racism, prejudice and
discrimination. It is a comment on any form of racial oppression
where one is unable to achieve their dreams, whether it is because
of age, gender, nationality or religion. The poem puts up a message
that we should believe in ourselves and stand up against the unjust
.society and rise above any sort of discrimination
:TONE
The tone/mood of the poem, As I Grew Older, keeps changing as
the poem progresses. In lines 1-6, the tone in the speakers voice is
optimistic, nave and innocent. In the next lines 7-16, the tone turns
into a depressing, angry one. Lines 17-23, show a sign of pessimism
and anger in the speakers voice. Finally in the lines 24-33, there is
hope and the whole stanza expresses that he can still achieve his
.dream
The poems changing tone signifies the speakers changing
perspective on life as he moves from childhood to adulthood. Lines
1-6 show the speakers viewpoint when he was a child. Lines 7-16
reflect the change in the speakers viewpoint. Lines 24-33 show the
present perspective of the speaker, that the time when the poem
.was composed
:STRUCTURE
The poem is composed in one stanza in free verse with irregularity
in the length of the lines and no specific rhyme scheme. Diction
used is very simple and lucid which makes the words important and
the themes clear to the readers. since there is no regular rhyming
scheme, the poet has used repetition of many words like dream,
.shadow, rose, dark, hands, thousands, sun and so on
General Analysis[edit]
There have been several analysis and interpretations of Silverstein's Where
the Sidewalk Ends, but among them all, a general conclusion has been
drawn. Silverstein is famous for being a children's poet, yet many of the ideas
tucked in the corner of Where the Sidewalk Ends are made for adults.

Silverstein argues that adults live in a world that is dreary, and that children
live in a world full of life and joy. Silverstein is saying that adults need to go to
the place that children know; essentially telling adults to take a step back and
.to take on the point of view of a child to find the life and joy that they have
Silverstein begins the poem by describing the place where the sidewalk ends.
This place that is only encountered by the imagination. [1] As he mentions the
grass growing "soft and white" and also the "cooling of the peppermint wind,"
we know that this is a mental state, how someone views the world. Finding
the place where the sidewalk ends may not as much be about finding an
.actual place rather than reaching a certain mental state
As Silverstein writes in the second stanza, saying " Let us leave this place
where the smoke blows black And the dark street winds and bends" He is
referencing the world that adults live in, the one that is far from what he
described as the place where the sidewalk ends. Yes, this could be
taken literally, as adults live and work in urban settings. But just as he has
done previously, this description is referring to a state of mind. One that sees
the world for everything bad that it possibly possesses, a mindset that is
totally lacking in any sort of imagination. [1] There is a transition in the middle of
this stanza though, a transition from despair to hope, hope of achieving the
child like imagination that is found where the sidewalk ends. He says "and
watch where the chalk-white arrows go To the place where the sidewalk ends"
Meaning that if you are alert and aware, the hopeless mindset adult can find a
.way to get to the place where the sidewalk ends
The final stanza is simple. "Yes we'll walk with a walk that is measured and
slow, And we'll go where the chalk-white arrows go, For the children, they
mark, and the children, they know The place where the sidewalk ends."
Silverstein is saying yes, we'll follow the arrows and we'll go. Yes, we will open
our minds and look for the signs to find the place where the sidewalk ends.
"The children, they mark, and the children, they know" Silverstein is coming
forward and saying simply, the children mark the way. Follow the children
.because they know the place where the sidewalk ends
Looking more in depth at this poem makes clear what Shel Silverstein is
saying. Do what the children do. They know the place where the sidewalk
ends. And in doing so, you will find the joy and passion for life that they have.
When he says follow the markings of the children and you will find the place
where the sidewalk ends, it is not a literal command to physically follow them.
Rather he is saying put on the mind set of a child and you will in turn find the
imagination and joy and innocence that children have. Children do not have to

work at finding the place where the sidewalk ends, they know. They know
because they know nothing else, the joyful, imaginative mindset they have is
purely natural. While adults minds have been influenced by the hardships of
the world, and in turn have to work at finding the place where the sidewalk
ends. Adults must leave behind the black smoke and look beyond the dark
streets that come with adulthood in order to truly find the place where the
.sidewalk ends
cloud: The poem "Cloud" by Sandra Cisneros uses a lot of metaphors to get the
point across. The poem discusses the subject's journey from a destructive
wave to a cloud. The man started out as an ocean, "roiled and murmuring like
a mouth" meaning he started out as a harsh, destructive individual who was
very strong willed and unreceptive as a person. And then he became a "tree"
who did everything that the others trees did. This means that he was sort of
part of a gang or a bad group of people and in turn he began to do all of the
things that the gang members did and told him to do. The author uses many
metaphors to show that he was pretty insignifigant but had the potential to be
something good. For example "a skiem of blue wool" is nothing really on it's
own but it could turn into something important with the proper use. "A tea
saucer wrapped in newspaper" shows that the subject was really fragile on the
inside but put off a rough look and was tough on the outside but sort of had a
.heart of gold
As one reads on tehy realize that the subject got put in prison for his actions
and began to realize who he wanted to be. He began to imagine his life
differently as a cloud. And his imagination began to take control of him and
all "those condemned to death and those condemned to life watched how
smooth and sweet a white cloud glides." This last sentence is powerful
because it shows that he figured out who he really is and what he wanted his
life to be. Although he is already in prison he was able to become a stong
individual and those around him all saw the real person hiding underneath
that tough shell.

"A Noiseless Patient Spider" is a lyric poem. Walt Whitman wrote the poem in
the 1860s and published it in the 1871-1872 edition of Leaves of
Grass. Leaves of Grass was a continually growing collection of his work that
began with the publication of the first edition in 1855. The version of the poem
on this page is from the 1881-1882 edition of Leaves of Grass. Click here to
access all the editions of Leaves of Grass published before his death.
Themes
"A Noiseless Patient Spider" develops the following themes:

The quest, or exploration, for meaning and knowledge in the

vastness of the universe.
The courage to venture forth alone into unknown territory.
The patience to build a plexus that links one stopping place
to the next.
The perseverance to carry on until the gossamer thread" (line 8) connects to
a goal.
The Poem as a Metaphor
The poem compares a spider to a human. Each creature tirelessly constructs
bonds to its surroundings. A spider spins silken thread to span a void. A
human builds ships, airplanes, bridges. Sometimes he crosses a void with a
telescope (as Galileo did) or reaches new plateaus of knowledge with a
question (as Socrates did) or a theory (as Einstein did).
Structure
The poem contains two five-line stanzas, the first consisting of one long
sentence. The subject is the pronoun I (line 2), and the main verb is the
compound mark'd (line 2) and mark'd (line 3). The second stanza is one long
group of words requiring I marked to be carried over unstated from the first
stanza in order to make the word group a complete sentence. If inserted, I
marked would occur after And (line 6) or soul (line 6). The poet achieves a
measure of balance between the two stanzas with the
words unreeling and speeding in the first stanza
and musing, venturing, throwing, and seeking in the second stanza. He also
balances isolated in the first stanza (line 1) with detached in the second
stanza (line 2) and vacant vast surrounding in the first stanza (line 2)
with measureless oceans of space in the second stanza (line 2).
Format: Free Verse
Whitman wrote "A Noiseless Patient Spider" in free versealso called vers
libre, a French term. Free verse generally has no metrical pattern or end
rhyme. However, it may contain patterns of another kind, such as repetition to
impart emphasis, balance, and rhythm. For example, Whitman's poem
uses mark'd twice (lines 2 and 3), filament three times (line 4), O my
soul twice (lines 6 and 10), and till three times (lines 9 and 10). Free verse
may also contain conventional figures of speech. Among the figures of speech
in "A Noiseless Patient Spider" are the following:
Alliteration in line 3 (vacant vast), line 4 (forth filament, filament, filament),
lines 6 and 7 (stand,surrounded, detached).
Anaphora in lines 9 and 10 (repetition of till).
Apostrophe in the second stanza. (The speaker addresses his soul.)
Metaphor in the second stanza. (The speaker compares himself to a spider.)
Metaphor/Personification in the second stanza. (The speaker compares his
soul to a person.)
Metaphors that compare the bond that the speaker forms to a bridge (line 9),

the attachment he forms to ananchor (line 9), and his exploration to

a gossamer thread (line 10
Summary

A stone wall separates the speakers property from his neighbors. In spring,
the two meet to walk the wall and jointly make repairs. The speaker sees no
reason for the wall to be keptthere are no cows to be contained, just apple
and pine trees. He does not believe in walls for the sake of walls. The
neighbor resorts to an old adage: Good fences make good neighbors. The
speaker remains unconvinced and mischievously presses the neighbor to look
beyond the old-fashioned folly of such reasoning. His neighbor will not be
swayed. The speaker envisions his neighbor as a holdover from a justifiably
outmoded era, a living example of a dark-age mentality. But the neighbor
.simply repeats the adage
Form

Blank verse is the baseline meter of this poem, but few of the lines march
along in blank verses characteristic lock-step iambs, five abreast. Frost
maintains five stressed syllables per line, but he varies the feet extensively to
sustain the natural speech-like quality of the verse. There are no stanza
breaks, obvious end-rhymes, or rhyming patterns, but many of the end-words
share an assonance
(e.g., wall,hill, balls, wall, and well sun, thing, stone, mean, line, and again org
ame, them, and him twice). Internal rhymes, too, are subtle, slanted, and
conceivably coincidental. The vocabulary is all of a pieceno fancy words, all
short (only one word, another, is of three syllables), all conversationaland
this is perhaps why the words resonate so consummately with each other in
sound and feel. Ile is set aboard the whaling ship Atlantic Queen just before 1:00
p.m. one day in late June of 1895. The ship is frozen in the ice of the Bering Sea. The
entire action takes place inside the captain's cabin. The printed text of the play begins
with a detailed description of the cabin. There is nothing exceptional about the cabin
per se, but O'Neill draws the reader's attention to certain facts. The first of these is that
there is an organ in the cabin and also a feminine sewing basket. This second item
suggests a woman is aboard ship, an unusual circumstance on a whaling voyage in

1895. Also, there is no rolling or pitching, motions felt almost universally while at
sea. In fact, there would be nothing unusual in a stage production not showing such
motions (which would be technically quite demanding), but O'Neill makes a point of
mentioning and explaining their absence. The lighting in the cabin is meant to suggest
".that it is "one of those gray days of calm when ocean and sky are alike dead
The steward enters the cabin and begins to clear away lunch dishes left on a table in
the middle of the room. But he is soon distracted from this task by a desire to spy on
the person behind the door in the rear of the cabin. He makes sure he is unobserved
and goes over to the door and presses his ear against it to listen, cursing at what he
hears. He hastens back to his work when Ben, a young cabin boy, enters. The
conversation between the two establishes the dramatic conditions of the play. The
Atlantic Queen has been frozen in an ice field in Arctic waters for nearly a year and
has harvested only a miniscule amount of whale oil. The two-year contracts of the
crew are up on the day of the play, making the captain's continued authority over the
men ambiguous. The ice has been breaking up and it would be possible to sail to the
south, though the north, with its whaling, remains ice-bound. The ship's supply of
food is running low and they would be lucky to make it to a port before running out if
they headed south immediately. Ben has heard a rumor that the crew intends to
mutiny if the Captain does not immediately head south and the steward agrees that the
.situation warrants such drastic action
The two crewmen conclude that Captain Keeney is crazy, and further, appealing to
traditional ideas about insanity, that he is being punished by God. The sin being
punished is also the first act that the men judge to have been mentally unsound:
Keeney bringing his wife on board for the duration of the voyage. She is the one the
steward was surreptitiously checking out through the door at the rear of the stage. Her
reaction to the intolerable isolation of the last year locked in the ice has been to retreat
further and further away from reality. She has gone from being a friend to the entire
crew, mitigating the captain's harshness, to a withdrawn figure never seen by the crew
who speaks only to her husband. All she is capable of doing to distract herself is
sewing, and she spends most of her waking hours weeping, as the steward heard her
.doing through the door
When Ben and the steward hear the captain coming down the companionway steps to
his cabin, they immediately cease their conversation. The steward goes back to his job
of clearing the lunch dishes while Ben furiously pretends to be cleaning the organ in

the cabin. Keeney soon enters with the second mate Slocum. Keeney clears the two
men out of the cabin with threats of violence, but not before noting that he is fully
aware that they were "gossipin'," that is, talking about subjects subversive of Keeney's
.command of the ship, as they indeed were
Once they are alone, Slocum explains what he called Keeney down into the privacy of
the captain's cabin to say. With the contractual obligation of the crew expiring today,
he fears the crew will cause trouble if Keeney does not order a southward course back
to port. Keeney responds that he is well aware of the situation. This conference is
interrupted when Mrs. Keeney comes out of her room. She announces that she wants
to go up on deck, but her husband tries to dissuade her, making excuses about the
weather being unsuitable. He tries to interest her in her organ as a distraction, but she
replies, "I hate the organ. It puts me in mind of home." She notices that the ice has
broken up to the south and renews her impulse to go up on deck to see it better, but
Keeney convinces her not to and sends her back to her cabin on the excuse that he has
.to discuss the ship's business with Slocum
Once Mrs. Keeney is gone the captain admits to Slocum that he didn't allow her on
deck because he expects trouble from the crew. He inspects his own revolver and
makes sure Slocum has his. He does not expect to have to do more than brandish them
to quell any rebellious impulse in the crew, but is fully prepared to shoot if necessary.
He likens the crewmen to dogs too submissive to rebel against their master. Slocum
correctly infers from this that Keeney does not intend to return to port, citing the
rational reasons why he might choose to do so, namely that the ship's store of food is
running low and that Keeney might be subject to legal action for damages if he keeps
the ship out past the crew's contractual obligation. Keeney responds by taunting him,
suggesting that he might join in a mutiny, a charge that Slocum absolutely denies.
Keeney agrees it is unlikely because Slocum has been his protg for ten years and
Keeney himself trained him in the whaling business. He adds, "No man kin say I ain't
a good master, if I be a hard one," as though he merely considers Slocum a better
breed of dog than the rest of the crew. Slocum suggests another reason for heading
home, that it would be better for Mrs. Keeney, who is "ailin' like." Keeney bristles at
this, and tells his subordinate to mind his own business. However, he reveals to
Slocum why he will not turn back, and the admission brings forth an excessive
outpouring of primitive emotions. He would feel humiliated before rival captains to

return to port without a full consignment of oil. He also suggests that he has seen
.evidence that the ice northward of the ship is breaking up
Keeney's tirade is interrupted by a renewed bout of weeping heard from Mrs. Keeney
through the closed door. In this interval, Joe the harpooner intrudes uninvited into the
captain's cabin. As a harpooner, Joe would have been a natural leader among the crew,
and in fact he has come here to make the crew's demands to the captain; even so he
cannot bring himself to do more than sheepishly wait to be noticed by the captain,
which he soon is. Joe announces that the men wish to send a deputation to the captain.
At first Keeney wants to respond by cursing them, but then agrees to see them as he
inevitably must. In the interval before the deputation's arrival, Slocum suggests
.summoning the other officers, but Keeney insist he can take care of the matter alone
Joe and five crewmen soon return. Acting as their leader, Joe points out that the men's
contracts are finished and the food is running low. He demands on behalf of the crew
to return to port. Keeney refuses, citing the imminent breakup of the northern ice floe
and the chance to fill the ship's hold with oil. Joe then expresses the crew's decision to
cease to work the ship except as necessary to return home, arguing that any possible
legal action in the future would support this decision. Keeney reminds them that he is
the legal authority while they are at sea and threatens to imprison anyone who does
not obey his orders. Joe then declares that the men have no choice except to mutiny
and take the ship home themselves. It is at this moment that Mrs. Keeney reemerges
from her room, although none of the other characters notice in the excitement of their
heated argument. She sees her husband hit Joe in the face, knocking him unconscious.
The other crewmen seem likely to attack and overpower the captain, but they are
cowed before Keeney and Slocum's pistols. They meekly withdraw, dragging Joe's
unconscious body with them. Keeney believes he has triumphed over them and sends
Slocum up on deck to keep order. Only once the crisis is past does Keeney hear his
.wife's hysterical sobs and turn to attend her
When Keeney calms his wife down to the point where she can talk, she simply says,
"Oh, I can't bear it! I can't bear it any longer!" What she cannot bear is the brutality on
the part of the crew and especially on the part of her husband, but most of all, a refrain
of intolerable conditions that she repeats throughout the play: "the ice all around, and
the silence." In a brief monologue, she admits that she demanded to come on this
voyage over her husband's objections. Her whole identity was attached to Keeney's
heroic reputation in the whaling community (she could not even continue as a

schoolteacher lest the fact of his wife working should become a reproach); therefore
she felt she needed to witness him in his own element, in command of a whaling
expedition. "I guess I was dreaming about the old Vikings in the storybooks and I
thought you were one of them," she tells him. However, she realizes how mistaken
she was: "And instead. All I find is ice and coldand brutality!" She pointedly
refers to the violence she witnessed him use to quell the mutiny, but also, no doubt,
implicitly includes his whole demeanor as a ship's captain. She begs him to return
home at once with increasing hysteria, which Keeney wishes to attribute to some
physical disease such as a fever, rather than to her deteriorating mental condition or,
even more accurately, to her discovery of the disjunction between his appearance and
.reality

Fireworks, the new play by Palestinian writer Dalia Taha currently

showing at the Royal Court Theatre, is set in a non-specified
Palestinian city under siege and subject to Israeli air strikes, where
two young families are the only residents left in a
dilapidated building. Staged in a shabby worn-out flat that they both
share, it is equipped with bare amenities - including old hard chairs,
a cold-tiled floor and an electricity generator that doesn't always
work - and with the unusual addition of a staircase that mysteriously
.goes down to nowhere
It is clear that all the other neighbours have gone to safety shelters
whereas these two families, for whatever personal reasons, are the
only ones who have resisted the urge to abandon their home, even
with the known dangers. As the audience, one is thus confronted
with this powerful living situation - which would feel more like a
prison if one had to live in it even before the characters come to
.life and take over with their story
Starting a couple days before Eid, excited eleven-year-old Lubna is
with her father Khalid chatting. She tells him that shes composed a
song in her head about her brother Ali, who was killed six months
before. Prompted by her father to explain the difference between
.being shot and being martyred, she repeats what she has been told
Lubna says: When you get shot, you die and get put under the
earth and you get eaten by worms. But when youre martyred, it
doesnt hurt and you dont die. All the angels come and fly you up
to the sky, and then they give you wings like theirs. And God gives
you a house in heaven and when you go into it you find all of your
family there because God's made a copy of them from some angels,

so you don't feel lonely while you're waiting for them. And then
when your family die they come and live with you in your house in
.heaven even if they haven't been martyred
But this is, of course, just one of the many lies and strange fantasies
that this little girl has been offered by her father, in order to help her
emotionally digest the loss of her sibling and to give her some
reassurance that all is well in their world. When he also denies that
there are threatening bombs falling down the skies and says that
the tape on the windows is a magic tape that is guaranteed to
.protect them, we realise just how grim the reality is outside
Whilst with the other couple, it is more the mother Samar who is
telling her son Khalil the lies even as he is showing signs of
projecting aggression and violence towards her and a dead pet
pigeon. To distract him, she plays Ninja turtles and Superman and
makes him believe that they live on a very special planet; but,
clearly, the twelve-year-old child is not convinced. And so, in this
play, we see how the parents attempt to emotionally protect and
shield the children in a dire situation; but, that the greater tragedy is
that the adults themselves are struggling to come to terms with
.their predicament
In Nahla, for example, we see the madness as she jokes about
suicide and goes out onto the streets risking her life for a packet of
cigarettes and candles. Whereas in the men, we sense the
impotence, weakness, sadness and frustration as they both take
desperate measures in the no way out situation. Khalid buys a pistol
for an unknown reason and Ahmad, desiring to take revenge against
the unnamed oppressor, involves himself with a risky operation that
.threatens and puts all of their lives in even more danger
Eid then arrives with a twist but I wont be telling! Because this most
powerful play is a must see for everyone; and, especially, for
anyone who wants to experience a creative tackling of the current
issue of what is happening and has been happening for a very long
time to Palestinian families as they are put under physical,
emotional and psychological pressure all in one lump of an
.existential disaster
But through the adult and child actors with their human faces,
voices, cries and screams from a script based on real lives, we also
gain the positive eternal and universal insight of the deep caring
love of parents for their children and the innocent love of children
for their parents. I truly applaud Dalia Taha and the Royal Court for

staging this and hope they extend the run, for that is my only
!concern as tickets are selling out fast
ILE by Eugene ONeill
What are the symbols in the play Ile? What do they represent? And what is
?their effect on the play and the characters
The play Ile is a symbolic play as it has several symbols in the play; the
.symbols are the ice, the organ, the sun, the clouds and the oil
The ice represents the harshness in the character of Mr. Kinney, the ice is very
cold and its a hard substance, Mr. Kinney himself is very cold, aloof, icy,
stony, unkind and hard-hardhearted. There is a kind of connection between
,Mr. Kinney and the ice, as it is depicted in the play
Ben:.he just walks up and down like he didnt notice nobodyand stares at
.the ice to the northward
STEWARD:. He is always staring at the ice, (in a sudden rage, shaking
his fist at the skylight) ice, ice, ice! Damn him and damn the ice, holding us
..for nigh a year-nothing to see but ice
In here ben remarks that Mr.kinney is always staring at the ice, he does not
communicate with anybody but keeps looking at the ice, furthermore, when
the steward remarks how he is frustrated at him and the ice, he is sort of
comparing the two by cursing both Mr. Kinney and the ice simultaneously.
The ice was making the crew members suffer because with the ice present,
they would not be able to catch the whales and thus continue on with the
arduous journey, furthermore, it was awful cold because of the ice, the same
goes for Mr. Kinney he was also creating a hindrance for them as he was not
allowing them to head back home even when the contract was over and Mr.
Kinney was also very cold and unkind, he had no regard for his crew members
,whatsoever. As it is mentioned

THE STEWARD:he is a hard man- as hard a man as ever sailed the

.seas
And, THE STEWARD: ..what is it he thinks he is going to do? Keep us all up
here after our time has worked out till the last man of us is starved to death or
?frozen
So Mr. Kinney does not care whether his crew members survive the cold and
the lack of food, he just selfishly cares about his own personal ambition, that is
to get the oil. Thereby he is very cold and inhumane. He also brings along his
wife on the ship, even when he knows how difficult the ships journey really is,
then his wife does suffer as a result of being stranded on a ship for two years,
but Mr. Kinney does not seem to pay much heed to her. This is evident as the
crew members notice the odd behavior of Mrs. Kinney but Mr. Kinney seems
.to be all busy in his planning to get the oil
THE STEWARD:.who but a man thats mad would take his woman . On
a stinking whaling ship to the arctic seas and to be locked in by the rotten ice
..for nigh on a year
THE STEWARD:..for he is a hard man, a hard, hard man-a driver as there
.ever was one
The steward then remarks that mr. kinney is a hard man, the repetition here is
emphasizing on the hardness of Mr. Kinney, that he is extremely hard, he calls
him a driver, somebody who drives people to do things, who forces people to
.obey him, who does not really care about anybodys will and choice
The description of Mr. Kinney in the play: .face is massive and deeply lined,
with gray-blue eyes of a bleak hardness, and tightly clenched, thin lipped
..mouth

This description shows that his face and his expression indicate that he is a
.very hard and cold man, like somebody who incites terror in the hearts
The clouds in the play are a symbol of despair, hopelessness, the clouds are a
hurdle in the path to hope, as long as the clouds remained, there would be no
sun and no sun means that the ice might not melt and thereby they would not
.able to get the oil and thus they cannot turn back home
The sun is a symbol of hope and warmth, when the sun comes out, the ice
.melts and hence they are able to search for the oil
and the light which comes through the skylight is sickly and faint, .
indicating one of those gray days of calm when ocean and sky are alike
..dead
Therefore in here it shows how there was no sunlight streaming through the
sky, thus it was extremely cold and the ice was frozen thereby the sun brought
.with it a ray of hope
The oil is a symbol of the ego and the pride imbedded in the character of Mr.
Kinney, for Mr. Kinney it was very important to get the oil, the pursuit of the
oil was his sole purpose, he was insanely obsessed with the desire to get the
oil, in his obsession he overlooked his own wife and his crew members, he did
not even care that it was more than two years on the ship, the contract was
over, it was icily cold, there was no sign of whales, there was a call for mutiny
from the crew members, his wife was depressed. For Mr. Kinney his ego and
.his self-love would not have been satisfied until and unless he got the oil
KEENEY:did you ever hear me turn back home with a measly four hundred
?barrels of oil in the hold
KEENEY: to hell with them! Let them make what law trouble they kin. I dont
.give a damn about money, I have got to get the oil

KEENEY: ..and do you suppose any of them would believe that any of
them skippers I have been beaten voyage after voyage? Cant you hear them
?laughing and sneering
JOE: ..the grub we are getting now is rotten
.KINNEY: ..its good enough for ye, better men than ye have eaten worse
KEENEY:..it aint that annie, them skippers would never dare sneer at my
face. It aint so much what one had say,,,, but, you see I have always done
it since my first voyage,,,, I have always come back full with a ship and it just
dont seem right not to somehow, I have always first whaling skippers out of
homeport
So for Mr. Kinney it is a matter of pride and honor, he does not want his ego
and his self-respect to get hurt in any way , he has always been a successful
man, had always returned home with barrels full of oil, so thereby he has
never faced any failure, he does not know what failure is, for him failure is an
abominable thing which cannot be forgiven, if he had returned without the oil,
his ego would have been deflated, thereby it would have ruined him and his
self-esteem, the oil represents his ego because the pursuit of oil and the
success that comes with getting the oil, both of these things would satisfy his
ego and his self-love, his pride, his reputation, his honor and his dignity,
somehow the oil completes him. The obsession is to get the oil, meaning the
obsession to protect his ego is so overwhelming that he does not give any
regarding whatsoever to his wife and the crew members. For him the
protection of his ego is more important, and he is willing to go to any lengths
.to keep his pride and ego intact
The organ represents the state of mind of Mrs. Kinney, she first becomes very
low and quiet, then gradually she faces crying spells, then she seems to
wander off in her thoughts, does not pay attention to anybody or anything, she

becomes detached and hollow, she becomes furious and pleads gravely
towards her husband to let take her back home as she could no longer bear the
atrocity of the ship and its environment, when her husband betrays her in the
.end, she loses her mind

BEN: ..she dont speak to me anymore, jest looks at me as if she didnt

know me
BEN:and then she cries to herself without making no noise, I have seen
.her

Description of Mrs. Kinney: she is a slight, sweet faced little woman primly
dressed in black. Her eyes are red from weeping and her face drawn and pale.
She takes in the cabin frightened glance and stands as if fixed to the spot by
..some nameless dread, clasping and unclasping her hands nervously

Mrs. Kinney had a very different notion about the ship and its life, she used to
fantasize that her husband was like a Viking hero who does engage in a lot of
exciting adventures, she finds it hard to swallow the fact that her fantasy has
not turned out to be true and that shipping is a tough job, this shock of being
stranded on the ship for a long time with no comfort of a cozy and warm home
and with no smell of the earth, with no homely things with no friends, no
activities, she becomes interwoven in herself and gradually becomes lost,
nonetheless she does seem to care about her husbands ambition to get the oil,
therefore she endures the hardness of the ship for two years but when the
contract gets over, she finds a way to plead to her husband to get her back
home as she could no longer bear seeing nothing but the ocean, the ice, the

same faces of the crew members and the awful silence which seems to reach
.into her soul making her lose her senses

!MRS. KEENEY:.oh, I cant bear it! I cant bear any longer

?KEENEY Cant bear what Annie
MRS. KEENEY: all this brutality, and these brutes of men, and this terrible
ship and this prison cell of
MRS. KINNEY:I used to dream of sailing on the great wide glorious ocean, I
wanted to be by your side in the danger and vigorous life of it all all I find
!is ice and cold and brutality

MRS. KINNEY: .take me away from here david, If I dont get away from
here, from this terrible ship, I will go mad, take me home david, I cant think
anymore, I feel as if the cold and the silence were crushing down my brain, im
.afraid, take me home

Mrs. Kinney says to Mr. Kinney repeatedly to take her home, she is trying to
make him understand just how terrible her existence on the ship really is, how
much suffering she has gone through. She feels lost in herself. Her happiness
knows no bounds when she succeeds in convincing her husband to take her
home, after much vacillation, Mr. Kinney gives in. at this moment in play, one
might expect Mr. Kinney to really turn back but then when he finds out that
the ice has melted, he decides to take the ship forward, this is the breaking
point for Mrs. Kinney as she has already endured so much, she has already felt
various oscillating emotions, after this, she seems to lose her ability to reason

and think straight, she turns to the organ, she had remained neglected during
the two long years and she starts playing it violently, the organ displays how
irrelevant her behavior really is, her laughter and her tears come out
.simultaneously, indicating that she has lost her sanity

she passes her hand across her eyes then commences to laugh hysterically .
and goes to the organ; she sits down and starts to play violently an old
..hymn

she doesnt answer him she stares up at him with a stupid expression, a .
vague smile on her lips

her whole attention is on the organ. She sits with half-closed eyes, her body .
swaying from side to side to the rhythm of the hymn, her fingers moving faster
..and faster

In here it displays how Mrs. Kinney seems to lose her contact with reality, she
cannot understand or think, it seems as though she is in a trance, lost in
another world of thoughts, her expression, her smile and her body language
all show that she has become insane, she has lost herself so much that even
the mentioning of whales by Mr. Kinney does not affect her in any way. Her
playing of the organ, her contact with the organ is in actuality her contact with
madness. The organ is being played violently showing just how much
.disturbed she really has become