Matthew Mason and Lance Sunshine

Ms. Gardner
English 10H / Period 6
12 September 2016

Sonnet 144
Sonnet
Annotation
 Original Sonnet
I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place;
The unfilled page mandates my final choice.
The outcome of this mind-boggling race
Will be no reason for me to rejoice.
The lesser of two dreadfuls I must pick:
The woman billed as righteous and a friend;
The man will make us great again, and quick.
No matter that, their faults I can't defend.
The mans unkind voice cannot be controlled
The woman smiles and scolds him for his hate,
But then denies all lies shes ever told.
What scares me most they must be our fate.
This vote decides the welfare of us all;
I'd rather run straight into a brick wall.
Genre 1: Meme
Genre 2: Tweet
Genre 3: Erasure Poem
Two loves I have of comfort and despair,
Which like two spirits do suggest me still,
The better angel is a man right fair:
The worser spirit a woman coloured ill.
To win me soon to hell my female evil,
Tempteth my better angel from my side,
And would corrupt my saint to be a devil:
Wooing his purity with her foul pride.
And whether that my angel be turned fiend,
Suspect I may, yet not directly tell,
But being both from me both to each friend,
I guess one angel in another's hell.
Yet this shall I ne'er know but live in doubt,
Till my bad angel fire my good one out.
Matthew Mason Sonnet Analysis
In sonnet 144, the speaker has an angel and devil fighting on his shoulders: But in the end the devil wins and the speaker does the
bad deed. The use of gloomy dialect such as despair and corrupt hint towards the evil gaining the upper hand. Using consonance in
the beginning of lines one, four, five, and 14- two, To, Tempteth, Till- gives the sound of a clocking ticking, counting down to the
time in which the bad spirit fires [his] good one out making it a more inevitable choice to do wrong. The use of assonance in the
second line with words like which, spirit, and still gives us this sharp I sound, like in icky. This leaves a bad taste in our ears, as
the wrong choice starts to become the right choice. The use of the words fiend and friend are used, not only to rhyme, but to show
that these two enemies who hate each other are close to the speaker, and making the comparison of good and evil, friend and fiend.
The use of comparisons between the two spirits, comfort and despair and fair and ill, suggest the struggle between good and
evil. In the last quatrain and couplet the speaker concludes that in the end the devil will kick out the Angel. This means that he/she will
side with doing the wrong thing. The line yet this shall I neer know, but live in doubt says that that the speaker doesn't even realize
he gave into the devil, because he chooses not to believe that he did wrong. This is showing us that everyone gives in to the voice in
their head that tells us to do bad, no matter how good we are. The speaker accepts this and lets it happen. He gives in and lets the
devil fire my good one out allowing himself to do the devilish deed. Thus the light is consumed by the dark.
 Lance Sunshine Sonnet Analysis
Theme Statement: Two opposing forces, one good, one evil, live within everyone; the speaker acknowledges the angels virtue but believes that
both he and the speaker himself may fall prey to the demons schemes.
Shakespeare creates two opposite moods within Sonnet 144, even though he is confined to only fourteen lines. He uses expressive vowel
intonation and consonance in many instances to give either spirit a feeling appropriate to their nature. In the lines that revolve around the angel, the
majority of the sounds are noticeably lighter on the tongue and vocal cords, forming a much airier and less harsh noise when coming from the
mouth. The phrase better angel is used twice, and the harshest sound is the b in better. Every other letter is much lighter - the vowels are
breathier and are soothing, and the ts and l roll right off the tongue. This then aids the portrayal of the angel as much lighter and softer than the
devil, and makes obvious the fact that the angel is good, and the better moral choice. The mentionings of the demon, on the other hand, are
accompanied by many hard cs and uglier vowel noises. Corrupt my saint, and foul pride contain consonants that are biting, indicating the
nature of the demon to be much more violent and jarring. The vowel sounds or, uh, and ow all originate deep in the throat - almost an
allusion to the demons origins, in a place much lower than where the angel resides. As well as spoken sounds, Shakespeare also utilizes minute
meter fluctuation to impart meaning to otherwise detailed, but less significant, phrases. Two such cases occur, one being, And would corrupt my
saint to be a devil, where he spends an extra syllable within that line. It may be done to provide a hint of emphasis on the line itself - that its
message, which is conditional in the context of the sonnet, may become fact. Another is, The worser spirit a woman coloured ill, where the -it in
spirit is unstressed, and is followed by an unstressed a. This might be done to wedge as much space as possible between the angel, who was
mentioned in the preceding line, and the demon who inhabits this phrase. With these techniques and the sonnet on the whole, Shakespeare
illustrates the conflict that many people experience every day, and probably multiple times a day. Choices are made where selfishness or
indifference are the quickest and easiest solutions to a problem, when compassion and kindness are the most moral and just qualities to employ in
that situation. The speaker and the poet both know that they will fall to the devils plot sometime or another, but an unspoken fact is that the angel
remains by the narrators side throughout the inner fight between good and evil. Shakespeare depicted this situation in a manner that many would
not have been able to replicate, but one with which all can relate.