Preview

The Red Wheelbarrow By William Carlos Williams

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
250 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
The Red Wheelbarrow By William Carlos Williams
“The Red Wheelbarrow” by William Carlos Williams is a simple sentence with no punctuation or capitalization in the form of an eight-line, free-verse poem. It communicates a theme of childlike simplicity and acceptance. Its structure and tone make it seem like a childhood memory. Children tend to focus on insignificant details and do not analyze situations; neither does the poem. The words “so much” establish value in a seemingly trivial item, which is a common practice of children. Williams describes the wheelbarrow as “glazed with rain,” which helps the reader to imagine the wheelbarrow as shiny, clean, and picturesque. The quiet, calm period after rain is a time of reflection and serenity during which the world is calm, peaceful, and stoic.

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    The poem reminds me of the time I spent at my aunt’s farm when I was younger. Early mornings checking for eggs in the chicken coop. Remembering the smell of the outdoors intensified by the morning dew. I remember watching my uncle work in the fields of corn while I tended to the animals. Those days on…

    • 232 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    This poem struck me with its vivid description of the hard life that people during the Depression suffered. This is not just a story of the burial of a child. This is a window into the hardships of a generation of people. The landscape is drawn as a harsh, barren land that chips away at plows. Poverty is blatant from the father having to steal the wood for the grave marker, to the mother sleeping on a corn shuck mat in the shack that they lived in.…

    • 275 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    We are also introduced to the main character's family, such as his wife Elaine, and his son Jamie. We also see what each person's role is within the family.…

    • 903 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the prose, The Red Wheelbarrow, a rain slicked red wagon with a broken wheel, desolate and decrepit, stands sombrely in the tawny-patterned mud. It is a rather simplistic image that evokes the sense of a worn down agricultural household;slowly, diminishing along as the red wheelbarrow rusts in the rain. But, how could the speaker present such a mundane idea so brilliantly, so intensely, so eloquently? Simply. He performs it simply. Through a sadden tone, William Carlos Williams illustrates the image of a broken down agricultural-based household by monosyllabic color-based diction and short meter structures.…

    • 291 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Williams drags this poem on by creating an interest with the reader in his first line, “so much depends”. Williams does not reveal what he is talking about until the 4th line which is just one word; “barrow”. The fact that Williams splits the word “wheel” from the word “barrow” makes the reader visualize that the wheelbarrow is composed of two different and distinct parts. He also does this in lines 5 and 6 with “rain” and “water”. Williams ends the poem suggesting that the red wheelbarrow is beside white chickens. Again, Williams carefully describes the chickens as being “white”. The Red Wheelbarrow is a free verse poem that is composed of only one sentence. I believe the main purpose of this poem was to show imagery in the most minimalist…

    • 1378 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    In Foulcher’s poem the title ‘Summer Rain’ creates the expectation of rain but the poet starts with an ugly scene, the highway. The writer uses a simile to give the reader an idea of what the highway…

    • 562 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Gary Nash author of Red, White, and Black purpose to their readers is describing the early colonists, but also the relationships toward Europeans, the Indians, and the Africans. Nash successfully analyzes the impact of the colliding three cultures and interprets them to give an overall theme about the relationships between those who made America what it is today. He has shown another point of view to his reader that we grew up and was raise in a white people land; learning only the White people point of view through history. His purpose of writing Red, White & Black was to prove that Native Americans and Africans were not victims, but played as a active role to American history.…

    • 421 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Matthew and Max got separated from each other. Matthew is quite scared. He tries to crack some jokes with himself to take his mind off. It’s not very effective. He hears some rustling but unluckily it was not Max. It was Uncle Thomas. He has been…

    • 1442 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    “Oranges” is written in the past tense, as the speaker examines in the first-person how he or she remembers the first time he or she “walked/With a girl.” Soto uses syntax, in the form of fragmented and run-on sentences as scattered, incomplete and rambling thoughts, to conjure the emotions of simple, childish love we feel before we all inevitably lose our innocence. The straightforward, direct and uncomplicated tone gives the poem the innocence of a child in love and the feel like that child is telling the story.…

    • 1022 Words
    • 30 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The speaker reveals his feelings toward his childhood and how he will use childhood experiences to write effective poetry. He wants to write poetry to help people relive their positive childhood memories. Through this he reveals the tone of a happy childhood. He does this through many metaphors which explain how childhood behaviors stay with him his entire life. The first metaphor he uses relates hiding from the rain to hard times because as a child rain was a misfortune. As a child when it rains you must stay inside and most children would rather be outside. Also rain is sometimes unexpected like most difficulties. In order to counter the rain, the speaker hides under a chair, just like most adults avoid a situation when they don’t know what to do. Another metaphor example is flying a paper airplane which is related to following your dreams. As a child you are always told to follow your dreams and as you become older you still following your dreams although they might change. This metaphor relates childhood memories to the purposes of writing poetry because when you read poetry many times the poem’s author writes about following their dreams. As a child I remember playing a game with my brother where we would spin in circles until one of us fell down. When I read “he would whirl around faster and faster” I thought of this memory even though that is not the meaning you get from context. The context evidence is comparing spinning until dizzy to being drunk and the feeling you get when you are drunk. This is important to the relationship between childhood memories and poetry because it shows that simple childhood games can be related to situation adults often face. The…

    • 549 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Imagine a desolate and dismal world that deteriorated with scarce supplies of food and shelter and there is only a few survivors left--including yourself and one of your family members. In hopes of survival, what measures would you take? Would you go to the extreme by cannibalism or committing suicide? On the other hand, would you choose to be on an ethical route by grasping on life delicately? In the midst of the unflinching and empty world with virtually no hope, the father and son in the novel, The Road by Cormac McCarthy, choose to be the “good guys” by staying alive and refraining from cannibalism and thievery. They tried desperately to remain alive by roaming as nomads looking for shelter, edible foods, and avoiding the “bad guys” from preying on them for food. The unconditional love between the father and son sustained their struggle to live and try to stay ethical as possible.…

    • 970 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    “The Red Wheelbarrow” is a poem written by William Carlos Williams that is short and sweet and to the point. The speaker is someone who is stuck inside because it is raining outside. He describes looking at a red wheelbarrow covered in rain. The speaker lets us know that he is not alone on that rainy day because he notices the chickens are sitting beside it. At first glance, I couldn’t really figure the poem out. But after reading it a few times, this is how I perceived…

    • 496 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Sympathy by Paul Laurence Dunbar illustrates through the actions of a “caged bird” what it feels like to be trapped in a society meanwhile other can enjoy freedom. Specifically, Dunbar alludes to the plight of African Americans in the early 20th century. Same as in “We Wear The Mask”, Dunbar opens the door to the minds and lives of African Americans who at first, should be content in a seemingly prosperous and democratic civilization, but are quick to realize that instead it’s all a lie. The caged bird in this poem “beats his wing till its blood is red” which symbolizes the unending fight that blacks in America constantly face.…

    • 188 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    America by Allen Ginsberg

    • 12987 Words
    • 43 Pages

    Cited: Balch, Mary S. "Protect the Unborn." USA TODAY: A.6. Mar 22 2011. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 13 May 2014 .…

    • 12987 Words
    • 43 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Red Wheelbarrow Essay

    • 575 Words
    • 3 Pages

    “The Red Wheelbarrow” which published in 1923, is my favorite poem in this chapter. The author of this poem is William Carols Williams. To be honest, one of the reasons that I like this poem is that it is a very short poem, only eight lines. Even though it has only eight lines, it is not easy to figure out all of the meaning of the poem. The poet contained his feeling in only eight lines. Understanding poems are harder than understanding stories because writers can tell or explain their thought in their stories but it is hard to explain and expand their feeling in poems. I think The Red Wheelbarrow shows me how the wheelbarrow helps people to work in daily life, how the environment affects people’s feeling, how people ignore the importance of simple objects.…

    • 575 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays