Symbolism, irony, and alliteration are often used by poets in an effective manners to grab the reader’s imagination. Symbolism, irony, and alliteration were used in works by Etheridge Knight, Ted Hughes, and Galway Kinnell to captivate readers. Etheridge Knight’s, “Hard Rock Returns to Prison from the Hospital for the Criminal Insane” used symbols effectively. Etheridge used sear in the first stanza of the poem by meaning a condition that creates a scar by searing.
In the second stanza the word gelded is used before stallion by meaning he has been deprived of strength or in other words, is a weak stallion. He once was the man who gave others the commands and now takes the commands. The others mentioned in stanza three that they wrapped themselves in the cloak of his exploits that was part of secrecy. Then, when everyone hears that Hard Rock returned, someone barked at him. This means someone was yelling and cussing at him. He wanted to see Hard Rock snap like he used too.
In the last stanza the prisoners state that Hard rock was their doer of things. To them he was the man who did the doer of evil deeds that others couldn’t bring themselves to do. Ted Hughes, “A Motorbike” was effectively used with irony. In the first stanza he mentions the motorbike to being thunder which it produces sounds similar to a thunder cloud, flight which is part of imagination, and disruption, which is in other terms is broken. Cramped by rust is the covered strong brown throughout the bike.
In the second stanza the soldiers were hanging around limply due to they have been fighting for many days and now suddenly have a break and also peace took them all prisoners due to they were no longer being killed or seeing others being killed which was getting to them because they are now suppose to just let it go but for someone in war it’s never that simple. The soldiers have privation begin from the lost that resulted due to the war. The third stanza compares the bus that takes citizens to work as a labor truck used in war.
Also, the soldiers were seeing the boss of corporations, factories, etc. as bad as the S. S. that was from the war that recently ended. With nothing happening, the town still felt as being inside the bad electrified barbed wire that was used to keep war prisoners and slaves inside. And England was compared of becoming little remains of the size of a dog track from the war. In the forth stanza a war veteran bought a motorbike which he had to kick it back into life. Being able to ride on the motorbike brought him out of the six year sleep.
Which in terms; he was not able to fight and defend his country in war. In the fifth stanza he escaped due to getting out of the town that felt like a war camp. By freeing himself, he felt important once again. In the final stanza he supposedly crashes into a telegraph pole. Sounding like by getting out of this world, the every day of not fighting would solve his problem. But it really doesn’t show that he may have committed suicide. He may have just transferred into telegraph pole to maybe call someone due to at that time that may have been the only way to contact others else where.
