Look at both Ginsberg’s “A Supermarket in California” and Mora’s “Sonrisas,” and analyze in what ways the speaker in each poem is caught between two different worlds. How are the options for the two speakers similar? How are they different? Does one speaker have better choices than the other? Why do you think that is? One way to think about these questions is to analyze the tone in each poem and how they are similar or different. Make sure you use specific places in the poem to support your opinions.
Looking at Hugo’s “Missoula Softball Tournament” and Harwood’s “In the Park,” analyze the rolls of the women in each poem. In which ways are they similar? In which ways are they different? Similarly, analyze the rolls of the men in each poem. Are the men stronger or freer in one poem or the other? In what ways does each poem reflect the failures of the men? What might each poem be saying about gender roles, traditional relationships, or growing old?
Analyze the speakers in “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” and “Acquainted with the Night.” Describe their relationships with their surroundings, including other people. Also, analyze their relationships with themselves. In what ways are the speakers similar and in what ways are they different? Are the tones of the poems similar or different? Why?
Analyze how nature is depicted in the two poems, “I wandered lonely as a cloud” and “The Lake Isle of Innisfree.” What role does nature play for each speaker? In what ways is the relationship between humans and nature similar in the two poems? In what ways is it different? Do these poems say more about nature’s importance to humans or about human’s ability to mentally transcend their immediate worlds?
This essay needs to be thesis driven and argumentative. Meaning you need to do more than just point out what is occurring in two texts; you need to be pointing out aspects in two texts to prove a larger point of how the texts work together or exemplify some of the concepts discussed in class.
Sample Solution
