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What Are The Poetic Devices Of The Poem Death Of A Young Son By Drowning?

What Are The Poetic Devices Of The Poem Death Of A Young Son By Drowning?

1 Answer

    1. Metaphor: There are several metaphors used in the poem. A metaphor for identification would be “the dangerous river of his own birth.” Also, this apparatus is included in “his head a bathysphere,” “cairn of my plans and future charts,” and “The dreamed sails.”

    2. Enjambment: This technique is applied throughout the entire paragraph as well as inside tercets. Internally, Atwood connects the lines using this device. To understand the message, one must study the device’s instructions line by line. For example, it appears in lines like “He, who navigated with success/ the dangerous river of his own birth/ once more set forth” and similar phrases.
    3. Irony: The use of irony in phrases like “the dangerous river of his own birth,” “reckless adventurer/on a landscape stranger than Uranus,” etc. is evident in the poem. This literary method is used by Atwood to produce a situational contrast of ideas.

    4. Alliteration: The phrases “touch to,” “his head,” “he was hung,” “It was the spring, the sun was shining,” etc. all include repetitions of similar sounds.

    5. Personification: The phrases “the currents took him” and “the new grass/leapt to solidity” both include it. Currents and grass are given human characteristics in these lines.

    6. Simile: It appears in the lines “I planted him in this country/like a flag,” “he was hung in the river like a heart,” and “on a landscape stranger than Uranus.”

     

    Death Of A Young Son By Drowning Summary

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