Carl Sandburgs Use of Allusion in Grass Essays - 564 Words

Carl Sandburgs Use of Allusion in Grass Carl Sandburgs short poem Grass represents a metaphor for the disguise of history. The persona tells how histories that have taken place are sooner or later disregarded. The persona tells that the histories should not be disregarded, but be left the way it is as cited in the poem I am the grass .Let me work. People should notice the events that took place and learn from their mistakes and be better people. The places that are mentioned in the poem are allusions. The allusions are indirect references that Carl Sandburg utilizes to exhibit the seriousness of the past events. Every place that is mentioned in the poem is a well-known bloody fight in wars that claimed many lives. The†¦show more content†¦At Austerlitz, even though Napoleon tasted his first victory he lost many men in the process. Eventually his defeat at Waterloo obviously meant that he lost more men than in his victory. This is where one of Carls arguments of the poem comes into play. It is meaningless if one wins or looses the reason being that the grass will get rid of all the signs of battles such as the dead people and would have no effect whatsoever on people in the future. The opening two lines of the following stanza is similar to the first line of the first stanza being that the grass commands for more history left behind for it to wipe out at Gettysburg, Ypres, and Verdun. All the grass wants to do is to accomplish its objective of wiping out physical signs of history. However, these events are recent and so there may still be some visibility of the battles. Some societies think that what happened hundreds of years ago happened yesterday. Carl then uses the image of the passengers who pass the places mentioned in the poem now covered with the grass. They ask the conductor What is this place? Where are we now? The passengers do not have a clue as to how much blood had been dropped there in the stated places. They then carry on with their voyage just as the grass keeps on growing. While the grass covers all signs of history, it may also be pointed out that the allusions where battles of war took place will be embraced by societies that see it asShow MoreRelatedThe Resilience Of Nature By Sara Teasdale And Carl Sandberg Essay1550 Words   |  7 Pagesnon-human life forms that exist in nature are unaware and undeterred from their purpose and routine within the environment. Even if humans destroy themselves to the point of non-existence nature will continue to flourish. Although Sara Teasdale and Carl Sandberg have each chosen the topic of war within their poems and both have used nature to convey their opinions about humanity; the mechanics used to write each poem are different. Each poet chooses the theme of nature’s generative abilities to portrayRead MoreAnalysis Of The Death Of The Hired Man By Amy Lowell1249 Words   |  5 Pagesare not possible, so why worry about them or look back. 4. â€Å"Grass† is a poem composed almost entirely of personification and allusion. How do these two devices work to deliver the message of the poem? In the poem â€Å"Grass† by Carl Sandburg he uses the grass as a cover to what has happened in the places he has named. Each of the places Sandburg names in this poem are sites where a war has occurred. Sandburg makes it as though the grass covers up what has happened in this tragic places, so that noRead MoreLangston Hughes Research Paper25309 Words   |  102 Pagessegregation that kept him and other blacks from using public restrooms or drinking from public fountains, entering certain stores, associating with whites in restaurants, theaters, and trains. If blacks were permitted to enter a facility, they had to use a separate entrance and sit in a separate section. Langston became an avid reader. His favorite magazine was Crisis, published by W.E.B. Du Bois, whose essays urged African Americans to preserve their heritage and to reject integration into the white