Comparative analysis-poetry essay

Comparative Analysis Paper-Poetry Poetry often addresses the struggles of life and workplace themes. The language and content used by the author may often convey his or her experiences and how well this is done is dependent upon the poetic techniques used to produce an emotional response or mood of the reader. Three poems have been selected, Ruth Collins poem “ The Song of the Factory Worker,” Jim Daniels poem “ The Factory Jungle,” and Patricia Doblers’ poem “ The Rope” to compare the poetic techniques used, show differences, and similarities of how lines in the poems supports each technique.

The poem “ The Song of the Factory Worker” is about a female worker in a sweatshop. The poem is told from the characters point of view. The theme of the poem is coping with a job that the main character does not like. The one simile in the poem compares the red brick building to a vampire. Vampires portrayed in literature had powers of hypnosis to bring back their victim again and again the same as the power of the red brick building. Throughout the poem the author has used personification by giving the red brick building a voice to speak to the character as these lines illustrates “ Oh you may leave But you’ll come back. “ But you’ll come back. ” (Collins 216) The red brick building speaks to the character in several lines of the poem telling her that she may leave but that she will return as in these lines, “ You’ll miss The whir, whir of the machinery, The click of the tacker. ” (Collins 216) The majority of the lines in this poem are a quote from the red brick building speaking to the character. My opinion is this is a unique technique. The character in this poem is in conversation with her vampire the red brick building and not speaking to the reader.

The main character and the other workers are victims of the vampire because they are powerless to break away as they have no other skills. Hyperbole demonstrates an exaggeration of a lifetime being sewing as demonstrated in this line, “ Many who have sewed their life away. ” (Collins 216) The irony in the poem is in these lines, “ The happy laughter of the girls,” (Collins 216) in reality there is no laughter, telling jokes, or singing in a sweatshop “ The haven’t the time to look up. (Collins 216) The poem “ Factory Jungle” is about unsafe work and the theme is coping with a job the character does not like. The title is a metaphor comparing the factory to a jungle both of which can be dangerous places. The point of view is from the main character. This poem addresses a common workplace issue, unsafe working issues. The character believes this is not the right company to be working for as this line states, “ I get the itchy feeling that I don’t belong here. (Daniels 215) The character refers to the machine he stands behind as a mad elephant, another metaphor. The comparison allows the reader to visualize the pain of an elephant stepping on a foot to that of the machine crushing his hand. In the fourth stanza the character states, “ I rip open my coveralls and pound my chest trying to raise my voice above the roar of the machines louder that Tarzan ever had to. ” (Daniels 215) This tells the reader that the character has voiced safety concerns to management and they will not listen.

The author has used hyperbole of Tarzan’s jungle yell to exaggerate how loudly the character voiced his concerns. The character has lost interest in the job as he states, “ The parts are backing up and I don’t care. ” (Daniels 215) The safety concerns voiced by the character fell on deaf ears and the worker states “ I’d shed my boots, coveralls, safety glasses, ear plugs, and fly out the plant gate past the guard post and into the last hour of twilight. ” (Daniels 215) This conveys to the reader that the character wants to leave the factory because of the unsafe workplace conditions.

In the poem “ The Rope” the narrator’s point of view comes from an adult remembering as a child the voices of parents and is told using third person as indicated by this line “ Their voices still wake me as I woke for years to that rise and fall. ” (Dobler 236) The theme is about family and the struggles to survive a job and life. The underlying theme is about coping with a job he does not like and that he would quit except as stated, “ The kids he would say, if it weren’t for the kids. (Dobler 236) The line “ the rope pulled taunt between them” (Dobler 236) illustrates the continuous argument between the husband and wife about the job. In the line, “ Tears swallowed and hidden under layers of paint, under linoleum rugs, new piled on old, each year the pattern brighter, costlier. ” (Dobler 236) demonstrates the stress of the job, how the years go by, and the toll it takes on the family. The character wants to quit his job but ironically in reality he can’t. This is a problematic decision. In comparing these three poems there are similarities and differences.

All three poems deal with workplace issues, safety, skills, and stress and all deal with coping with jobs they do not like. Each of the poems demonstrates irony. The poems “ The Song of the Factory Worker” and “ Factory Jungle” have the same primary theme of coping narrated in first person. The poem “ The Rope has a primary theme of family and an underlying theme of coping narrated in third person. The poems “ The Rope” and “ Factory Jungle” have stanzas like paragraphs in an essay. “ The Song of the Factory Worker” uses continuous lines and breaks to maintain focus on the subject.

The majority of “ The Song of the Factory Worker” is a quote of the red brick building speaking to the character through the use of personification. In “ The Song of the Factory Worker” and “ Factory Jungle” the author effectively used hyperbole. The “ Factory Jungle used metaphors and “ The Song of the Factory Worker” used one simile. Each author successfully used techniques that effectively conveyed the poetic message to arouse an emotional response from the audience. References Collins, Ruth. “ The Song of the Factory Worker. ” The art of work an anthology of workplace literature.

Ed. Peter McBride. Cincinnati, OH: South-Western Educational Publishing, 1996. Print. Daniels, James. “ Factory Jungle. ” The art of work an anthology of workplace literature. Ed. Peter McBride. Cincinnati, OH: South-Western Educational Publishing, 1996. Print. Dobler, Patricia. “ The Rope. ” The art of work an anthology of workplace literature. Ed. Peter McBride. Cincinnati, OH: South-Western Educational Publishing, 1996. Print. LaRocco, C. , & Coughlin, J. (Ed. ). (1996). The art of work and anthology of workplace literature. Cincinnati, OH: South-Western Educational Publishing.