Part 1: Elizabeth Owens uses imagery throughout her poem “One Art”, and she carefully goes into more
detail as it goes on. She opens up her by personifying everything that is lost. She reads, “so many things
seem filled with the intent to be lost that their loss is no disaster”. This introduction to the poem gives
the reader the idea that small things, such as the door keys or time as she mentions, have the intent or
purpose to be lost.
As Bishop becomes more and more personal with what is being lost, she starts using withheld imagery in
the latter end of the poem to express her own personal losses, though the readers are not aware of
what may have happened. She talks about everything she used to own, “some realms I owned, two
rivers, a continent,” but the readers never know what happened to her own property. The most
backstory the reader gets is that what she had was gone.
At the end of the poem, Bishop utilizes symbolism to express how what she wrote was about not just
loss, but the loss of someone she loved. By saying “Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture I love),”
she uses second tense to separate the reader from the true intent of her poem: the loss of a loved one
who was the subject.
Part 2: One Art does follow the traditional structure of a Villanelle by containing three-line stanzas and
one four-line stanza at the end of the poem. She follows the format again by loosely sticking to Iambic
Pentameter, even though adding a few extra syllables. Bishop does like to use repetition as rhythm, as
she constantly continues to use “disaster” and “master” as her line ending rhymes. This goes in hand
with the Villanelle format, where certain lines of the poem often repeat. The repeated use of both
“disaster” and “master” further expands the poem’s depth as it goes on. From simply talking about
house keys and wasted time, Bishop goes on to explain how she’s “…Lost two cities, lovely ones. And,
vaster, some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.” This increasing personal loss gives the poem
more emotion and is what makes it a deep villanelle.
Part 3: Based on the vowel pitch chart from Western Wind, Elizabeth Bishop seems to use a deeper tone
to convey the idea of loss. With her going back and reusing both “master” and “disaster” at he end of
her lines, she often uses words that rhyme with them. These constant rhymes implant a low frequency
vowel sound of “ah”, which can bring the feeling of something massive or sorrowful. In the context of
her poem, Bishop seems to be heading in the direction of something sorrowful, which is seen as it goes
on. The lack of high frequency vowel sounds solidifies the poem’s tone as a more serious one, because
there are none that really give it speed or excitement.
Part 1: George Saunders uses multiple types of components for his voice in his novel, “Bounty”, but one
of his more prominent ones is humor.
The very beginning of “Bounty” introduces a world that, while is taken from our current state of
geopolitics, is changed into an almost plausible way, to themes taken from fantasy. In this world,
society is divided between “Normals” and “Flawed”. The “Flawed” is seen as subhuman; normal people
have succumbed to a kind of mutation that gives them animal characteristics. For example, the main
character, Cole, is your average human male, except for the fact that instead of toes, he has a set of
claws. Saunders introduces this point slowly, and then, explains that maybe the world is not so feasible
as one may think. He sets Cole and his family in Bountyland, a medieval theme park. Granted, in a
world where a large group of people is trotted upon and enslaved, it seems almost comical to group
them in a park set almost in the Dark Ages, which seems to portray the state of the novella’s the United
States. Saunders strikes again with his humor within the text and in the first few pages of his story.
Here, Cole’s Father is doing what he can to ease the minds of the Flawed who will soon lose their right
to vote, but his audience refuses to accept his comfort.
One person says, “Easy for you to say, you’re Normal,” where another patron fires back with “He’s not
normal, he’s a Priest”. The dialogue here shows the irony in the fact that Cole’s normal father is
considered Flawed because of his profession, showing no clear distinction between a genetic mutation,
and a priest.
Part 2: Cole is written as a solid character by Saunders as his personality is what drives the story. In this
polarized society, Saunders can write Cole’s sympathies and motivations, driving the plot and not
keeping a bland cast. Cole is a great example of how Saunders uses motivation: through his sister,
Connie. Most of “Bounty” is Cole searching far and wide in an increasingly hostile nation for his sister
who had been “kidnapped”, trying to prevent the possibility of her being sold to the Flawed slave trade.
This also shows sympathy for his sister. Even before she was taken, Cole faces disciplinary action for
striking Corbett in the back of the head with a rock. “He was degrading my sister,” Cole says when asked
why by his superiors. As a flawed himself, however, he also has sympathy for those like him. Once he
finds out that his sister is well taken care of by Corbett, he finds himself joining up with the Flawed
Rebellion, to try and end the slavery of the Flawed.
Part 3: Saunders continues his trend of compounding problems for the main character to keep the plot
going. He starts by introducing the hostile country Cole has to reside in, living among those who are
enslaved and considered second-class citizens. Due to his label in society, another problem arises for
Cole: his sister is sold off and sent to New Mexico. Cole then tries to remove any part of his “Flawed”
identity, which includes removing his wristband with the help of the doctor. On his journey to free his
sister, Cole is then captured and will be forced into the Flawed slave trade. Before he could be
completely sold, however, he is freed by the Flawed Resistance group. Much of the plot in bounty
follows this cycle of problem and solution, and it is what drives the plot forward. Instead of looking at a
broad sequence of events that just happen, Saunders makes sure that each event has a cause and effect,
and that each compound keeps the story going.