Title: _____________________________Name: _________________________ Period: _____ Date: ________
The Butterfly - Using TPCASTT
for Analysis of Poetry
T
Title
What do the words of the title suggest to you? What denotations are
presented in the title? What connotations or associations do the words
possess?
Personal response from your brain
P
Paraphrase
C
Connotation What meaning does the poem have beyond the literal meaning? Fill in the
Translate each sentence of the poem in your own words. What is the poem
about?
An imprisoned person in the Nazi ghetto describes a butterfly and the
speaker reflects on it being the last one in the ghetto.
chart below.
Form
Free verse or Lyric
___4__ # of stanzas
Diction
List 3 examples of
unique diction used by
the author
1. penned up
2. dandelions call to me
3. last  repeated word
Point of View
Details
1st person
The butterfly went away
to kiss the world goodbye
it’s leaving forever
3rd person limited
3rd person omniscient
(Circle one)
Symbolism
List at least one symbol and give
an explanation of why it’s
symbolism
Butterfly symbolizes
freedom. It can fly
away and leave the
ghetto.
Imagery
(appeals to 5 senses)
Richly, brightly, dazzlingly
yellow
Sun’s tears would sing
against a white stone
Such a yellow is carried
lightly way up high
Allusions
Narrator is drawn to the
dandelions and other
flowers in the court.
Butterflies don’t live in
the ghetto.
Figurative Language
Find a smile, metaphor, hyperbole,
Personification
Write the example from the poem
and label it
The sun’s tears sing
The dandelions call to
me
(personification)
Other Devices
(irony, oxymoron, paradox,
pun)
A
Attitude
What is the speaker’s attitude? How does the speaker feel about himself,
about others, and about the subject? What is the author’s attitude? How
does the author feel about the speaker, about other characters, about the
subject, and the reader? (use your tone vocabulary list)
Mournful tone. The speaker is grieving that he will never see another
butterfly. The sun cries. The dandelions calling to the speaker in a forlorn
way as if they wish he could join them, but he can’t
S
Shifts
Where do the shifts in tone, setting, voice, etc. occur? Look for time and
place, keywords, punctuation, and stanza divisions. What is the purpose of
each shift? How do they contribute to meaning?
There is a shift between the 3rd and 4th stanza. The first three stanzas
describe a yellow (happy color) fluttering around and the flowers calling to
him.
The last stanza describes the speakers sorrow that all of the butterflies
are gone from the ghetto, which is a desperate place to live.
T
Title
T
Theme
Reanalyze the title on an interpretive level. What part does the title play in
the overall interpretation of the poem?
The poem’s title is about the last butterfly the speaker saw. It symbolizes
the freedom and happiness that is now gone from his life.
List the subjects and the abstract ideas in the poem. Then determine the
overall theme. What message is the author trying to convey? What lesson
is being taught? The theme must be written in a complete sentence.
There is a theme of freedom vs imprisonment. The message is the world is a
gloomy place when freedom is taken away from people.
Franz Stangl Interview Guiding Questions
1. Personal response. Do you find it understandable, unfathomable, insane . . .? Explain your response
2. He didn’t see any prisoners as individuals. They were just a mass of things that went past him.
3. Personal response. He had a choice in the sense that he could have quit and fled the country. He didn’t
have a choice in the sense that his job was considered normal in Germany and rebelling meant
imprisonment or death.
4. He describes the system as a normal everyday job. To Stangl, he wasn’t committing atrocities against
humanity, he was just doing what the system did well, and he helped the system along.
5. Stangl has some remorse when describing the cattle lining up for slaughter. He compares the cattle to the
prisoners and he can no longer eat canned meat after.
6. Comparing perpetrators as beasts dehumanizes people like Stangl. It helps people deny the fact that
humans are capable of such terrible crimes.
“The Sounds of Greenland” Editing/Revising section
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G
D
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D
J
C
F
B