poetry

Provider Response Form

Welcome to the Writing Lab!

Analysis and recommendations regarding specific parts of your paper are included in the tutor response form. A copy of your paper is also posted below this form, and it includes additional comments in brackets. If you have additional questions, you can direct them to [email protected] .

Thank you for choosing the Writing Lab, and best wishes with your revisions!

Part 1 – Overview

· Thank you for submitting your literary analysis for review. Your personal knowledge and research on the issue are evident. You can find my detailed feedback in Parts 2-6 below, as well as through some in-text comments and suggestions.

· A link to The Brainfuse Essential Grammar Guide is located under Part 7, and APA/MLA formatting guidelines can be found under Part 8.

Part 2 – Main Idea/Thesis

· In a literary analysis, your thesis statement will make a debatable claim about one or more works of literature. A thesis statement should be a fresh idea or opinion that is supportable based on facts or evidence taken from the story, poem or play discussed in the literary analysis. Your thesis cannot be a restatement of fact or an unsupportable opinion. It should also be interesting and not immediately obvious. A literary analysis thesis often suggests a particular way of reading or understanding a literary work, an interpretation that the average reader wouldn't see right away. The best thesis statements are specific rather than general.

Part 3 – Introduction and Conclusion

· You’ve successfully introduced the name of the literary work you’ll be analyzing for your essay, but you need to take it a couple steps further. Your introduction should also preview some of the main arguments you’ll be addressing throughout your writing as well as let the reader know what literary elements you’ll be using throughout your analysis. Some examples of literary elements are: plot, setting, character, symbolism, irony, theme, etc.

· Throughout your text you discuss imagery, metaphors, and the character of “the man.” These are all literary elements that you can introduce in your Introduction which will benefit your reader and strengthen your opening paragraph.

· Your conclusion acts a summary paragraph where you once again share your insight into the interpretation and analysis of the poem. This insight should make its way to your thesis statement to perfect your opening paragraph.

Part 4 – Development

· In a literary analysis you want to make sure that each paragraph has a main idea that supports your thesis. Once you have developed your thesis, you’ll just want to double check that each literary element is covered throughout your text. Otherwise, the development of your essay meets the standards of this rubric.

Part 5 – Organization

· The organization in your writing gives the paper a cohesive flow, and your articulation shines through. As a general rule, each of your paragraphs should include the following criteria:

· A topic sentence which will introduce the main idea you will be discussing.

· Some of your own original analysis relating to the topic.

· Carefully selected supporting evidence from your research that emphasizes the main point you are making in that particular paragraph.

· A closing thought on why the quote or statistic best supports not only your idea but relates back to the thesis as a whole.

Part 6 – Style

· Throughout your essay, you will see some comments and optional revisions through in-text notations. These may call attention to word choices and grammatical errors; suggest edits that will make your sentences more concise; and ways to help you to avoid awkward phrasing which can distract your readers.

Part 7 – Grammar, Usage, and Mechanics

Please use The Brainfuse Essential Grammar Guide to identify and edit errors in grammar, usage, and mechanics. You can view the guide by clicking on this link below and logging in to Brainfuse:

http://www.brainfuse.com/curriculumupload//1381694219673.html

If you would like a review focused on your grammar, usage, and mechanics, in the future, please request a grammar review in the comments box.

Part 8 – Formatting

Please use the Brainfuse Style Guides for information on citation formatting.

APA http://admin.brainfuse.com/curriculumupload//1396469029929.doc

MLA http://admin.brainfuse.com/curriculumupload//1396469093281.doc

Chicago Style http://admin.brainfuse.com/curriculumupload//1396469134949.doc

Additional Comments

I have also added specific comments to select paragraphs in your paper. You will find them in brackets below.

Note that your paper has been copied into this file. Please make all changes to your own original file to maintain the header and footers.

Men at Forty by Donald Justice

This is a poem that in an implied manner explores the theme of ageing. The title “Men at Forty” is enough to ring a bell as to what exactly the poem could be talking about. Men, before forties are usually ambitious and sometimes deceptively so. They still dwell on their fascinations and desires in the hope that they have it all to achieve whatever it is they wish for. However, Justice takes interest in the situation of men after all the utopia has passed and crystal realism of what he can and cannot achieve starts creeping in. The title is therefore clearly symbolizing the conditions of life for men as age starts taking the better of them. Justice is suggesting that there is something peculiar about life at forty; some sort of paradigm shift that he thinks its worthy reflecting upon. And the orientation of the poem is such that the poet distances himself from the experiences it relates by having it written in third person. The persona therefore is a mouthpiece of some independent observer who has analyzed the situation of men in the forties and come up with a description of it. It suggests that men start realizing that they have embarked on a voyage of finality in a new phase of life when they start experiencing the middle-age realities and changes to their lives at forty. [thesis statement?]

The poem, as it portrays the middle-age life conditions, shows how at age forty, men tend to start giving up on some of their long-held dreams and ambitions. The starting verse of the poem sets the tempo for this assertion when it notes that “Men at forty/ Learn to close softly /the doors to rooms they will not be/ Coming back to” (Justice 1/2/3/4). The word “room” is metaphorically used in this context to refer to the rooms of a person’s past that with ageing, they are forced to abandon and leave behind. However something about how these doors are closed; it is not in the manner of agile youths who with violence will slam the door. Instead, this is done in a contemplative and supposedly wistful and quite close (Enotes.com 1). The poem is metaphorically referring to the fact that as men turn forty, it becomes clear to them that they still have a long shot at achieving some goals. Some goals even appear to be virtually out of their reach and after considering priorities, they simply concede that they will never achieve them. Not only are these lines talking about the goals that are impossible to achieve but also talks about the readiness of the men at this age to accept loss more easily. A feeling of futility starts growing in them over having to be fixated on the things that they lost in the past. They feel it is better to forge a head than be enmeshed in the losses of the past. They simply start to let go.

At this age, there is a rediscovery of oneself, a casting back to the past and a compelling confrontation with the realities of the present. This is as far as the second stanza is concerned which captures the notion that ageing is on its course and in spite of the things lost and the goals not achieved, things are not static and they are being carried on in a voyage. The men “at rest on a stair landing/they feel it” (Justice 6/7). Here “it” is used functionally as a pronoun that refers to time that is but an unnamed antecedent. Men here come to terms with the fact time is passing them over but not entirely leaving them behind. It seems to be dragging them along. And the stanza describes how men take time off to reflect as if it was necessary to take such a physical rest yet keep the minds engaged. This a [awkward phrasing] poem that introduces the fact that this age is unsettling as it inflicts fear and panic (Enotes.com 1). Imagining the mortgages, bills and the daily routine of life all get a person to feel as though death was lurking at the door. The imagery that men feel the landing of a stair moving beneath them “like the deck of a ship” is not literal (Justice 8). Rather, it is a sort of reference to the perceptions that people develop as they get to the middle ages of forty. It all no longer feels the same, but rather like a wave, times sweep them like some current that they cannot resist but have to swim in them.

In the process of adjusting to middle age conditions, the person rediscover [this is a subject-verb agreement error; when you have a singular subject, the verb must be singular as well – take a look at the Brainfuse Essential Grammar Guide link located under Part 7] themselves when they look at their other side. This is when in the poem, the man rediscovers a face in the mirror. The poem notes that “And deep in mirrors/they rediscover/the face of the boy as he practices trying/his father’s tie there in secret” (Justice 9/10/11/12). This stanza shows the man picturing the boy he was as a youth as he stares before the mirror. While he is looking in the mirror, the truth is that he is aged quite significantly now. However, they still have that feeling that they are young inside. This is the allure of nature that seems to sooth every man at their various stages of life that they are just what they ought to be. That they are just fine and prime at whatever stage they are. This is the feeling that covers up the senses as for every man to advance in their ages without quite noticing. They feel young even when they are far too gone. Perhaps this is a dynamic of the poem to introduce an escapism on the part of the man trying to resist the reality of the fact that they are speeding up towards death. However, the son that was has now grown into a father himself and only a keener focus deep within can reveal the boisterous youthfulness that seem to have now gone. [you bring some really good original insight into your analysis as well as supporting evidence from the poem to back up your claims. This organization helps readers follow along with your thought process and proves that you’ve done thorough and objective research]

In showing what voyage life is and time as its instrument, the poet presents the agonizing times and strife that bedevils people as they try to come to terms with the reality of their ageing. As such from the previous stanza that had lightened the moods a bit, we are moved back into the somber mood of distress. Justice describes the face of the father as being “warm with the mystery of lather” (Justice 14). This is a face that has transfigured from being young as that of son, to that looking the same as of his father (orchowski15 1). This really can be a cause of panic. The use of “lather father” is figurative and meant to refer to maturity that the man saw in his father when he was still young and was quite intrigued by it. It was quite difficult for the young man to comprehend how his father looked while he was only a young boy (orchowski15 1). But with him now having undergone the same process and seeing the result, the intrigue and mystery of it is now gone. Both in circumstance as in image, the man has grown to become that which and whom his father was. The poem then says that “something is filling them up” (16), which something refers to the ageing itself that is but a drive to death.

The poem therefore portrays life as an arc that smoothly rises and then falls. The “something”, the ageing, is always in action right from birth fueling the formation of the arc. When the men were young and without burden, they felt free and were random. But the aural metaphor of the “twilight sound of crickets” (17/18) could be trumpeting the looming doom. This is the tone of the poem that is pronouncing the fulfillment of times, the arc progressing towards its fullest formation. Upon coming to these realizations, men of forty are filled with hollowness (paradox). "Behind their mortgaged houses" (20) illustrates one of the reasons men of forty shut doors to which they will not return. The mortgaged houses is [subject-verb agreement error] but a metaphorical reference to the burdens that the men shoulder in the middle ages. These burdens are both in terms of family and financial obligations that all combine to push them forward leaving them with no chance to retreat to the former stages of life.

In advancing the theme, the poet took on the free verse orientation to make it possible to shift back and forth in time and set the audience into a voyage just as that which he made the subject. The poem as such is only principally governed by meaning since lines are end-stopped and rampantly enjambed. One would guess the use of enjambment is meant to achieve fluidity of thought on the part of the poet when efforts are put on each line to ensure it has something that can help to define their character. The enjambment in stanza 2, for example (“They feel it moving/ Beneath them now like the deck of a ship”), mimics the gentle swell being described, and the enjambment between stanzas 4 and 5, and between the first two lines of stanza 5 (“something// That is like the twilight sound/ Of the crickets”), creates a sense of flow appropriate to the pouring into and filling of the men which is being discussed (Enotes.com 1).

On the whole, the poem is quite progressive as an explication of life in the middle ages. This is especially in regard to how it combines style to show how time is of the essence in life’s journey. As an account of the conditions of the middle age, the poem in fact captures the entire life spectrum from dawn to “twilight”. However, the forties are monumental since this is when the intrigues and mysteries that men held in their pioneering years are demystified. The ambitions that they had start getting trimmed to size and the feeling that they are going to wither away starts intensifying. So does the panic and the need to adjust by only closing “the doors to rooms they will not be”. It trumpets a new stage of life that only has to be perceived looking forward to finality; to death.

· References:

· The word “References” (no quotations) is centered at the top of a new page and is not bolded, italicized, or underlined.

· References are listed in alphabetical order by the author’s name.

· Every line after the first of each entry is indented.

· This page is double-spaced just like the rest of the paper.

· Capitalize only proper nouns and the first word of the title/subtitle of a chapter in a book

· Put the titles of books in italics

· Provide the issue number for periodicals that are paged by issue

· Do not put the name of a chapter in italics

· Do not put the edition number of a book in italics.

· Provide page numbers for print articles.

References

Enotes.com. Men at Forty Analysis. 2016. http://www.enotes.com/topics/men-forty/in-depth.

Justice, Donald. Men At Forty. 2008. http://gonemild.com/2008/11/30/sunday-poetry-men-at-forty-by-donald-justice/.

orchowski15. Donald Justice’s “Men at Forty”. 2012. http://engl106.blog.sbc.edu/2012/01/24/donald-justices-men-at-forty-2/ .

[check formatting for the references listed above]