Literary analysis of the poem “Snapping beans” by Lisa. (Essay Sample)

Student name Instructor Course Due Date Literary analysis of the poem “Snapping beans” by Lisa. The poem “Snapping beans” by Lisa Parker is about a young lady’s internal conflict about whether or not she should keep her grandmother informed of her experience at college. She is spending the weekend with her grandma in the upcountry.  They were having a conversation when she was asked about her general experience at school. However, the speaker responded that everything at school was fine because she knew her grandma would be quite displeased with her college companions or the topics they discussed. This poem’s greater meaning is that sometimes it is necessary to disregard one’s sentiments to keep order in one’s life. She wanted to tell her grandma everything but feared how she would react. The speaker, therefore, decides not to tell her grandma the truth in an apparent effort to maintain peace between her two worlds. This analysis will evaluate the poem’s diction, including the tone, use of imagery and symbolism, similes, and alliteration to elaborate on the said meaning. The first element I will analyze is the speaker’s word choice in the poem’s creation. The speaker used phrases such as “splintering slats,” “strychnine,” “familiar/heartsick panels of the quilt,” “I was tearing, splitting myself apart” (Line 35), etc. The use of these multiple-word choices together has successfully portrayed the speaker as a multidimensional character. She is the disjointed one, an individual with different ideas running through her mind, not knowing which direction or idea she should follow or believe in. Despite the stressful emotions brought on by the school, she is able to feel comfortable in her environment and enjoy the comfort it provides. Her quilt has what she calls “heartsick panels” rather than traditional heart-shaped panels. This allows readers to get insight into her actual feelings when she returns home. She is falling apart due to the conflicting emotions she derives from the many facets of her existence. The speaker uses colloquial language, which contributes to the overall tone of the poem, which is conversational. Secondly, I will analyze how the speaker employed imagery and symbolism to help the readers visualize a moment or a thing and convey the deeper meaning of the words used in the poem. For instance, the speaker describes the poem’s scenery through imagery. To begin, the speaker uses figurative language to illustrate how her grandma is looking at her. The speaker says, “I could feel the soft gray of her stare against the side of my face” (Lines 12-13). There is silence between the speaker and her grandma, who is staring intently at the speaker. Of course, they are facing one another. A tense pause occurs. The speaker’s grandmother is anxiously awaiting the details of the speaker’s school day, but the speaker is keeping crucial information from her. Moreover, when explaining her grandmother’s statement, the speaker employed a figurative description of the leaves falling onto the porch. She writes, “it’s funny how things blow loose like that” (Line 43). It makes it easier for the reader to visualize how the leaves were falling. The usage of phrases such as hickory leaf and porch front provides a countryside ambiance, conveying to the reader that the narrator’s life changed drastically when she attended college. The reader might infer the speaker’s intent by visualizing the dialogue between her and her grandmother. In addition, The title “Snapping beans” is a symbol that the narrator uses to express the girl’s shattered age. The college girl snapping beans into a bowl is described by the narrator as having arrived at an understanding of the ways in which her life at home and at the college are distinct from one another. The third element I will analyze in the poem is how the poet employed similes. The use of similes allows poets to establish imaginative analogies between things or occurrences that are very distinct from one another. In addition to that, they may be used to accentuate a description. The conjunctions “like” or “as” are common components of similes. They aid in deducing the author’s genuine intent from the text. In “snapping beans,” there are multiple examples of similes. The first is the collegiate experience of the speaker. The speaker says in lines 16-17, “ the revelations by book and lecture as real as any shout of faith, potent as a swig of strychnine.” The speaker compares the breakthroughs she has had as a result of “reading books” and “going to lectures” to a “sho...