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Nothing Gold Can Stay Symbolism

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Change is prevalent throughout society. Famous poets and authors from past and present use change as their theme throughout their many works. Generally speaking change is a broad topic encapsulated by many areas of literature. In poems and short stories, speakers and narrators use many types of literary devices to express their thoughts. Symbolism as one that authors and poets use often to analogize their perspective to transfer a clear message to the reader. Several authors and poets use symbolism to express how society has to accept change.

Doris Lessing and Sharon Olds, both use symbolism to convey how parents feeling as their children change. Lessing in her short story Flight describes a grandfather that doesn’t want to let go of her granddaughter. The speaker uses a homing pigeon to symbolize his granddaughter, a bird locked up in a cage, but if free always comes back. The …show more content…
In Atwood’s poem she describes a young refugee girl entering Canada and her first thoughts. The speaker hints of feeling different and finding the country overwhelming. She states “The moving water will not show me my reflection.” (l. 16-17) expressing how she feels out-of-place. The author uses the girls situation to symbolize how change is difficult. The speaker cannot literally and figuratively see herself in Canada. Literally in the water and figuratively in Canada. Frost’s Nothing Gold Can Stay is a poem that touches on how everything is changing. The speaker uses the changing of a leaf to symbolize how nothing is constant by stating “then leaf subsides to leaf.” (l. 5) Therefore, alluding to how nature is ever-changing, much like life is ever-changing. The speaker denotes the leaf as an exciting experience in life; he implies how exiting experience is as beautiful as flowers, but don’t last long, much like the

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