How Is Figurative Language Used In Paul Simon's Poetry
804 Words4 Pages
Declan Roe
Poetry is never tedious! Poetry has the power to influence people to change not only individual lives but also change the course of society. Evidence of this can be seen in Paul Simon’s Sounds of Silence and Kenneth Slessor’s Beach Burial. These poems use figurative language and sound devices to convey the messages of alienation and awareness to the audience. These poems also helped shape the society we know today.
Poems and songs include a plethora of figurative language techniques in order to assist readers to see images in their mind which stimulate their mind's eye thereby increasing the understanding of the themes and messages the poet invites readers to accept. Paul Simon’s song, Sounds of Silence is a cry for change in society that is still relevant today. Paul Simon uses metaphor and…show more content… Simon uses personification by speaking directly to "darkness, my old friend." The speaker desires to support people to find significance in their lives beyond commercial culture, but no one listens, except for the darkness he wake up to after dreaming of a chance to make the people aware of the risks. The second line, "I've come to talk with you again," tells readers that these nighttime conversations are a normal occurrence, emphasizing further the narrator’s appearance as an outcast. In the narrator’s dream, people worship material culture at the expense of actually having a relationship with other people in society, and the evaluation of their silence as cancer highlights the destructive toll that this lifestyle takes on the people. The narrator uses another simile when he says that although he begs with them to listen, "my words like silent raindrops fell." Like rain, his pleas fell quietly and unnoticed. Simon uses the paradoxes;