Summary Of The Poem 'The Layers' By Stanley Ku Whoever
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When I first saw the title of the poem, “The Layers” by Stanley Kunitz, this scene from Shrek came into my head. When I was little I did not know what Shrek meant when he was comparing himself to an onion, but when I got older, I figured it out. It meant that everyone has things that they do not want to share and people are not always as simple as they seem to be, like an onion; you think it just is a simple vegetable, but when you look deeper into it, it has many layers and grooves in it making it more complex. Some of the same principles apply to Kunitz poem. He talks about layers, but in a different context. He uses diction, juxtaposition, imagery, first person, and a slant rhyme with alliteration to show the complexity of life and how past experiences shape the future.…show more content… His father went into a very dark place and he committed suicide publicly by drinking carbolic acid in a park. After his father passed away, his mom hid everything that involved Kunitz’s father: pictures, letter, or anything that reminded her of him. When Kunitz started to grow up, he would ask his mother about his father, and every time he did, she would not answer and ignore him. Kunitz accounts that one time he went up into his attic and found a picture of his father and brought it down to show and ask his mother about it and his mother slapped him across his face. He writes in one of his poems that, “I can still feel my cheek burning” (The Portrait). His mother remarried and unfortunately his step-father died of a heart attack when Kunitz was only fourteen. Kunitz then moved out when he was fifteen and became a butcher's assistant. Later he got a job as a reporter on The Worcester