Oranges poem
Storyboard Text
- SETTING
- THEME: YOUTH, HAPPINESS MEMORIES
- THE IMAGERY
- Poe creates a brisk and cold setting. He describes the setting as a cold wintery night. In the first stanza, it explains that it was cold and frost was crackling beneath his boots and how the wind was taking his breath away with every inhale. The poem also starts off by taking place outside the girl's house, which looks warm and inviting. The setting changes once again as the boy also takes her to a drug store, this is sweet and endearing as the girl is offered to choose what she wants. While most of the setting is outside in the cold the boy takes her to buildings in the same neighborhood, creating a different atmosphere.
- THE SYMBOLISM
- The speaker is looking back on his time of life and is recalling the pleasure of his first date. He was only 12 and was meeting up with a girl that he had feelings for. It was a new, exciting, and feel-good experience - one that he had never experienced before. He describes his feelings, his surroundings, and what the girl looked like in such detail that it creates a perfect vision of happiness and security. His memories of being young with his whole life ahead of him and the feeling of enduring love is very powerful.
- THE SPEAKER
- The imagery shown in this poem is very descriptive and appeals to the reader. The language used describes the scenes as cold but there are parts that add warmth to the poem. Overall, the imagery sounds quite romantic and idealistic, the way scenes are described really develops a picture in your head of what it would look like and feel like. Not only does it give a perception of how it looks or how it physically might feel, but the words also describe how the boy and girl feel.
- THE PURPOSE
- The oranges symbolically represent the purity and sweetness of love. The oranges are also a symbol of warmth, confidence, love, and passion. The poem symbolise's an energy created by love and human kindness, as a young boy on his first date everything is unknown. The poem is set on a cold dark day too so when he unwraps his orange at the end which looks like fire in his hand all of a sudden a feeling of warmth and brightness is created.
- The speaker keeps us engaged in the poem and uses very detailed language. The speaker reflects back on his first interaction with a young girl. He uses several literacy devices in 'Oranges' some of these include simile, enjambment, and alliteration. The simile can be found twice in the first stanza with the lines I turned to the candies / tiered like bleachers. Here Soto uses like to compare the way the candy is stacked on the shelf to bleachers.
- Soto's poem uses contrasts between brightness and dullness warmth, and cold, young and old, to convey a romantic experience between the narrator and his girlfriend. The poet reminds us that the innocence of first love can warm the heart and burn bright in one's memory. The boy is young and this being his first date he is nervous but wants to show the girl his feelings, even though he can't offer her much and the day is gloomy. The act of human kindness is displayed too by the shopkeeper, the oranges allowed the boy to treat the girl. It is a heartwarming poem showing the innocence of love and sharing that love. The poem allows the reader to understand the feelings between the boy and girl from the beginning to the end and shows us that looking back on memories can bring warmth and happiness.
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