Model Paragraphs: Yeats and Updike

Model introductions and body paragraphs for the Yeats and Updike comparison.

By Rick Reed

ENGLISH 11AP:

Model Paragraphs – Yeats/Updike Comparison

INTRODUCTIONS

BODY PARAGRAPHS

Some of the figurative language in “Scarf” mirrors that in “Swans,” serving to reinforce the similarity of scenes by lending further parallelism. Much of the figurative language is devoted to the birds. The speaker in “Swans” calls the flock “a cloud of dots/like iron filings” (16-17) controlled by a magnet and claims that it is “as much one thing as a rock (22). This metaphor-simile combination and this hyperbolic simile illustrate the speaker’s amazement at the flock’s ability to fly as one entity. More importantly, however, at the end of he poem the speaker indirectly refers to the other poem by using the same metonymy of “heart” for his emotional center as the one used by the speaker of the other poem, although their emotions differ. Another similarity to the first poem is the metonymy or symbol of birds, although in this case starlings, for nature. Though the use of such similar figurative language in addition to the similar choice of detail, the second poem parallels and alludes to the first, making the similarity of scene between the two all the more striking.

INTRODUCTIONS

BODY PARAGRAPHS

CONCLUSIONS