Please answer the following questions over the poem, Loneliness, by Fanny Howe.
Question 1
1.
When reading the title of the poem, what can you infer will be the tone or mood?
Question 2
2.
Question 3
3.
After reading the first and second stanza, compare and contrast them. Include how the author depicts loneliness in the first stanza and the second. Hint: Pay attention to lines 7-11 and 16-20!
Question 4
4.
Question 5
5.
Towards the end of the poem Howe describes loneliness and shame as being one. Knowing that shame is when someone feels humiliated or foolish why do you think she added this feeling at the end?
Question 6
6.
State the poem’s central idea or theme in a singular sentence.
Question 7
7.
Fanny Howe put this poem in a book of poems she wrote titled, Second Childhood. What connection can you make with a poem about loneliness to chidlhood?
Question 8
8.
In the first stanza, Howe refers to loneliness as "companion" and "it". What is the author acheiveing by personifying loneliness?
By personifying loneliness she has made an abstract feeling more tanglible and relatable to the reader.
She wanted the idea of loneliness to create a feeling of power and self-identity to the reader.
When an author personifies a non-living object/idea it creates a feeling of sympathy for that object/idea.
Why does Howe include the following simile in her poem? "it will hang near your hand like a habit".
She is comparing loneliness to a habit to remark on how easy it will be to change your ways once you are determined enough.
She is comparing loneliness to a habit to demonstrate the opposite viewpoint of how someone might feel if they are lonely.
She is comparing loneliness to a habit to show how hard it will be to stop or give it up once you give in to loneliness.