Poem Analysis

The title of the poem is “Life Is What We Make It” by Edgar A. Guest. This title seems to go along with how a person views life as a whole. This idea is also what the author wants the reader to take away as an idea.  If the person has a negative outlook on life, then all of the bad or negative events or occurrences through their day, and even life, will always seem to stick with them more than it should and it will seem as though they are having bad luck or that nothing good is going their way.The said person will most likely not be in too good of a mood. If a person has a more positive outlook on life then they will tend to focus on the more positive aspects of their day, and life, and it may seem that they are just always happy or in a good mood. Even if the previously mentioned two people have the exact same occurrences happen to them throughout a day, the person with a negative outlook will most likely view it as being a bad day, while the person with a positive outlook will most likely view it as a good day. This is the essence of the poem, that life it what you make of it. If you want to have a good day and have a positive outlook, then you most likely will.

Putting the poem into a more literal sense in my own words is as follows.

Take the delight of life

Laughter is great and you should hold onto it

Tears and pain can quickly come crashing down

But life is what you make of it

Dance to the parts of life worth dancing to

Grief can be long and put on a damper

We need joy, so smile just to smile

live by this life must be what you make of it

life is alive, with characteristics

reach for a goal, and use your strength and perseverance to get there

Our lives together

The worst and the best of it

remember this line

life must be what we make of it

Before the writing of this poem, the author may have had some very bad and very good news or events happen to him. There might have been a death of his family member, or a big break in his career. He could either dwell of the fact that someone died and is gone, or celebrate their life and make the best of your career. He may have had some feeling contemplations and so he decided that “how” you day went depended on your outlook, and he wrote this poem to express that and to convey it to others. He also might have been a bit pessimistic, but then have realized that this was not the way to go, and so he made the transition to more of an optimist and wrote this poem.

The poem is made up of 3 stanzas of 8 lines each. Each stanza starts with “Life is a” and each stanza ends with “Life must be what we make of it.”. In addition, the second to last line of each stanza is a lead into the ending line. There is some imagery, I would say more vague or implied imagery like actions, not a scene. The first line of each stanza, in addition to the end of other lines,  is followed by a semicolon. This can imply that the lines following that line are an element or part of or included in or can be related to the previous line, almost like a list.Every even numbered line ends in “of it”. There are rhymes in pairs. The end of the first and third line rhyme, and the end of the 5th and 7th line rhyme, and this pattern continues in the whole poem in addition to the pattern that the 3rd to last word of line 2 and 4 rhyme in a pair, and line 6 and 8 rhyme and so on for the whole poem.  

The poem is pretty constant in how it goes, and has the traits mentioned above.

The author died in Detroit and lived almost all of his life in the U.S. and was considered an American Poet, was popular in the first half of the 20th century, as well as the title of the “People’s Poet”.

Final Poem

Title:     Life Is What We Make It
Author: Edgar A. Guest

Life is a jest;
Take the delight of it.
Laughter is best;
Sing through the night of it.
Swiftly the tear
And the hurt and the ache of it
Find us down here;
Life must be what we make of it.

Life is a song;
Dance to the thrill of it.
Grief's hours are long,
And cold is the chill of it.
Joy is man's need;
Let us smile for the sake of it.
This be our creed:
Life must be what we make of it.

Life is a soul;
The virtue and vice of it,
Strife for a goal,
And man's strength is the price of it.
Your life and mine,
The bare bread and the cake of it
End in this line:
Life must be what we make of it.

Chapters 25-30

The Joads face power problems and experience a bit of a force upheaval as there is a transfer of force of sorts. Ma Joad chooses to take action after they have used a month in the administration camp and Pa Joad is not making any choices to leave. She says to Pa Joad that he " ain't a-doin' [his] work. . . . In the event that [he] was, the reason, [he] could utilize [his] stick, a' ladies folks'd sneeze their nose and downer mouse aroun'"(453), to basically tell make him angry and embarrassed so he tries his hardest to show her up and get them out of the chaos they are in. This also indicates that by and by that Ma Joad is the dominant person who is keeping this family together and afloat.  Later on in the novel when Ruthie accidentally, in the heat existing apart from everything else, spills Tom's mystery about slaughtering two individuals and Ma is talking to him Tom says that he was considering what Jim Casy said about souls. Casy said that " he foun' he jus'  got a little piece of a great big soul" (535). This shows that Jim Casy had faith in the Human family and now Tom has confidence in it as well. Everybody being a little yet integral part of a greater human family is one of the many thing this novel taught individuals about themselves.

Chapters 19-24

Opposed to the first ten chapters, the Joads don't appear to use the land or interact with it nearly to the extent that they had before. Steinbeck tries to hint at the idea that traveling the land has been very hard on not only the Joad family, but the rest of the migrant families and others that are travelling and trekkin gthe long distance as the land has been so distant from them, the land has become almost their enemy. They cannot use the land as they had before because they are traveling and the long and fatiguing distance that they have to travel is literally the land. The land is almost in the way of them getting to California and is now a sort of burden that they are forced to travel over. The people on the land that they passed had similar hardships and even others befriending and welcoming the Joad family when they got to California did not seem to wipe away the fatigue and the turmoil from the travel.  "On the highways the people moved like ants and searched for work, for food. And the anger began to ferment" (Steinbeck 365). Here the people that were out of work were mostly farmers who got run off the land or tried to escape the hardships of the dust bowl, and so they were more disconnected from the land. Not only this, but they became mad at their situation and their situation started from the decline of the fertility of the land and they all feel little in the big picture and their quest for work and food is difficult because of the extent of everything. Even through this hardship, the Joads are determined to get to California and that doing so will greatly improve their quality of life. "'We still go where we want, even if we got to crawl for the right" (Steinbeck 361). Their 'only' option is to get to California, 'California or Bust' so to speak. They are putting all of their money and lots of their personal health on the line to do so. Running from the dusty land they once were deeply connected to.

Nuclear Families

Steinbeck portrays how migrant families need to be dependent within themselves as well as with other families in chapter 11-18. Joad and his family interact with other migrant families along their journey which demonstrates Steinbeck's claim.The migrant families and the Joad family were able to keep pushing on in their journey and through their adversity by creating a sense of community. Steinbeck uses the interactions between the Joad family and the Wilson family to support his claim, and display the importance of support from other migrant families. The families were able to help each other out along the trek to California. Steinbeck writes about how both families help each other out both situationally and emotionally as well, such as when Sairy asks, "'How'd you like ta come in our tent?...You kin lay down on our mattress an' rest...We'll he'p you over'" (173). This type of neighborly love helped to get both families on their way to California.For example, the Joad family returns the favor by returning to aid the Wilson family by repairing their car. There two families continue on towards their destination together, continuing Steinbecks claim of the families being able to make it through tough times with the aid of each other, both with the mental aspect of having another family helping you and the other families actually helping you along the way. The families are also nuclear in the way that they are structured within themselves, like a father, mother, and kids and so they can be dependent on one another within the families. In a marriage, the souses should share the same goals. " A constant partner, leading them to what they desire most (156). Steinbeck portrays a common occurrence that should be present in a nuclear family, for the Joad family it is going to California.

Poem in My Pocket

The War Against the Trees by Stanley Kunitz The man who sold his lawn to standard oil Joked with his neighbors come to watch the show While the bulldozers, drunk with gasoline, Tested the virtue of the soil Under the branchy sky By overthrowing first the privet-row. Forsythia-forays and hydrangea-raids Were but preliminaries to a war Against the great-grandfathers of the town, So freshly lopped and maimed. They struck and struck again, And with each elm a century went down. All day the hireling engines charged the trees, Subverting them by hacking underground In grub-dominions, where dark summer's mole Rampages through his halls, Till a northern seizure shook Those crowns, forcing the giants to their knees. I saw the ghosts of children at their games Racing beyond their childhood in the shade, And while the green world turned its death-foxed page And a red wagon wheeled, I watched them disappear Into the suburbs of their grievous age. Ripped from the craters much too big for hearts The club-roots bared their amputated coils, Raw gorgons matted blind, whose pocks and scars Cried Moon! On a corner lot One witness-moment, caught In the rear-view mirrors of the passing cars.

Through Chapter 10

In The Grapes of Wrath, the land is of utmost importance to the people. The land is what they lived on, and lived off of. This is why the immense dust storm, originating from the ruined land, affected the people in the area in such a negative way. The people felt attached to the land, that it was part of their family. One tenant describes: "Grampa took up the land, and he had to kill the Indians and drive them away. And Pa was born here, and he killed weeds and snakes... An' we have a tendency to was born here. There within the door—our youngsters born there" (Steinbeck 43). Th people on the land also felt emotionally connected to it. They “be sad when it isn’t doing well, and feel fine when the rain falls on it, that property is him, and some way he’s bigger because he owns it” (48). The land is very close to being an emotional part of them. In addition, the land is much more than just a possession, its their lively hood and their life. They loved and cared for the land, much unlike the “gloved, goggled, rubber dirt mask over nose and mouth” (45).