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Week 3 Analysis: To Live with Those who Suffer Too

James Whitfield’s poem “Self-Reliance” speaks of the theme of reliance, the need to depend or trust someone, for the sake of ones’ happiness, the ways of life, and the realization that our strength reflects from within us. It also tells the story about a man’s conscience informed by Christianity. Ways of finding happiness is through others who surround you during difficult times. Whitfield states: “When numerous friends, whose cheerful tone/In happier hours once cheered him on,/With visions that full brightly shone,”(Whitfield). Whitfield doesn’t signify his target audience, but he defies it openly. One must have people around them to get through the harshest and darkest of times. He uses words like cheerful, happier, brightly to indicate that he knows of love in various forms. Whitfield says “with visions that full brightly shone” expressing that someone or something can see the brighter side of these harsh moments. 
Whitfield states how being in love also defines our youth and purity: 
When love, which in his bosom burned
With all the fire of ardent youth,
And which he fondly thought returned
With equal purity and truth
The youth through their struggle find comfort in one another. Almost as if to blind themselves from the hardship, they focus on each other. Their purity cannot be destroy because of their love. Whitfield emphasizes the young’s purity, as it may change as the years go by and they experience more harm than good.  Their truth is their being. 
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  1. AmberFebruary 24, 2019 at 4:54 PM

    Happy Sunday Samuel!

    I really enjoyed reading your analysis of this poem and what you took away from it. I agree it is really important to surround yourself around the people that have the same goals and morals as you. If you are around negative people, you could become negative. I try my hardest to surround myself with positive people and people that I feel are good role models for my children to be around. I was in a dark place last year and had to get off of social media became I felt it was a very negative place and was not healthy for me. It was the best decision I could have made. I focused on being positive and doing things me make my happy.

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  2. alekkubikFebruary 24, 2019 at 10:46 PM

    Hi Samuel, having good friends that support you and push you forward are essential. If not, you may only be drug down by their negativity or jealousness. Love and truth are also very important to have, they make us feel happy just like the author was saying in the story.

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  3. Regina RamirezFebruary 25, 2019 at 12:19 AM

    Hey there, Samuel,

    Thank you for an interesting analysis. I have always wondered how important and poetic the word "youth" is. I don't often give it much thought, maybe because when I was a teenager, all I ever wanted to do is to grow up. Especially when you said, "The youth through their struggle find comfort in one another. Almost as if to blind themselves from the hardship, they focus on each other." This made me look back to my youthfulness. Thank you for sharing.

    Cheers,
    Regina

    ReplyDelete

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