Robert Hayden was born on August 4, 1913 and died on February 25, 1980. He was an American poet, essayist, and educator. He served as Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 1976 to 1978, a role today known as US Poet Laureate. He was the first African-American writer to hold the office.
Robert Hayden was born in Detroit, Michigan, son of Ruth and Asa Sheffey. The couple separated before his birth. He was taken in by a foster family next door, Sue Ellen Westerfield and William Hayden, and grew up in a Detroit ghetto nicknamed "Paradise Valley". The Haydens' eternally belligerent marriage, coupled with Ruth Sheffey’s competition for her son's affections, made for a traumatic childhood. Witnessing fights and suffering beatings, Hayden lived in a house troubled with chronic anger. His childhood traumas resulted in debilitating bouts of depression that he later called "my dark nights of the soul".
Before answering the question, I would like to mention what we call free verse poetry. It is poetry that is free from limitations of regular meter or rhythm, and does not rhyme with fixed forms. Such poems are without rhythm and rhyme schemes, do not follow regular rhyme scheme rules, yet still provide artistic expression.
We can conclude that the present poem is written in free verse because:
There is no rhyme scheme.
The lines are unequal in length.
<em>The other options present limitations or patterns which are the opposite characteristics of free verse.</em>
Answer:
d) There are fireworks to celebrate the signing of a peace treaty.
Explanation:
While Montag is running for his life, he hears that war is declared. He is nearly murdered by adolescents in a speeding vehicle yet figures out how to escape and even conceal a book in another firefighter's home and bring in a caution so as to occupy his followers.
Finally, he achieves Faber's loft. Faber guides him to escape toward the open nation, where instructors and scholars are living as tramps. Subsequent to putting on something else to occupy the new Mechanical Hound acquired by the police, Montag makes a last dash for the river.
George Bergeron's character is, literally, extremely intelligent, strong, and capable. We know this because of the number of handicaps he is forced to wear by the government. His weights, for example, are so tiring that his wife suggests he risk removing them even thought the consequences are severe for doing so.
Because of his handicaps, George is a character who is incapable of changing, reacting to a situation, or even remembering what he his doing and he is such a rule-follower that he won't use his intelligence or strength to go against the government.
A reader can see that the handicaps put on George are a metaphor for the burdens that the majority of the population of America are encumbered by in real life. While most people don't have pounds of bird-shot strapped to their necks, it is clear that people ARE burdened by great amounts of debt, jobs that pay little, stresses like large families, consumerism, etc that hold them back from participating fully in life. The "handicaps'' of the story are literally meant to show how much weight we are putting on the wrong things in our lives.
Vonnegut uses characters like George to demonstrate how little people are actually living. They are flat, unfeeling, unemotional, and unable to communicate, resist, or change. It is obvious that George SHOULD react to seeing his son's violent death broadcast on national television, but he is completely incapable of doing so because of the handicaps attached to him. The lack of character development, coupled with the excellent description of George's strengths due to his handicaps is what allows a reader to understand that the character is meant to be criticized. Readers are meant to ask themselves, how could he not react? How could he not remember? Why won't he question the ideals of the government? Why won't he risk himself for something that could save his son?
