Question

Read the following excerpt from the poem "It’s This Way" and answer the question.

Answer 1

Answer: "A" – It provides a dramatic element that contrasts with the initial uniformity..

Explanation: The poem starts telling how impressed the poetic persona is with the beauty of the place he is looking at:

"I stand in the advancing light,

my hands hungry, the world beautiful.

My eyes can't get enough of the trees--

they're so hopeful, so green.

A sunny road runs through the mulberries,

I'm at the window of the prison infirmary."

Then we discover, with the third stanza, that the poetic persona is imprisoned, which introduces a dramatic element, of an imprisoned person, that contrasts with the initial part of the poem – from a beautiful description of nature to a desperate need of the outside freedom. The author transforms the idea of beauty from the beginning in a kind of "freedom sentiment", that is, the "world beautiful" becomes the hopeful green of the trees, and that happens with the contrast introduced by the dramatic element of the infirmary prison – because, besides the fact of the prison, the poetic persona is also sick or injured, since he is in the infirmary.

Therefore, this transformation of ideas makes an incredible contrast effect, and transforms the poem from light and beautiful to angustiating and a little darker.