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D. Research Finding
A. Babies
Line Stanza
It’s a feast or a famine 1
with sperm 2
wouldn’t you say? 3
Some days they can lap at your feet 4
other days are shorter. 5
1
I see flakes of babies 6
on hands 7
on shirt fronts 8
on benches 9
on car back-seats. 10
2
The old guy, toothless and cursing 11
wearing socks and jandals 12
is full of babies. 13
3
The college boy 14
has left babies 15
on his sheets this morning. 16
4
1. Explication of Babies
Babies was published in 2005. This poem is about the family life and the way
to spend the time in the care the babies. It is about the speaker and some people with their domestic life’s activities. Starting from the first stanza: “It’s a feast or
a famine”. The poem introduces the sense of the speaker. Here, feast becomes an indication of pleasure or happiness of someone who has got a baby. While,
famine pair with more emphasize on a dislike or a disturbing sense of comfort. The second line emphasizes the real explanation of those words, “With sperm”.
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Laurence Perrine. Op. Cit. P. 347
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Here, the speaker explains the activities of some one that stated in the next stanza. In the third line, “wouldn’t you say?” The speaker asks some one as the object
about the result that will happen next. The speaker also describe the possibilities thing occurs later, there are goodness. The goodness and feel comfort explained in
the line 4 “Some days they can lap at your feet”. This word also has been emphasizing with the line 5 “other days are shorter”. Second stanza, the speaker
describes the behavior of the babies with the variety ways “On hand, on shirt fronts, on benches, on the car back-seats”. Those statements were starting with “I
see flakes of babies”. Here, the speaker itself that see the babies and their behaviors. Third stanza, the speaker mentioned badness thing, the speaker shows
in the line 12-13. “wearing socks and jandals is full of babies. Those line starting with “The old guy, toothless and cursing”.
In the last stanza, the speaker talks more about the object of her explanation in this poem. The object here is “the college boy”. Here, the college boy was
explained about the immoral acts done. The college boy also leaves a baby with no responsibility. The action of leave a baby, the reader can see in the line 15-16
“has left babies on his sheets this morning”.
2. Intrinsic Elements in Babies
The intrinsic elements in this poem help the reader easily to understand the theme which is the point of that poem. These are the several intrinsic elements
build in the poem babies.
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1. Metaphor
This poem described a baby with two contradictory things. That is, the feast with famine. Feast more emphasize to something that is happy or pleasure:
when someone has a baby or they feel something different in they life. There are many things that will happen when the child is born, to grow up, such as whining,
hitting, bitting, yelling, and demanding attention. There is pleasure from nurturing the child, and also happiness when getting entertains from the baby. It is also
emphasized in the next verses such as: Some days they can lap at your feet. Michele Amas compares the feast of having baby
with famine. The shape of this aversion seen from the next stanza in which the old guys as people who feel
disturbed, as in the phrase: The old guy, toothless and wearing cursing shock and jandals is full of babies.
2. Symbol
The writer could also find symbols in stanza 4 line 14. There is one found in this poem, the college. The word college according to the Oxford Advanced
Learner’s Dictionary means as institution for higher education; College should be a place to educate students to be better than those who never attend school at all.
Actually, the college is a place where people seek higher education. But here, the college is inversely than the literal meaning, this poem does not use the word to
refer to any better education. College is represented as a place in which the immoral acts take place.
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3. Diction
There are two data found in this poem. Feast and Famine line 1 stanza 1 and the college boy line 14 stanzas 4. In one side, the writer might interpret the
attributing of Feast and Famine as Metaphor and the college as a symbol, but it also could be interpret as diction. Here the feast and famine and college boy was
not literary work only, but it more than what it was. Feast and Famine are used to explain about two things with different
context and meaning. Michele Amas, describe about Feast with the meaning of religious festival and famine with serious shortage of food. In the formal lexical the
word feast is to describe about the situation in the religious part and it was sacral activities. In this poem feast becomes an indication of pleasure or happiness of
someone who has got a baby. The reader can see that the continuation of happiness poem below: “Some day they can lap at your feet”. In this stanza, feast is further
clear that represent of fun and happiness. Beside this, Amas also used the comparison of happiness with the sadness. In the whole life, there were goodness
and badness. It is also not free from lifes lessons, where there is love then there must be grief.
Feast in which represents happiness, side by side with famine, where famine pair with more emphasize on a dislike or a disturbing sense of comfort. The
reader can see the evidence of this aversion in the next poem, which says the word
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famine which representing misery or make other people affected, as in the word.“ The old guy, toothless and cursing wearing socks and jandals is full of babies”.
4. Synecdoche
The word Flakes according to the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary means a small, very thin layer or piece of something. Flakes of babies seemed to
refer in part to the overall object. Target object here is the flakes of babies, the pieces or flakes contained in this poem as if it represents many of those babies are
in place; these infants represent fragments of the overall nature of the baby. That is why it is called a synecdoche. Because of these flakes, this means pieces
mentioned in part for the whole object babies. In the second stanza also explained about how the babys behavior with variety ways, there was the buckle, carry, on
the back of the car seat and so forth or in a poem such as: “On hand, on shirt fronts, on benches, on the car back-seats” .
3. The Intrinsic elements contributing in building the theme in Babies