Thirst by claude Mckay. Do you like this poem and why?

Question

1.)What is your favorite line in this poem and why?
2.)Give a summary of the poem each stanza.
3.)What is the theme?

Please help!!!
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My spirit wails for water, water now!
My tongue is aching dry, my throat is hot
For water, fresh rain shaken from a bough,
Or dawn dews heavy in some leafy spot.


My hungry body’s burning for a swim
In sunlit water where the air is cool,
As in Trout Valley where upon a limb
The golden finch sings sweetly to the pool.


Oh water, water, when the night is done,
When day steals gray-white through the windowpane,
Clear silver water when I wake, alone,
All impotent of parts, of fevered brain;
Pure water from a forest fountain first,
To wash me, cleanse me, and to quench my thirst!

Answer 1

1. FAVORITE LINE

When day steals gray-white through the windowpane

I like this line for three reasons: (a) It contrasts with the earlier parts of the sonnet, which have referred to daytime images; this one refers to the earliest dawn before the sun rises, but light is just beginning to turn the dark into the light (perhaps misty) of day. (2) The sound of the line is rich and rhythmic: there is the assonance (or repeated vowel sounds) in day, gray, and pane with wake in the next line; there is the alliteration of when with white as well as window with water in the previous line and wake in the next one; there are the heavier accents of "steals gray-white through the window pane," suggesting the weightier message of this quatrain. (3) The imagery of the line, its "gray-white" dawn, contrasts with the sunlight and golden finch of the previous quatrain and the silver water of the next line. Dawn, it suggests, is a time susceptible to a dull, drab feeling (developed explicitly as "impotent of parts, of fevered brained") but also the promise of a new kind of experience ("clear silver water," "pure water from a forest fountain").

2. SUMMARY OF STANZAS

These are not stanzas in the conventional sense; the poem in an English (or Shakespearean) sonnet with three quatrains rhyming ABAB CDCD EFEF and a concluding couplet rhyming GG. Each of the three quatrains directly develops the idea of the need of the body and suggests the need of the spirit for freshness: water to cleanse the hot, sweaty, tired body and to slake its thirst. The three quatrains intensify in need and in complexity. The image developed in the first quatrain is simply the thirst of spirit and tongue for rainfall or dew. The image developed in the second quatrain is "hunger" of the whole body for a cooling, refreshing swim, but it also describes a specific setting, suggesting the need of the spirit for beauty and serenity: "Trout Valley," the "golden finch" singing sweetly in the tree. The third quatrain (as often happens in an English sonnet, like the sestet in an Italian sonnet) introduces a contrast: night/dawn instead of day, but also physical, mental, and emotional health, explicit in references to physical impotence, a "fevered brain," and emotional loneliness (waking in the morning alone, without a lover). There is just the barest hint of sexual frustration in this third quatrain: "silver water," "impotent of parts." The concluding couplet summarizes the need "to wash me, cleanse me, and to quench my thirts" and suggests its satisfaction in "pure water" with the image of a "forest fountain."

3. THEME

The theme of the poem is the human need for refreshment, for relief, for a wholesome, healthful fulfillment of the self.

On the physical level, directly stated, this of course simply means fresh water to quench one's thirst and cool, clear water "to wash me, cleanse me." However, images of the quenching of thirst and the cleansing of the body always suggest other, more spiritual levels, and this is called for broadly in the very first phrase: "My spirit wails . . . ." Of course, the traditional association of cleansing is with forgiveness of sin, innocence, a renewal of youthfulness, redemption of a weary, disillusioned, sullen soul. The dry tongue, the hungry body, the impotent parts, and the fevered brain suggest a need for wholesomeness, for health, for satisfaction of natural desires, including sexual fufillment and love for another. The emphasis of the alliteration of "forest fountain first" in the concluding couplet before the final statement about cleansing and quenching again calls up an image of a natural, almost Edenic fulfillment of human needs--an escape from the heat, sweat, dryness, dirtiness, weariness, worry, hunger, thirst of a needly, lonely human in the "pure water" of nature, of health, of innocence, of holiness, of love.

I see no specific suggestion of the need for justice as suggested by the previous answerer, but even that and the idea of self-respect and the respect of others is not too far afield from the sense of human need projected in the poem. There is also a felt need for beauty in "some leafy spot," "sunlit water," and especially the golden finch's singing.

Whatever connotations are implied in the imaggery, in all three quatrains and the concluding couplet, what he human needs is suggested by the powerful image of fresh water (rain or dew), sunlit water in a pool, silver water, and ultimately "pure water from a forest fountain first."

Though this would not be one of my favorite poems of the Harlem Renaissance, I have a generally favorable response to it. Thanks for bringing it to my attention, and for asking some good questions. Now, I'm curious: what is your favorite line, and how would you express the theme that you infer from reading the poem? Do you like it?

Answer 2

1. Pure water from a forest fountain first
- It is amusing that the speaker does not want tap-water but prefers water from a forest fountain! That's why.
2.First stanza: speaker yearns for water to still spirit.
Second stanza: the image of the bird, golden finch sings sweetly to the pool emphasizes water from a particular type of source marked by beauty
Third stanza: The poem reveals that water is just an image for the hunger felt.
3. Fair and just treatment. The poem appeals for justice and uses water as an image that embodies lack of basic necessities.
.

Answer 3

I bet that probably the most favourite accusations in the direction of politics and such a lot politicians is their mild trouble for the character. Since the character is feel to be the cornerstone for the construction of politics to start with. The door being close towards the matters of the persons frequently is a preferred subject. The ache of the loads frequently even as the baby-kisser follows the regulation in keeping with the letters through which its written. The anger and frustration in the direction of perceived injustice. The injustice and victimizing that happens via the violation of human rights. Or anything like that.