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Ruth Fainlight
Rhyme, Alliteration, Assonance, Consonance, Onomatopoeia

week 10, part 2

After going over the poem several times, we found it very difficult to find any type of rhyming except in lines 4 and 5, and in lines 15 and 18 (flowers, leather, mother, daughter).  These would be eye rhymes because while the words look alike, they do not really rhyme.  However, there is no real rhyme scheme because there is only eye rhymes ending in "er", and these rhymes are not patterned in the poem.  They are rather randomly placed.  The rhymes in this poem do not really add or take away form the meaning of the poem.
   This poem makes a some use of assonance.  The assonance is included in roughly half of the lines: woman/wore (1), coral/apricot (3), an/across (6), span/ankle (7), feet/been (8), toes/twisted (10), and back/bandaged (11).  The assonance in the firt stanza seems to include only soft sounds (like oohs and aahs) that add to the picture of delicate shoes the speaker paints for the reader.  The assonance in the second stanza include sounds that are more rough (ee, oh, ah).  This adds to the meaning of the second stanza because these sounds are representative of the pain one had to endure to wear the small shoes. 
   Alliteration is also used in this poem.  Throughout the poem, there are many "S" sounds.  Most of the "S" sounds sound like someone hushing (Shh).  The speaker probably uses these sounds to remind readers that the pain of foot binding was endured, but not spoken of.
There is no consonance or onomatopoeia in this poem.

Daisy, Spinning



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