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Name:Fahimy Salomon
Subject: Eng102
Date: 3\18\10
“Ocean Heal Me” by Susan Beacon is a poem written to express a troubled woman who has lost her faith, courage, confidence, and strength over the loss of her own pain. She is basically asking the ocean who she feels is a spiritual connection to cure her sorrows. This poem is filled with spiritual elements, colors, and emotions to make the reader comprehend its meaning to the full effect. Beacon uses personification to portray the ocean as being power that human beings who can’t hurt anyone but provides the troubled woman with a new life. Furthermore, the poem emphasizes colors to describe what the troubled woman desperately wants to have in her new heart, body, mind, and soul. Beacon also uses repetition to further emphasize on the power of the ocean.
What is personification? Personification is giving human traits to a non-living object. Personification stresses the meaning of the poem. This tool is used to give spiritual powers and courage to phrases, emphasizing on what the troubled woman would want to obtain in order to be free of her pains. In other words the narrator uses the ocean to make a connection between describing what the troubled woman desires are even though she is swallowing in her own pain by looking for a new soul. The narrator states “Ocean Heal my wounds/ let your waves curl” (lines 2-3) enforces how the troubled woman who is enclosed in her own sadness is searching for someone to cure her wounds. The word “ocean” symbolizes how the woman with a broken spirit is referring to God as the greater power for a new path to life. The words “heal me” represents how her heart has been shredded into millions of pieces and she is desperately trying to repair the damage that has been done. It also represents the hard road ahead that she has to endure in order to find herself again.
In addition, Beacon states “ocean renew with your power/as unceasingly you roll” (lines 6-7) emphasizes not only how the ocean is giving human qualities as being the most powerful just like God. The word “power” means strength, courage, confidence, and the rebirth of a new soul. This can relate to line 13-15 “Ocean disperse my tears/as they flow in you/I cleanse my soul.” The phrases “disperse my tears” shows how vulnerable, helpless, and lost the troubled woman really is. I can interpret that she felt helpless because she was in so much pain emotionally that she has became numb. Numbness leads to the troubled woman feeling vulnerable which causes her to have an emotional breakdown and asking God, the greater power for direction.
Another element that was used in the poem is repetition. This device is used to give spiritual power and pain to emphasize on what the woman want for her new soul. One repetition that has a significant impact on the poem was where the narrator states “ocean let me grow in your depths/ color me vibrant blue, coral, green/clear = revalitalized/ocean be my friend /hold me flowing in your currents” (line14-21). She is basically implying how the troubled woman is asking the ocean to whom she refers to as God to give her the qualities she desperately required to have a new soul. The ocean symbolizes purity because the narrator portrayed the element as being God. In other words God is the savior of all things and he is not a sinner.
The narrator emphasizes in the colors to describe the qualities the troubled woman want for a new soul. The color blue represents calamity; however in this poem the color blue means that the woman wants to be important, and confident. Deep pink symbolizes gratitude and appreciation. The narrator is basically saying that the woman really wants someone to love her and cherish her through her pains. The color red represents evil, the blood of sorrow that split her heart into different directions. The narrator uses the color green to emphasize on what the woman wants and that’s a new life without any heartbreaks.
In conclusions, the connection between personification and repetition portrays how the troubled woman demands for a new soul. These elements work effectively together to express the woman’s feelings, and also her desire for a new soul. The tone expresses the spiritual connection between God and her new desires for a new soul. This poem taught me that each individual have lost themselves at one point in their life, and we all had to go through some rough waters to figure out that we can’t just find ourselves without any help from God.
