Connecting With Readers: Imagery, Symbolism, Essay

The wall, serving as a painful and vivid reminder of the war, pulls the speaker back to the war. We can almost see the reflection of this man fading into the granite as his memories flood his mind. The wall and the memory of war are so powerful that the speaker must turn his head away and resist the urge to break down in tears. The wall as a symbol of the war is gripping and dramatic and helps the speaker get his point across.

The symbolism of the wall as war reinforces the poet's somber tone of the poem. The speaker resists crying and he wants to be like the wall itself -- stone cold. Instead, he sees objects reflected in the wall that only take him back and confuse his mind. He is anxious and everyone around him is, too. Here we see the angst of a past war in the present. The past and the present merge into one. Another writer that empresses the same tone as Komunyakaa is Tim O'Brien, author of the Things They Carried.The character in his novel is also a disillusioned soldier among many who had "no sense of strategy or mission. They searched the villages without knowing what to look for, not caring . . . (O'Brien 15). This sense of being lost is the same we see in "Facing it."

"Facing it" reveals the depth of human memory and emotion through symbolism, imagery, and tone. The poet's experience with the wall helps him describe his angst with the war. The wall is more than a wall -- it is a living reminder of the war and the imagery Komunyakaa uses allows readers to relate to the war's painful aftereffects.

Works Cited

Komunyakaa, Yusef. "Facing it." Literature - Reading, Fiction, Poetry and Drama. 6th edition.

New York: McGraw Hill. 2005. Print.

O'Brien, Tim. The Things They Carried. Broadway Books: Broadway, NY. 1990. Print.

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