Sunday, February 10, 2008
Hangman Response
I thought that this poem was a metaphor for how people don’t stand up for each other. Each time there was another candidate to be hung the hangman got more and control over the people. The reason he got control over the people was because the villagers were getting weaker and more fearful. I think that when Maurice Ogden wrote: “I did no more than you let me do”. He was trying to tell that person that if the villagers had stood up then the hangman might have stopped killing. The hangman gained power as the villagers lost confidence. I think that Maurice Ogden was trying to show how one person with a lot of power can make people fear for their lives and then they can’t care for others.
Hangman Response
wow I thought this poem was amazing, Maurice Ogden did an excellent job oF making it sound so real. When i first read it I thought I was actually one of the characters in the poem. Also when the author Ogden used the words the gallows tree I immediately got a sensory image of the a man being hung by a string attached to a high post. Oh at the end of the poem stanzas 4, and in 8 stanza, the character says "I did no more than you let me do." I got so much at of that because each time the hangman hung someone nobody stood up they all kept being nice and he said if you're nice to me I'll hang you. so each someone got hung, at the end that guy did because was the biggest servant of all of them.
I loved how the author used so many sensory images,similes and metaphors. Like when the poet used metaphor "as hangman tallied his bloody score, and sun by sun and night by night, the gallows tree grew monsterous height." I also loved how the author made the poem like a story and kept the rhyme.
Hangman Response from Adina
This poem had a very strong moral that I think is important but it was a bit too gory for me. The poem talked a lot about the scaffold growing and growing. In the first part the scaffold is just the size of the courthouse door. In the second section it says “The Hangman’s scaffold had grown in size: Fed by the blood beneath the chute The gallows-tree had taken root”. The scaffold could not have grown by blood but I think it is a metaphor of evil taking root. The scaffold was the instrument of evil that actually killed the innocent people. It grew bigger as more villagers were hanged and nobody did anything. This brings me to my next point. This is a quote that I think is very relevant to the poem. “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men to do nothing” (Edmund Burke 1729-1797). This is what exactly happened in this poem. At the beginning the Hangman says the scaffold is for the person that helps him the most. Everyone stands by while people are being hanged because they are afraid if they stand up for them they too will get hanged. Also they hope to be spared because they think they are different then the people how were targeted first. Then at the very end the narrator feels tricked because he thinks that he did not help the Hangman. The Hangman says he helped him by being a coward and not standing up for the other people.
Adina L.
response to hangman
When I first read this poem it reminded me of World War 2. It reminded me of world war 2 because when the hangman enterd the city and hung a man, they all thought he was a joke, just what they thought of Hitler. This poem is a long one. It is so layerd, so its difficult to understand the first time you read it. This poem is about a hangman that comes into this little town. The hangman approches a man and hangs him. None of the other villagers stood up to him and tell him to stop, but they ask him who is he you raise the gallows tree, and he replys he who serves me best. The first man he hangs is an alein. This man was not a real alien it was just a foerigner. Then he hung a Jew and then a black so on and so forth until there was only one man left and the hangman. So that night the hangman asked the one man to help him take down the gallows tree, but tricks him into hanging him but before the man dies he asks him why are you hanging me? "Not I for answerd straight and i told you true the scaffhold was raised for none but you! You served me faithfully. And before you knew it he hung the man. This poem is a rhyming poem and it has four parts.
Melody
Question for Mapping Worksheet
Mr. G you said we could use the road map instead of the topographic map. But what can we use instead of the shaded relief map? Thats the only map we need for the 1st sheet.
-Shakaed
I Found a Metaphor in Hangman
In the first stanza when Ogden says "smelling of gold and blood and flame" creates a perfect metaphor. Of course you cant smell gold and blood and flame, so it creates the mood and the feeling that is in the scene.
It also creates a mental picture, you can almost feel the mood of the scene.
-Aviva
"The Hangman" - response by Shakaed
The poem “Hangman” reminded me of World War 2 because at the beginning the hangman hung one man and all the townspeople thought he was a joke and would stop after one night. That is the same as Hitler because at the beginning everybody thought he was a joke and would never get elected. Guess they were wrong, huh?
I think the most important line in the poem was “I did no more than you let me do”. Which I think means that if the speaker would have stood up for all the people who had been murdered by the Hangman then he would’ve stopped. But I think that maybe no one stood up because they were afraid that they would get hung. I think that some one should’ve stood up because you should do what you think is right even though it may involve sacrifice.
-Shakaed
