Power and the Glory Background Info

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Greene actually wrote the book when he was in exile in Mexico due to a libel suite by a young Shirley Temple. Greene wrote an unfavorable review of her performance in a magazine and as a result, faced legal actions. Since the crime was "severe" he was threatened with jail if he was to return to England. As a result, his publisher financed his trip. Most of the characters in PandG are based on real characters who he met when he was there. Please make sure that you research the political background of Mexico during this time before you read tonight. Thank goodness for the internet!

Poetry

My two favorite poems in the packet were "How to Change a Frog Into a Prince" by Anna Denise and "Fat is Not a Fairy Tale" by Jane Yolen. I really liked how both authors put their own spins on the fairy tales that we all know so well.

For Anna Denise's poem, "How to Change a Frog Into a Prince," the prominent literary devices that I picked up on are tone, allusion, and conceit. Unquestionably, this poem alludes to the fairy tale of "The Princess and the Frog," in which the frog turns into a prince after the princess kisses it. However, unlike what happens in the fairy tale, in the poem, the frog must undergo a transformation that takes quite some time before he becomes the prince. For this reason, I classified the tone as somewhat serious and didactic. Throughout the piece, the speaker is instructing the reader how to change the frog into a prince. The poem is literally comprised of sentences that give the reader step-by-step instructions. For example, the poem reads, "Start with the underwear. Sit him down...Be gentle. Avoid the words awkward and gawky." The last most important literary device is conceit. I think that the poem is really a metaphor for anyone undergoing some kind of transformation. Because the frog does not automatically become a prince, Denise means to say that people should be patient when they experience some kind of change. The last four sentences of the poem played a big role in making me think that this was Denise's overall message.

For Jane Yolen's poem, "Fat Is Not a Fairy Tale," the prominent literary devices are tone, allusion, anaphora, and euphemism. In each stanza, Yolen alludes to a variety of fairy tales, such as "Sleeping Beauty," "Snow White," "Hansel and Gretel," "Rapunzel," and "Beauty and the Beast." For each of the fairy tales, she changes one word, so as to put her own spin on the titles. For example, instead of "Snow White," she says "Snow Weight." These twists definitely contributed to the comical tone of the poem. Yolen's use of euphemism is also prominent in the poem. For instance, she says, "wasp-waisted," "pillowed breast," and "fingers plump as sausage" instead of simply saying "fat." Finally, the last literary device that stuck out for me was the anaphora. Yolen begins each of the three stanzas with "I am thinking of a fairy tale." For me, this had the effect of making the tone conversational, in addition to comical. As I read each successive stanza, I felt like the speaker was sitting in a big chair, telling me the poem, instead of reading it; in other words, the anaphora made the poem feel like an actual fairy tale instead of simply a poem. By putting her own twists on every fairy tale mentioned in the poem, Yolen means to say that regardless of what someone looks like, they can still live his or her own fairy tale. The last stanza of the poem made me think that this was Yolen's message.