Literature and Life : Shel Silverstein's Poems

The Little Boy And The Old Man

1. The underlying message that was being conveyed in the poem was that we tend to be selfish, concentrating only ourselves, especially in our adult stage. We do not care for our past and our future, which are the children and the old people, and they are often very lonely.
2. Shel Silverstein used dialogues in his poem to bring out the sadness and the loneliness of the children and at the same time, to show how selfish the adults are.

Messy Room

1. The poem is humorous. The speaker thought that the room was really messy. The wet raincoat was being stuffed in the chair causing it to be "mucky" and "damp", which implied that there were fungus growing out of it. Also the books were not in the bookshelf but instead in the closet, which was meant for containing clothes. Furthermore, there was a sock so dirty and sticky, stuck to the wall. However, the funniest part was when the writer realized that the room was his.
2. The aspect of human character that was being highlighted in this poem was that one is so quick to blame other and do not realize that when we point a finger at others, there are ten other fingers pointing at ourselves.

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Cloony The Clown by Shel Silverstein

1. The irony in this poem is that when Cloony tried to be funny, told jokes, acted silly nobody laughed but when he told the audience how miserable he was, they laughed.
2. The harsh realities that was being conveyed was that people enjoyed looking at other people's misery and it is also hard for others to understand you.
3. The poet used alliteration to emphasize on how miserable the clown was. Irony was also added in the poem to show how the people behave. He also emphasized the point by adding a dialogue, which showed how the clown felt when people laughed at his sorrows.

My Thoughts

The Poem that I can identify the most is "Messy Room". It is really true that people tend to point their fingers at others. Take me as an example , I always tend to blame my parents and my maid when I could not find my homework.

There was once I could not find my homework in my bag. Then I would start to blame my maid for messing up my bag. She was puzzled and did not know what she had done. However, I demanded her to help me find my worksheet. To no avail, the worksheet could not be found

The next day, when I went to school and it was only then I found out that I had left the worksheet under my desk and it was nobody's fault but mine. I really regretted my actions and it also taught me a lesson that I should not point fingers at others.

Thus, I feel that this poem is really a very meaningful one and it really puts me to thinking......