For my homework, I need to identify the literal action of the poem. Highwayman Can anyone help me understand what I need to do?
I think the literal action is what happens in the poem. A mysterious (probably wanted) traveler comes in late at night to an inn, but the inn is closed. He whistles a little tune, and the inn keeper's daughter hears the tune and opens the window. In the way poems go, she falls in love with the stranger, and he tells her he is about to go get some treasure (which he could probably use to pay the bridal dowry for her) and if he gets it, he will come back for her the next day. However, if he cannot do that, he'll come back for her the next night, and steal her away in the night. The next day, he doesn't show, and the girl waits for him. Some British soldiers come and take over the inn and are drinking and partying in the inn. They tie her up and put a musket with her as a joke. She moves her hands around and gets a hold of the trigger. She hears the highwayman coming down the road, and she pulls the trigger to warn him, but dies in the process. He hears the shot, and runs away. He still gets caught and killed. Now his ghost comes to the inn searching for the girl.
Word. And he was indeed shot, but specifically while in the process of charging the inn to avenge his love's death.
Yeah thanks Darkravager. Although I find it odd we go from a love story, to a guy killed "for shooting some chick in the boob" . I just realized, in every book I've read this year in 8th grade, at least one person dies, or a tragedy occurs.
No, but she does have 2 boys around 10 each. So far we read, My Brother Sam is Dead, Roll of Thunder Hear my Cry, Let the Circle Be Unbroken, And Then There Were None, Night, Freak the Mighty, The Call of the Wild, The Outsiders, and Out of the Dust. Latest one I read was Night, about WW2 concentration camps and Jews being cremated and put in gas chambers alive. EVERYTHING is morbid. PS: Silly Putty rocks! Just bought a pack 4x the reg. size.
No problemo. Don't be surprised that every story has tragedy in it while you're in school. In my experience, English teachers are f'd up.
Gas chambers wouldn't be very effective if the intended victims were put in already dead. Given the fourth stanza of that poem, I believe the highwayman was set up. Tim the ostler (i.e., hostler, "stable boy") was deeply in love with Bess, the innkeeper's daughter. Tim overheard the highwayman's get rich quick scheme and his plan to come back to the inn to woo and presumably steal away Bess. Enraged, Tim nipped down to the local garrison, and detailed the highwayman's plans to the watch officer. A squad of Redcoats were dispatched to the inn to wait in ambush for the highwayman. While waiting for him, they had a few drinks, did a little carousing, and then tied up Bess with a musket in such a position so that she, in her bound state, could look out the window and watch the Redcoats kill the highwayman. Because Redcoats are bastards like that. As the highwayman approached, Bess found enough wiggle room to pull the trigger of the musket bound to her, thus warning the highwayman of the ambush and unfortunately, killing herself. The highwayman heard the shot, turned tail, and road away to safety. The next morning, the highwayman heard through the grapevine that Bess had shot and killed herself after being roughed up by the Redcoats. Realizing then what that shot was which saved his own life just mere hours ago, the highwayman became enraged and with bloodlust, sought revenge. The Redcoats, still waiting, shoot and kill him as he rides back to the inn. The ill-fated lovers' story survives a local folklore in which the ghosts of Bess and the highwayman reenact their ill-fated meeting that night before their deaths, because not even the icy grip of death can keep these lovers from each other.
In retrospect, I'm not sure we're doing young Alec a favor. I mean, it's good he's learning to exploit resources on the internets...but come on, guy. Learn to analyze prose independently. It's the kind of critical skill that'll pay off down the road--and this wasn't all that difficult to get through.
We may not be doing him a favor, but at least we had some semblance of a brief moment of literary discussion (it's poetry btw, not prose). You want self-sufficiency, I want culture. We're never going to get either.
Yeah, that's true, and it makes me a sad panda. Oh, and good eyes on the prose slip-up. Filed away for the next time it comes up on TFW...probably in a few years.
I was so close to jumping in on this thread until I realized that engineering knowledge has all but squashed what I remember from the English degree.
