G.K. Chestertons The Donkey :: Chesterton Donkey Essays

G.K. Chestertons The Donkey As discussed in earlier papers, poets use devices to help enhance their paradigms to the reader. unity device not yet discussed is a symbol. John Drury, a poet, explains a symbol as, an image that radiates meanings (Gioia 276). Whatever the image is that each poet chooses to use creates a diverse and separate from another poets use of that same image. Also, it is possible for a reader to see a symbol in a word or target that the author had never intended. In G.K. Chestertons, The Donkey, the donkey is a symbol for the some of todays society view people of mixed races and how people with multiple backgrounds will possess their finest hour (Line 13).In The Donkey, Chesterton describes how the donkey is looked upon by people and when the donkey had been chosen by the greatest Creator of all. The first stanza begins with the donkeys birth, When fishes flew and forests walked/.Some moment when the moon was blood/ thusly surely I was born (Lines 1-4). Thes e lines are representative of the fact that the world must have been turned upside down in order for the donkey to be born. In the fourth line the reader knows the donkey is negative about himself because I is the animal describing himself. The donkey goes on to say that he is, The devils walk parody (Line 7). Seeing himself as a creature of the devil instead of a wonderful animal created by God, is showing how distorted his self image is. He feels he is, The tattered outlaw of the earth (Line 9), which furthermore expresses the hatred he feels from the world. Tattered means, a torn piece and the word outlaw means, dismiss criminal, make or declare illegal. All the word choices combine emphasizes how Chesterton wanted the reader to fully understand that the donkey was an unpleasant creature. Though in the become stanza, the donkey has his laugh, Fools For I also had my hour (Line 13). Although, the donkey is a mixed breed, he was loved and chosen by the one person who has the gre atest power- Jesus.Flipping through and through daytime television, there are several shows which focus on interracial marriages and mixed children. Every culture has their own separate opinion about what they weigh to be morally right. As with the donkey, some feel that biracial people are less than a person than those with only one ethnic background.