I’m working on a literature discussion question and need an explanation to help me understand better.

A) What is the central image and how does it work in “Anecdote of a Jar”? What does it symbolize and how is it a modernist idea?

B) Both “Thirteen Ways of Looking a Blackbird” and “Disillusionment of Ten O’Clock” deal with the idea of perception and subjectivity. What other similarities do you see? What are the major differences in how this idea is presented?

C) Wallace Stevens’ poem “The Idea of Order at Key West” focuses on the “idea” of man “ordering” nature – here, through song. The woman “sang beyond the genius of the sea” – she gives the sea a voice. How does she do this? How does the narrator struggle with understanding this? How is the woman’s voice different from “lights” in the second to last stanza when it comes to “ordering”?