Intro
Throughout the poem Hard Rock by Ethridge Knight we saw one important event that influenced a change in a character this was Hard Rock’s lobotomy this changed his character in a hole and changed him and who he was as a man and Hard Rock clearly showed this change in a character by using powerful techniques that make are very hooking.
Firstly,
The first technique we see used by hard rock to show this change in character was his imagery he describes hard rock to show what he was like prior to the change by using the technique “imagery”
They described him to have “yellow eyes, purple split lips” this is what you would generically think of someone if they were I fighter so already we know hard rock is a tough dude who likes to get into fights and later in the same stanza the Author tells us about hard rock was known not to take shit from nobody and this is how we knew he was all aggressive and he didn’t like when people were talking smack.
Secondly,
The second technique used in the poem was Diction this was the authors choice of words throughout the poem he carefully placed them and used the right words to make the poem more hooking and making the idea that one character changed through the influence of one or more important event and for this poem that one important event that changed everything was hard rocks lobotomy it changed the prisoners inside and it changed hard rock for good. A couple of good words he used throughout the poem like “kinky hair” this was used very well as it was to explain how he looked, and it describes him better instead of just saying brown hair he went to detail especially in the bit where he was explaining his fighting without telling us like the “split purple lips and yellow eyes.”
Finally,
The final technique used by the Author Ethridge Knight was agriculture references was “herd of sheep, ploughed through kinky canopy of hair” this technique used by the author was an agricultural reference which is related to farming. The author used this technique to show us the affect that this lobotomy had on not just hard rock but also the prisoners as well we knew it changed hard rock for good when they said thing like “it took hard rock 3 minutes to say his own name” and it was also the “first time some hill billy called hard rock a black son of a bitch and didn’t lose his own teeth” because we knew hard rock was known not to take no shit from nobody but now after he was lobotomized he is all passive and is now lost his own thought and it’s hard for him to speak even to say his own name. The prisoners were scared because hard rock was like their protector because he was tough, and he would always be getting in trouble, and he also held the record for most days in the hole 67 days straight now they feel like the guards wouldn’t go for hard rock as he isn’t a problem and start paying more attention to them.
Conclusion
In conclusion I have given good examples on an important event throughout this poem that has influenced a change in a character which was hard rock and the prisoners it made hard rock emotionless, and he now can’t say anything for himself, and it made the prisoners scared as they will be the main targets of the Garuds now as hard rock used to be but now, they have no protector Ethridge Knight explains this very well by using a lot of techniques like “Diction, Imagery and Agricultural references.
