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    A Study Guide for May Swensen's "Fable for When There's No Way Out"
    A Study Guide for May Swensen's "Fable for When There's No Way Out"
    A Study Guide for May Swensen's "Fable for When There's No Way Out"
    Ebook32 pages20 minutes

    A Study Guide for May Swensen's "Fable for When There's No Way Out"

    By Gale and Cengage

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    About this ebook

    A Study Guide for May Swensen's "Fable for When There's No Way Out," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Poetry for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Poetry for Students for all of your research needs.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCengage Learning - Gale
    Release dateSep 2, 2016
    ISBN9781535823012
    A Study Guide for May Swensen's "Fable for When There's No Way Out"

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      A Study Guide for May Swensen's "Fable for When There's No Way Out" - Gale

      11

      Fable for When There's No Way Out

      May Swenson

      1967

      Introduction

      Fable for When There's No Way Out, by May Swenson, was published in her 1967 collection Half Sun Half Sleep. It is one of Swenson's better known and most frequently taught poems. In the poem, a baby bird struggles to break out of his shell. After struggling to the point of frustration and nearly to the point of giving up and accepting death, the bird unexpectedly finds a surprising means of freeing himself. Fable for When There's No Way Out was written at the height of Swenson's career, although it stands apart from her body of work in many ways. Unlike many of her other poems, it is both a narrative and a fable, meaning that it tells a story and teaches a lesson. However, like many of her poems, it centers around the opposition of extremes, in this case the forces of reason and emotion. It also includes themes of determination and survival. Although it was written after the modern period, its psychological component and nontraditional style characterize it as a modernist poem.

      Author Biography

      Swenson was born Anna Thilda May Swenson to Margaret and Dan Arthur Swenson on May 28, 1913 (some sources cite 1919), in Logan, Utah, the first of ten children in a large Mormon family. Her parents were both Swedish immigrants, with her father working as a professor of mechanical engineering at Utah State Agricultural College. Swedish was the language regularly spoken in Swenson's household; English was her second language. She was interested in writing from a young age and kept journals while she was growing up. In high school, she won a twenty-five-dollar prize for her

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