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    A Study Guide for Muriel Rukeyser's "Ballad of Orange and Grape"
    A Study Guide for Muriel Rukeyser's "Ballad of Orange and Grape"
    A Study Guide for Muriel Rukeyser's "Ballad of Orange and Grape"
    Ebook30 pages21 minutes

    A Study Guide for Muriel Rukeyser's "Ballad of Orange and Grape"

    By Gale and Cengage

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    About this ebook

    A Study Guide for Muriel Rukeyser's "Ballad of Orange and Grape," 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 dateAug 19, 2016
    ISBN9781535819084
    A Study Guide for Muriel Rukeyser's "Ballad of Orange and Grape"

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      A Study Guide for Muriel Rukeyser's "Ballad of Orange and Grape" - Gale

      1

      Ballad of Orange and Grape

      Muriel Rukeyser

      1973

      Introduction

      Muriel Rukeyser wrote Ballad of Orange and Grape toward the end of her long career. The poem reflects one of the central concerns of her life and art—the power of language to shape the world’s realities. Rukeyser was a pacifist and promoted many international social justice issues throughout her life. She always sought to express her political passions through her poetry, an attribute that made her stand out among women poets of her time.

      Ballad of Orange and Grape takes the form of a ballad, telling a simple story in verse form. The speaker, a poet or thinker like the author, goes to a hot-dog stand in East Harlem at the end of a day’s work. After passing through a scene of urban squalor, she arrives at the hot-dog stand and encounters the vendor refilling two drink machines—clearly labeled orange and grape respectively—with the wrong flavor of beverage. This provides the poem’s central metaphor. Questioning such disregard for language, Rukeyser connects the vendor’s indifference with the inability of people in the neighborhood to take action to change their violent and depressed

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