Literature and life

The little boy and the old man by Shel Silverstream
1)The underlying message that is being conveyed in this poem is that little boys do not usually get the attention they desire from adults and sometimes little boys would rather do something embarrassing like wetting their pants and crying often than not gain the attention of adults, which goes on to show how much attention is desired by little boys. The little told the old man various embarrassing things he did, most probably to get the attention of the old man.
2)Yes, the entire poem was in dialogs so as to describe the conversation between the little boy and the old man more clearly, to emphasize on the short replys the old man gave to the little boy, just to show how much the old man wishes to refrain from engaging in a conversation with the little boy and therefore show that the adults do not give the little boy the attention he desired.

Messy room by Shel Silverstream
1)This poem is humorous in an ironic way. The persona criticizes the owner of the room for the untidiness of it and said that whoever who owned this room should be ashamed. However, in the end, the person realises that the room is actually his own, and he was actually criticising himself all the long.
2)The aspect of the human character highlighted in this poem is the innate tendency of human beings to blame others, whether or not they are at fault.Around the end of the poem, the persona started speculating on who the owner of the room is, blaming Donald, Robert and Willie for the untidiness of the room when the one who made the room untidy was actually himself.

Cloony the Clown by Shel Silverstream
1)The irony was that when cloony the clown desires people laughing at him, what he got was sympathy, and when he desires sympathy, what he got was people laughing at him.
2)Shel Silverstream managed to convey the fact that when we want something, what we get would be something else; and when we want something else, what we get would be the thing we originally wanted.
3)Shel Silverstream used repetition various times to convey the message. Repeated passages include "But he just wasn't, just wasn't funny at all", and parts of sentences that are repeated include "Everyone...", "He had a...", "He told...", and "They laughed...". These passages were used to emphasize on the actions of the persona and other characters.

I find that I can identify with "Messy Room by Shel Silverstream" the most. Messy room gave an vivid illustration of that particular aspect of the human character, the tendency to blame others whenever they see something embarrassing. When faced with an embarrasing situation, the human mind will instinctively, and often arbitrarily, point the finger at someone else. Whenever you see something embarrassing, in this case the messy room, there would be a 'voice' in your subconscious that says "This is not done by me". Sometimes you don't even bother checking if it is or isn't done by you, because the 'voice', your dignity, would just 'tell' you "This is not done by you". Even though you never heard these voices before, it is implied from your sometimes unreasonable actions that this 'voice' in your subconscious actually exists. This 'voice', called dignity, is probably an innate aspect of a human being, just like the conscience. Men are born with it, and sometimes, it is the one that influences decisions, decisions that might change yours whole life