Theme analysis song #2: "Breakaway" by Kelly Clarkson

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKCGBv65w_M

 The song Breakaway by Kelly Clarkson shows my theme of leaving the past behind and overcoming struggles of the past by using literary devices such as imagery, synesthesia, and metaphors in order to suggest her want to move on with her life and go further to places she has dreamt of going. “Grew up in a small town and when the rain would fall down I'd just stare out my window. Dreaming of what could be and if I’d end up happy, I would pray” is imagery which allows the reader to sympathize with the speaker and picture what she would do on rainy days when she had nothing else to do but let her thoughts wash over her mind. I feel as though the use of this imagery does a good job at foreshadowing the feelings the speaker has towards her hometown and that she is looking forward to the future. I believe that this allows for the reader, or listener, to relate to how when people are younger and still living with their parents they dream about the future and leaving to start a life of their own. An example of figurative language that the speaker uses is “when I tried to speak out felt like no one could hear me” what she means is that (I picture this speaker as a high school student) she would speak with adults and tell them of her life or her plans or even visions and she was not understood which is why she feels as if no one hears what she is saying. By foreshadowing that she is not happy, or at least feeling some discontent, the speaker leads us to her point that she wants to “spread [her] wings and I’ll learn how to fly I’ll do what it takes til’ I touch the sky”. She uses this as a metaphor, she is essentially comparing herself to a bird. She wants to learn how to do things herself and go on her way to her future to get out of her small town. The whole song is about how the speaker plans to overcome her loneliness of living in a small town and expand her life so that she can accomplish everything she has dreamt of. “Out of the darkness and into the sun” is an example of figurative language because it means that she is emerging from somewhere where she was not happy, which the darkness symbolizes, and she goes “into the sun” which means that she is following her dreams and leaving the past behind her. “Wanna feel the warm breeze sleep under a palm tree feel the rush of the ocean” this is an example of synesthesia because of the way it describes the feel of both the breeze and the ocean. The speaker uses this to help convey the message of the song because she wants her audience to see the appeal of how she pictures where she wants to be in her future. I’d like to make note that when she speaks of where she is at the beginning, which is her hometown, she isn’t happy with it and she constantly is dreaming of getting out which she describes it as dark and rainy. Yet she describes the place she dreams of as warm and sunny. I believe she did this to make the place she dreams of seem more desirable and idealistic for someone who wants to escape a small hometown. This ties into my theme because it shows how she wishes to leave her past behind her and break free from what she has always known.