Why I said what I said to Melissa

After reading both Melissa's Essay and the poem she read, I felt that she missed the overall purpose of the essay. According to the guidelines set forth by Prof.Smith the students had to not only define symbolism and cite examples of it in their chosen poem, but also had to explain how the use of symbolism helped to further clarify the meaning of the piece. Also, I felt that maybe Melissa got lost in abstractions about the 7 deadly sins and lost her train of thought, which caused her to lose focus on the criteria in question.