The Drunken Fisherman
It is not a mystery that poems elicit different feelings and images from people of all ages, races, and creeds. It is possible that one poem could evoke a feeling of empathy from one reader who bethinks himself of times he, too, had something similar occur whereas another reader may have a feeling of despondency from the same poem. It is this credo that works are intrinsically subjective that can make understanding and critiquing poems the most enjoyable because it is incumbent upon him who reads them.
In the poem, The Drunken Fisherman by, Robert Lowell, a person may picture himself fishing along a river bank, which can evoke, from the reader, feelings of serenity. Whenever I read this poem, I feel as though I were somewhere far away, having escaped all of my troubles and worries, with only the grassy knolls and the sound of the running river between me and all of the hardships of my life.
This feeling is especially elicited in the lines, "I cast for fish that pleased my eye/ Truly Jehovah's bow suspends/ No pots of gold to weight its ends" (2-4). These lines can tell the reader that the main character is doing all of this for recreation. The words, "no pots of gold to weight its ends" evoke this feeling that the fisherman is not doing this for his livelihood.
This poem can also elicit a feeling of somberness and finality to its reader after the fisherman, in the poem, catches his fish. This feeling is consistent in the lines:
Only the blood-mouthed rainbow trout
Rose to my bait. They flopped about
My canvas creel until the moth
Corrupted its unstable cloth (5-8).
In these lines, the reader can picture that the fisherman is only catching rainbow trout and that they are dying as he puts them in his basket. The death of these fish produces this somber feeling of finality for the reader. The words "flopped about" portray how the fish are trying desperately to escape from the fisherman's basket but to no avail.
It is unknown to the reader whether the fisherman might actually want to catch rainbow trout. The "gap" in this poem could be the fact that the fisherman really does not like rainbow trout. This can be inferred when the fisherman states, "I cast for fish that pleased my eye" (2), but then avers that, "Only the blood-mouthed rainbow trout/ Rose to my bait" (5-6). Here, one can picture that the fisherman is looking for certain kinds of fish, but the lowly rainbow trout are the only fish that are biting for him. In the end, the fisherman just concedes to this fact and places the fish in his creel.
The passing of time and sheer solitude of the fisherman's surroundings are also exemplified to the reader in the lines, "A calendar to tell the days/ A handkerchief to wave away/ The gnats" (9-11). Here, the word, "calendar" exemplifies this feeling of the passing of time whereas the handkerchief that is being used to swat the gnats portrays the fisherman to be in a serene area somewhere deep in the wilderness. This evocation of the passing of time can also be seen in the lines, "O wind blow cold, O wind blow hot/ Let suns stay in or suns step out" (17-18). In these two lines, the reader can infer that the sun is rising and setting and that the fisherman's surroundings are growing colder and then warmer. This seems to be signifying the changing of days.
A "digger for secret" may be best portrayed in the lines, "Children, the raging memory drools/ Over the glory of past pools" (23-24). The reader may get this feeling of nostalgia from the fisherman in the poem. He seems to be reminiscing to the days of his childhood—to a time when he was fishing as a young boy and made some "glorious" catches. This evocation of magisterial catches comes from the words, "glory of past pools" whereas "memory drools" can be inferred as the fisherman's drifting into a daydream as he remembers these good times.
From a psychological aspect, the character also seems to be very reclusive and may be trying to escape from all of his troubles. This feeling of escaping his troubles can be limned from the fact that the fisherman appears to be drunk in the poem. The reader can infer this in the line, "Pouching a bottle in one arm" (12), wherein it seems as though the fisherman has been drinking. In line 23, a "whiskey bottle" is mentioned, which denotes even more the possibility that some drinking has occurred. The reclusive aspect of this fisherman is denoted from the fact that no other characters are mentioned in this poem. From the reader's perspective, the fisherman is alone in the wilderness and the fish are his only company.
In the final stanza, the reader can infer that the fisherman is upset about his catch when he says, "Is there no way to cast my hook/ Out of this dynamited brook" (33-34). The participle, "dynamited" signals to the reader that there is nothing to be caught in this brook. It also limns frustration on the part of the fisherman who seems to be cursing the brook wherein he is fishing. His question, "Is there no way to cast my hook" (33) seems to be somewhat sarcastic and rhetorical—as if the reason for not catching any fish were directly related to how he casts his hook into the water.
In the end, this poem can be interpreted in many different ways. The old axiom, "to each his own" comes to mind because each person may glean from this poem whatever he may, and no interpretation is wrong. Whether the reader think the poem is somber and reclusive or angry and sarcastic is totally subjective in nature. There is no right or wrong answer when trying to understand the meaning of any author's works. It really all depends on the reader's own response.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
The Drunken Fisherman
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
The Semantics of What We Say
There is a big reason that I talk about the subjunctive and indicative moods in English a lot. It's not that I just want to talk about them—the main reason is that it is important to understand the semantics behind what we say so that our meaning not become convolved or confused in any way.
Yes, it is true that English is a syncretic language; therefore the subjunctive plays a minute role, but what little of the subjunctive that we can see is important because if someone were to say it in the indicative one time and then the subjunctive the next, all of a sudden, it would be possible to have two statements that mean entirely different things. Here's a comparitive example:
Example: John, will you make sure that my son is buckled up? (This means semantically that the speaker wants John to check to see whether his son is buckled up.)
Example: John, will you make sure that my son be buckled up? (This means semantically that the speaker wants John to guarantee that his son will be buckled up.)
Again, normally we cannot notice this because of syncretism, but whenever we can, it is important that we differentiate between the two because of its semantic and syntactic differences. Normally, though, any idiot can understand the speaker's meaning by context. This is the one reason that the subjunctive, at least in English, is a moot point.
My biggest pet peeve, though, has to be the use of "would" in the protasis of the past perfect subjunctive. I cannot understand what fool would construct a sentence like this:
Example: If he would have hit the ball to right field, he would have gotten a base-hit. (I heard this one tonight at baseball practice. My friend, Jon said it.)
Correct Example: If he had hit the ball to right field, he would have gotten a base-hit. (This is still part of the subjunctive that grammarians won't let die. May it live on and not be corrupted by fools.)
Again, it's not a big problem because any idiot can figure out what the speaker means. The big question I have about this is the diachrony of this error. Where did it come from? How has it spread? It's the same with the whole "was/were" past indicative/subjunctive constructions. There must be a reason for this diachronic shift in construction. I mean, I seldom hear the pluperfect subjunctive anymore and this is by no means a moribund area of the English subjunctive mood. Here's one that's common though:
Example: I wish this team was our actual team, except for Rubin. (This was said at baseball practice today by my friend, Stephen.)
This is just another attack on the past subjunctive wherein "were" would be the correct verb conjugation, but again, this is picayune. I'm not here to beat a dead horse; I'm here to explain the semantics of these constructions so that there be very little confusion regarding whether it be "was" or "were" or whatnot.
Remember, in formal English writing, whether it be considered didactic or not, it is crucial that you make sure that your reader understand exactly what you want him to know. You should be careful not to confound the reader in any way, shape, or form. If English weren't so syncretic, though, it would be far easier to get your point across. You just have to make due while you write your paper or whatnot.
Perhaps, one day, all of these constructions will be considered grammatically correct. As of now, though, the only concession grammarians have made is to the present subjunctive forms, and this is not a total concession. The past and pluperfect constructions still must be adhered to, or so they say, yet over the last twenty years, this, too, has started to attenuate.
It really doesn't matter, though; this is just some food for thought. Please write to me to tell me about what you think in regard to this topic. I'm curious as to what others might have to say when it appertains to the semantics of these types of construction.
Yes, it is true that English is a syncretic language; therefore the subjunctive plays a minute role, but what little of the subjunctive that we can see is important because if someone were to say it in the indicative one time and then the subjunctive the next, all of a sudden, it would be possible to have two statements that mean entirely different things. Here's a comparitive example:
Example: John, will you make sure that my son is buckled up? (This means semantically that the speaker wants John to check to see whether his son is buckled up.)
Example: John, will you make sure that my son be buckled up? (This means semantically that the speaker wants John to guarantee that his son will be buckled up.)
Again, normally we cannot notice this because of syncretism, but whenever we can, it is important that we differentiate between the two because of its semantic and syntactic differences. Normally, though, any idiot can understand the speaker's meaning by context. This is the one reason that the subjunctive, at least in English, is a moot point.
My biggest pet peeve, though, has to be the use of "would" in the protasis of the past perfect subjunctive. I cannot understand what fool would construct a sentence like this:
Example: If he would have hit the ball to right field, he would have gotten a base-hit. (I heard this one tonight at baseball practice. My friend, Jon said it.)
Correct Example: If he had hit the ball to right field, he would have gotten a base-hit. (This is still part of the subjunctive that grammarians won't let die. May it live on and not be corrupted by fools.)
Again, it's not a big problem because any idiot can figure out what the speaker means. The big question I have about this is the diachrony of this error. Where did it come from? How has it spread? It's the same with the whole "was/were" past indicative/subjunctive constructions. There must be a reason for this diachronic shift in construction. I mean, I seldom hear the pluperfect subjunctive anymore and this is by no means a moribund area of the English subjunctive mood. Here's one that's common though:
Example: I wish this team was our actual team, except for Rubin. (This was said at baseball practice today by my friend, Stephen.)
This is just another attack on the past subjunctive wherein "were" would be the correct verb conjugation, but again, this is picayune. I'm not here to beat a dead horse; I'm here to explain the semantics of these constructions so that there be very little confusion regarding whether it be "was" or "were" or whatnot.
Remember, in formal English writing, whether it be considered didactic or not, it is crucial that you make sure that your reader understand exactly what you want him to know. You should be careful not to confound the reader in any way, shape, or form. If English weren't so syncretic, though, it would be far easier to get your point across. You just have to make due while you write your paper or whatnot.
Perhaps, one day, all of these constructions will be considered grammatically correct. As of now, though, the only concession grammarians have made is to the present subjunctive forms, and this is not a total concession. The past and pluperfect constructions still must be adhered to, or so they say, yet over the last twenty years, this, too, has started to attenuate.
It really doesn't matter, though; this is just some food for thought. Please write to me to tell me about what you think in regard to this topic. I'm curious as to what others might have to say when it appertains to the semantics of these types of construction.
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Woe Is I
I believe I have talked about the predicate nominative before, but if I recall correctly, it was just an excursive, cursory explanation of it. With that said, I still want to expound further on this precept so that there be no confusion per se.
As you are probably eminently aware, the title explains this concept of the predicate nominative—"Woe is I"—instead of the more traditional way of saying, "Woe is me". Yes, I know Shakespeare did say, "Woe is me" and I am in no way saying that he was wrong for having said it like this. In fact, standard English grammatical rules weren't established until the mid-seventeenth century so Shakespeare had been dead approximately half of a century before English was standardized; therefore he was not wrong when he said it in this way.
Furthermore, not to rend the grammatical rules along with the semantics of this construction, but using an objective pronoun following a copula is just informal; it in no way impugns the interlocutor in any way. In fact, it may enhance a dialogue by removing the fusty nature that a phrase like "It is I" might induce. With that said, though, in formal writing, it is important that the writer follow this rule because it does produce concinnity in the paper, semantically it makes more sense, and grammarians still say it is correct, but formal.
Remember that high school and college English papers are formal bodies of work; ergo they must be stylistically formal. One must also remember that an accusative pronoun needs an action verb for it to be used. A writer cannot use an accusative pronoun as the direct object of a copula because a copula is only linking the subject with the subject predicate. There also must be concinnity in the construction of a "to be" construction with its subordinate clause. For instance:
Example: It is you [who are going to rectify this situation.]
Above, the predicate nominative is "you"; therefore the verb following the interrogatory pronoun "who" in the subordinate clause must correspond with each other; therefore it would appear to be "you are" in this situation. Below is another example so that you can see how this works:
Example: It is she who owns that land.
Now, remember that this will only be easy to spot provided "to be" be conjugated or it have a subject. It can be very difficult to spot during such times when the subject should appear to be nonexistent. For example:
Example: I want [myself] to be him.
Here, "to be" has a subject and that subject is the direct object of the verb to want, but because it's a reflexive pronoun, in this situation, it is normally omitted. The infinitive here is linking the two objective pronouns so they must both be objective. Here are some more examples below:
Example: I pretend to be her.
Example: I pretend that I am she.
Example: It's better that it be they than it be I.
Example: Yesterday, I became he [the leader].
Example: The winner was thought to be I.
Example: He thought me to be him.
Everyone reading this should be aware that this is formal English—English that one would write more so than he would speak. More so, many of these constructions can, indeed, be avoided in a paper and I would strongly urge that a writer avoid these constructions because of their stilted, pedantic constructions, but they do have their place in grammar. It should be stated, though, that a construction such as the example below can bring a connotation of strength and may embolden its audience so this construction can definitely be wise to use in a formal, persuasive paper:
"It is we, the people, who have fought for centuries for freedom. It is we who have offered our souls, our blood, and our brethren to fight against persecution and injustice. It is we who have the power to decide what is right for us and it is we who will never give up until we have what is rightfully ours."
This is a term in linguistics called "anaphora". Winston Churchill was renowned for his use of anaphora in many of his speeches. Anaphora is very powerful in persuasive writing because it causes the reader to focus on its construction. The constant, recurrent use of "It is we" is enough to cause anyone's head to turn.
All right, well that is my in-depth explanation of the predicate nominative. I hope it might have helped you a little in understanding the antiphony of prescribed constructions versus proscribed constructions regarding this topic.
As you are probably eminently aware, the title explains this concept of the predicate nominative—"Woe is I"—instead of the more traditional way of saying, "Woe is me". Yes, I know Shakespeare did say, "Woe is me" and I am in no way saying that he was wrong for having said it like this. In fact, standard English grammatical rules weren't established until the mid-seventeenth century so Shakespeare had been dead approximately half of a century before English was standardized; therefore he was not wrong when he said it in this way.
Furthermore, not to rend the grammatical rules along with the semantics of this construction, but using an objective pronoun following a copula is just informal; it in no way impugns the interlocutor in any way. In fact, it may enhance a dialogue by removing the fusty nature that a phrase like "It is I" might induce. With that said, though, in formal writing, it is important that the writer follow this rule because it does produce concinnity in the paper, semantically it makes more sense, and grammarians still say it is correct, but formal.
Remember that high school and college English papers are formal bodies of work; ergo they must be stylistically formal. One must also remember that an accusative pronoun needs an action verb for it to be used. A writer cannot use an accusative pronoun as the direct object of a copula because a copula is only linking the subject with the subject predicate. There also must be concinnity in the construction of a "to be" construction with its subordinate clause. For instance:
Example: It is you [who are going to rectify this situation.]
Above, the predicate nominative is "you"; therefore the verb following the interrogatory pronoun "who" in the subordinate clause must correspond with each other; therefore it would appear to be "you are" in this situation. Below is another example so that you can see how this works:
Example: It is she who owns that land.
Now, remember that this will only be easy to spot provided "to be" be conjugated or it have a subject. It can be very difficult to spot during such times when the subject should appear to be nonexistent. For example:
Example: I want [myself] to be him.
Here, "to be" has a subject and that subject is the direct object of the verb to want, but because it's a reflexive pronoun, in this situation, it is normally omitted. The infinitive here is linking the two objective pronouns so they must both be objective. Here are some more examples below:
Example: I pretend to be her.
Example: I pretend that I am she.
Example: It's better that it be they than it be I.
Example: Yesterday, I became he [the leader].
Example: The winner was thought to be I.
Example: He thought me to be him.
Everyone reading this should be aware that this is formal English—English that one would write more so than he would speak. More so, many of these constructions can, indeed, be avoided in a paper and I would strongly urge that a writer avoid these constructions because of their stilted, pedantic constructions, but they do have their place in grammar. It should be stated, though, that a construction such as the example below can bring a connotation of strength and may embolden its audience so this construction can definitely be wise to use in a formal, persuasive paper:
"It is we, the people, who have fought for centuries for freedom. It is we who have offered our souls, our blood, and our brethren to fight against persecution and injustice. It is we who have the power to decide what is right for us and it is we who will never give up until we have what is rightfully ours."
This is a term in linguistics called "anaphora". Winston Churchill was renowned for his use of anaphora in many of his speeches. Anaphora is very powerful in persuasive writing because it causes the reader to focus on its construction. The constant, recurrent use of "It is we" is enough to cause anyone's head to turn.
All right, well that is my in-depth explanation of the predicate nominative. I hope it might have helped you a little in understanding the antiphony of prescribed constructions versus proscribed constructions regarding this topic.
Saturday, May 9, 2009
The Wife's Lament
The Wife's Lament
The Middle Ages began around A.D. 500 and was a period of time that existed in Europe between Classical Antiquity and the Italian Renaissance. It stretched throughout the centuries and historians believe it finally culminated around A.D. 1350, although speculation exists that it may have continued even longer.
Perhaps one of the most esoteric poems of this time is "The Wife's Lament." In this poem, the author is a woman whose husband has gone on a journey to some unknown place and, because he is no longer physically there to be with his wife, his family members have exiled her. From the context of the poem and its prologue, it is evident that the narrator has had an arranged marriage with her husband whom she describes as "her lord." The prologue mentions that the narrator was most likely a "peace-weaver," which, in medieval Anglo-Saxon culture, was a woman who was married off to make peace between warring tribes. This was a very common practice during the Middle Ages so it makes sense that her husband's family would contemn her and thus exile her upon his leaving.
An element of medieval Anglo-Saxon culture is clearly represented in this poem by the antonomastic overtone that the term, "my lord" brings. For example, the narrator states, "First [my lord] went away from his people here," then she later avers that, "[My lord] commanded me to stay in this place." The antonomasia found in these passages clearly connotes what many historians would consider as typical truckling of a medieval wife towards her husband. The antonomastic term, "my lord," also seems to exude a type of servile fealty that a wife would have for her husband during this time in Anglo-Saxon history.
This poem also seems to exude from it a great social conflict between women during the Middle Ages. One cannot help noticing that the narrator in this poem is inferior to her husband in every facet and it is almost as though she were his property more so than his wife. The narrator seems to be almost limned as that of a vassal or a serf from the different descriptions that are given in the poem. This is very consistent with medieval Anglo-Saxon culture because women were considered to have been put on this Earth by God to serve their husbands. Because of this precept that was embedded in the culture of this time, women were brought up to believe in this notion, thus, no matter what, they served their husbands well and accordingly until death did them part.
Furthermore, the reader can also get a sense from the poem that the narrator has married into a warrior cult and her husband has left her for some unknown reason. The narrator mentions in the poem that "her lord" has gone "across the storm-tossed sea." It may be that he has gone to conquer another land or fight in some great war, which, during the Middle Ages, was common practice throughout Anglo-Saxon culture.
The notion that this family that the narrator has married into may be a warrior cult is buttressed by the belief that the narrator is a peace-weaver. If she was a peace-weaver, then she was married to stifle a blood feud between the two exogamous families. Tensions between the narrator's family and "her lord's" family may still be extant, but occluded from sight while she and her lord are married and living together. The problem that exists now is that her lord has gone on this journey to some unknown place thus she is no longer being shielded by his aegis. Without her lord's aegis, she is at the mercy of his family members and therefore their true feelings towards her come out and they ostracize her to this place in the wilderness.
The reader can further picture the ostracism of the narrator when she describes disquietly that, "Endlessly I have suffered the wretchedness of exile" and then segues into how she now resides in an "earth-cave" in the wilderness. The narrator, in these lines, is expounding her coda to the reader. This is, in essence, the end-result she receives for all of her love, devotion, and fidelity she has had for her lord—the fact that she has now been exiled by his family to live out her days in this cave underneath an old oak tree. In medieval Anglo-Saxon culture, it was common practice for a family to blackball one of its estranged members, especially a peace-weaver when the husband had either died or gone somewhere such as off to war wherein it was very likely he would never return.
Furthermore, the connotation of a blood feud in this poem can be limned through the arranged marriage between the narrator and her lord. Since these are two separate warrior cults who are trying to create some semblance of peace between each other, the one cult has offered up a peace-weaver for betrothal to a male heir of the other warrior cult. Arranged marriages and blood feuds between exogamous families, particularly warrior cult families, were rampant throughout Anglo-Saxon culture during the Middle Ages. An arranged marriage was one way to end a blood feud between different families, but, many times, the hatred for the other family was still innate within each member; therefore many of these marriages were doomed from the start. It is apparent from this poem that the narrator's arranged marriage, which was an effort to create a rapprochement between the two warring families, has failed thus irreparably sundering the two families and inexorably reviving old tensions from the blood feud.
In the end, there are many elements of Anglo-Saxon culture and heritage that can be found in "The Wife's Lament." For instance, in the poem, the reader can see how a once doting wife seems to become nothing more than a flitting memory to her husband and his family and how, through all of her pain and persecution, through exile and enmity, the ever-faithful narrator still toadies to her missing husband—"her lord" for whom she forever weeps during her state of exile.
The Hug
The Hug
In every work, the reader looks at it and must infer what the author is trying to say. Usually, the reader incorporates his own political views into the work as a group such as his feelings towards different genders, classes, races, or even sexual preferences. With that being said, it is safe to assume that "The Hug" by Thom Gunn is no different. Gun, a homosexual author, writes in such a way as to capture his audience, but all the while making many feel uneasy as to what he is portraying.
When the narrator says, "It was your birthday, we had drunk and dined/Half of the night with our old friend/Who'd showed us in the end/To a bed I reached in one drunk stride," the reader clearly pictures that the narrator is a man and that the person whom he is throwing a party for is either his wife or girlfriend (1-4). The "old friend" appears to be a male, perhaps someone whom they have known since they were in school. A feminist would impugn this stereotypical way of thinking as an archetypal fancy—a conceit held within the psyche of the average individual based on what roles society places on its sexes. For instance, society's archetype would view that a man should throw a party for his wife or girlfriend and not the other way around. More so, it is the man who should be drunk and not the woman and it would be improper for the old friend to be a woman because of the belief in the roles of fidelity.
From a post-feminist view, these archetypes are ridiculous or outmoded. In modern society, it is perfectly acceptable for a woman to throw a birthday party for the man, it is perfectly acceptable for the woman to get drunk at the party, and it is perfectly acceptable for there to be another girl at her husband's or boyfriend's party. Any other way of thinking, whether it be to assume sex roles for androgynous characters or something else, is not only prejudicial, but it is abasing to women.
From a queer theorists perspective, this archetype is completely flawed. A queer theorist would ask the reader, "Why do these characters have to be mixed genders? They could very easily be all men or all women." In fact, if one were to have insight that the author, Thom Gunn was homosexual during his lifetime, he might think differently as to who these characters are. In this sense, the average reader might become alarmed at the thought that these characters might be two men who have gone to bed with each other or even two women.
When the narrator says, "I dozed, I slept. My sleep broke on a hug/Suddenly, from behind/In which the full lengths of our bodies pressed," a feminist reader might want to switch her first thought (7-9). She would argue that the woman is apparently the narrator because the man would be the one to hug suddenly from behind and then push his body up against hers. This would be predicated on the societal archetype that a man is usually the one to make the first move on a woman and that the woman is the one who must acquiesce to his advances in the end.
A post-feminist would be able to see these characters from either a male/female or female/male role. She would argue that women are only preventing social change by falling for this archetypal ideology because women have needs, too. The character who is making the move could just as easily be a woman rather than a man. She could just be trying to give her man a birthday present or she, too, could be drunk and have lost her inhibitions.
A queer theorist, here, would stop the presses. He would say that the feminist and post-feminist are behind the times—that these characters could just as easily be having some homosexual relationship than a heterosexual one. He would elucidate that this is caused by society's strong biases against things it considers to be "out of the norm." Whether he be in the right is another argument entirely, but he would definitely focus on the fact that the average reader might view these characters more ominously if he were told that they are homosexual.
In the end, it is entirely up to the reader as to how he interprets the work he is reading. The main point to remember is that each individual views things differently and that these views are a combination of personal and societal osmoses—in other words, what one knows to be the norm and what one believes, combined, forms his views on a particular work, its characters, and its author.
Friday, May 8, 2009
All in All
All in All
In every piece of work, there are always two sides to a coin and so this precept is true in the poem, "All in All," which was written by Alfred Lord Tennyson. This poem is the quintessence of how antonymous words, when used rhetorically, can actually be synonymous in nature and how there truly can be infinite meanings postulated for them.
In the poem, Tennyson tries to express a binary opposition when he states, "Faith and unfaith can ne'er be equal powers" (2). It is in this line wherein there are two words that are antonymous to each other: "faith" and "unfaith." Here, he tries to tell the person to whom he is professing his love that these two concepts are unequal, but, if one were to look at this from another aspect, he could see that, without those people who are unfaithful, faith would not exist; therefore it is not possible to have faith without unfaith and it is also not possible to have unfaith without faith. It can be concluded that each distinctive concept feeds off the other to form one.
In Tennyson's argument, the superior side is faith because, with faith brings trust and, with trust brings love and respect. If a relationship were to be without trust, it would be without faith and therefore it would be without love. It can be assumed then that, in the line, "In Love, if Love be Love, if Love be ours," Tennyson is trying to limn to his lover the dichotomy of love and faith while showing how they are one as well (1). "If Love be Love, if Love be ours" is Tennyson's way of saying to his lover that, if this be the true definition of Love, and if it actually be "theirs," then these two concepts of faith and unfaith can never be equal because Love cannot be Love without faith and, without unfaith, in essence, Love cannot actually exist (1).
Tennyson also tries to personify the concept of Love by capitalizing the "L" in his poem. This seems to humanize this word as though the concept were really he and his lover coalesced so to speak. In an almost ontological sense, Tennyson wants the reader to infer that his Love for this person is as it would be if it were a living, breathing organism.
Tennyson further deliberates on his own concept of Love and his rationale of faith and unfaith in the line, "Unfaith in aught is want of faith in all" (3). Here, the words, "in aught" are being used obsolescently to mean, "at all." Since "in all" means altogether and "at all" means in any which way, there are therefore two different sets of binary oppositions in this line: "unfaith/faith" and "in all/ at all." Tennyson is once again dichotomizing his version of love and faith to his lover. He is trying to limn to her that unfaith, in any which way one can perceive it, is really that person's fervent wanting of faith altogether. It completely contradicts rational perceptions of love and faith because one could also look at faith as being nonexistent in any which way without unfaith altogether.
Tennyson further contradicts and belies the normal perceptions of love and faith throughout the poem. In the middle stanzas, he has described their Love as something almost fetid, for instance, when he says, "Or little pitted speck of garner'd fruit/ That rotting inward slowly moulders all" (8-9). In these two lines, their Love is being described as the speck on a fruit that is rotten and that, over time, that speck grows larger and goes deeper into the fruit until it have rotted out the entire inside of the fruit. This is supposed to portray how their Love is almost cancerous when it starts out and that the cancer that is their Love will only spread until, in the end, their Love be completely destroyed. This is completely contradictory to what most people believe love to be, which is that of being eternal. Tennyson is describing their Love, in these lines, as a finite concept, which seems to go against the rationale of his whole argument regarding love and faith in the first stanza of this poem.
Tennyson further portrays more binary opposition in the lines, "It is not worth keeping: let it go/ But shall it? answer, darling, answer, no/ And trust me not at all or all in all" (10-12). Here, the pronoun, "it" is referring to their Love. He is telling his lover, in line eight, that their Love is not worth keeping so she should let it go, but he contradicts himself, in line nine, when he asks her to say that their Love is worth keeping and to rail against letting their Love dissipate. Finally, in line ten, Tennyson asks her to trust him altogether or not at all, which is somewhat a pun on his original version of love and faith. Here, he is actually trying to say that, if they have Love, then they have faith for one another and she will therefore trust him in toto, but if they should not have Love, then they do not have faith for one another and she will therefore not trust him. In essence, with their Love, like any Love, there is no middle ground—it is, in fact, all in all or nothing at all. It is a pun on his original version of love and faith because he had stated prior that "Unfaith in aught is want of faith in all" and now he is stating that she must choose one concept or the other. His original version had these two concepts seemingly immixed as one, but now they seem to be two separate entities and trust appears to be paramount to preserving the sanctity of their Love.
As a reader, it is important to look at different sides of the coin when dealing with different genres of work. In many instances, one meaning is not necessarily all that exist. Each work may have multiple meanings and seeking out those multiple meanings is paramount to understanding just what the author wants his reader to infer.
In every piece of work, there are always two sides to a coin and so this precept is true in the poem, "All in All," which was written by Alfred Lord Tennyson. This poem is the quintessence of how antonymous words, when used rhetorically, can actually be synonymous in nature and how there truly can be infinite meanings postulated for them.
In the poem, Tennyson tries to express a binary opposition when he states, "Faith and unfaith can ne'er be equal powers" (2). It is in this line wherein there are two words that are antonymous to each other: "faith" and "unfaith." Here, he tries to tell the person to whom he is professing his love that these two concepts are unequal, but, if one were to look at this from another aspect, he could see that, without those people who are unfaithful, faith would not exist; therefore it is not possible to have faith without unfaith and it is also not possible to have unfaith without faith. It can be concluded that each distinctive concept feeds off the other to form one.
In Tennyson's argument, the superior side is faith because, with faith brings trust and, with trust brings love and respect. If a relationship were to be without trust, it would be without faith and therefore it would be without love. It can be assumed then that, in the line, "In Love, if Love be Love, if Love be ours," Tennyson is trying to limn to his lover the dichotomy of love and faith while showing how they are one as well (1). "If Love be Love, if Love be ours" is Tennyson's way of saying to his lover that, if this be the true definition of Love, and if it actually be "theirs," then these two concepts of faith and unfaith can never be equal because Love cannot be Love without faith and, without unfaith, in essence, Love cannot actually exist (1).
Tennyson also tries to personify the concept of Love by capitalizing the "L" in his poem. This seems to humanize this word as though the concept were really he and his lover coalesced so to speak. In an almost ontological sense, Tennyson wants the reader to infer that his Love for this person is as it would be if it were a living, breathing organism.
Tennyson further deliberates on his own concept of Love and his rationale of faith and unfaith in the line, "Unfaith in aught is want of faith in all" (3). Here, the words, "in aught" are being used obsolescently to mean, "at all." Since "in all" means altogether and "at all" means in any which way, there are therefore two different sets of binary oppositions in this line: "unfaith/faith" and "in all/ at all." Tennyson is once again dichotomizing his version of love and faith to his lover. He is trying to limn to her that unfaith, in any which way one can perceive it, is really that person's fervent wanting of faith altogether. It completely contradicts rational perceptions of love and faith because one could also look at faith as being nonexistent in any which way without unfaith altogether.
Tennyson further contradicts and belies the normal perceptions of love and faith throughout the poem. In the middle stanzas, he has described their Love as something almost fetid, for instance, when he says, "Or little pitted speck of garner'd fruit/ That rotting inward slowly moulders all" (8-9). In these two lines, their Love is being described as the speck on a fruit that is rotten and that, over time, that speck grows larger and goes deeper into the fruit until it have rotted out the entire inside of the fruit. This is supposed to portray how their Love is almost cancerous when it starts out and that the cancer that is their Love will only spread until, in the end, their Love be completely destroyed. This is completely contradictory to what most people believe love to be, which is that of being eternal. Tennyson is describing their Love, in these lines, as a finite concept, which seems to go against the rationale of his whole argument regarding love and faith in the first stanza of this poem.
Tennyson further portrays more binary opposition in the lines, "It is not worth keeping: let it go/ But shall it? answer, darling, answer, no/ And trust me not at all or all in all" (10-12). Here, the pronoun, "it" is referring to their Love. He is telling his lover, in line eight, that their Love is not worth keeping so she should let it go, but he contradicts himself, in line nine, when he asks her to say that their Love is worth keeping and to rail against letting their Love dissipate. Finally, in line ten, Tennyson asks her to trust him altogether or not at all, which is somewhat a pun on his original version of love and faith. Here, he is actually trying to say that, if they have Love, then they have faith for one another and she will therefore trust him in toto, but if they should not have Love, then they do not have faith for one another and she will therefore not trust him. In essence, with their Love, like any Love, there is no middle ground—it is, in fact, all in all or nothing at all. It is a pun on his original version of love and faith because he had stated prior that "Unfaith in aught is want of faith in all" and now he is stating that she must choose one concept or the other. His original version had these two concepts seemingly immixed as one, but now they seem to be two separate entities and trust appears to be paramount to preserving the sanctity of their Love.
As a reader, it is important to look at different sides of the coin when dealing with different genres of work. In many instances, one meaning is not necessarily all that exist. Each work may have multiple meanings and seeking out those multiple meanings is paramount to understanding just what the author wants his reader to infer.
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Long Day's Journey into Night
Long Day's Journey into Night
In every work, a psychological profile can be made to explain each character for each character has his own unique style. This is no different in Eugene O'Neill's play, Long Day's Journey into Night. In this play, the reader can see a Freudian psychoanalytical twist to each one of the main characters' personalities.
In Freudian psychology, more specifically his theory on psychoanalysis, the human psyche is broken into three different subsections: The first one is the superego. The super-ego is categorized as this:
· It gives [a person] the sense of right and wrong, pride and guilt (Snowden, 106).
· It often gets [a person] to act in ways that are acceptable to the society, rather than to the individual. For example, it might make a person feel guilty for having extra-marital sex. The super-ego incorporates the teachings of the past and of tradition, imparting a sense of morals (Snowden, 106).
· It monitors behaviour [sic], decides what is acceptable and controls taboo areas, by means of repression. The fact that a person may not be aware of this repression shows that parts of the super-ego can operate unconsciously. In fact, Freud says that large parts of both the ego and the super-ego are normally unconscious (Snowden, 106).
· It allows the ego to measure itself and strive towards ever-greater perfection (Snowden, 107).
· It is rather bossy, always demanding perfection of the ego. In fact, it can be quite severe with the poor ego, humiliating it, ill-treating it and threatening it with dire punishments. Freud observed this sort of thing in his melancholic patients (Snowden, 107).
With the above mentioned topic's being limpidly stated, the reader must now look at the three main characters to decide who most likely fits this role. If one were to parse each character's personality traits, he would most likely adduce that James Tyrone is the most apt to fit Freud's super-ego traits. He fits all of the aforementioned traits that make him suitable for this position.
Some reasons that make James Tyrone most apt to be Freud's superego exemplar is the way he carries himself throughout the whole play. Throughout the play, he seems lost and bewildered as to what is happening with his family. There is his wife, Mary, who is seemingly caught in a continual state of stereotypy, his eldest son, Jamie, has had a rough life going from college to college, and his son, Edmund, is dying of tuberculosis. Through all of the turmoil, though, he appears to be the glue that is holding his family together. One can get the sense that if it were not for him, his family would have fallen apart a long time ago. He appears to keep his wife, Mary in check—retrieving her from her lost thoughts throughout the play. For his son, Edmund, he is the somewhat prototypical father. He spends time with him while he is sick, trying to comfort him over his mother's debilitating disease while keeping Edmund afloat towards his own disease. They can be seen carousing at bars, cavorting over card games, and laughing about the house. His being, in essence, the glue that holds his family together is what makes him a perfect candidate for the super-ego.
As Paul Roazen so eloquently expresses to his reader:
The sense of inferiority has strong erotic roots. A child feels inferior if he notices that he is not loved, and so does an adult...But the major part of the sense of inferiority derives from the ego's relation to its superego; like the sense of guilt it is an expression of the tension between them. Altogether, it is hard to separate the sense of inferiority and the sense of guilt. It would perhaps be right to regard the former as the erotic complement to the moral sense of inferiority (Roazen, 209).
One might notice that Roazen's exegesis on the relation between the ego and super-ego seems to typify the relationship between James and Edmund in the novel. Roazen claims that the "sense of guilt" is an expression of tension between the ego and super-ego. If one were to look at James' colloquies with Edmund , he would see that James is somewhat surreptitiously trying to convey a sense of guilt upon Edmund for his mother's woes even though the audience may notice James' trying to console and counsel his son. This sense of guilt is unconsciously stoking Edmund and thus keeping him afloat. In essence, James, the super-ego incognito, is laying a foundation of guilt upon the de facto ego, Edmund. This is entirely the job of the super-ego—"the part of [oneself] that tells [the person] what is right and what is wrong and judges [his] behaviour [sic] accordingly" (Snowden, 106).
The second part of Freud's psychology is the id, which is derived from the Latin word meaning, "it". "The id is the primitive, unconscious part of the mind that [a person is] born with" (Snowden, 104). The id can be categorized as being "disorganized and illogical in nature, and much of its content is negative and selfish. It can make no value judgements [sic]—it is completely amoral" (Snowden, 104).
With the above being said, the reader can infer that Mary Tyrone is Edmund's id—it is she who is the voice in Edmund's head—the aggressor—the voice in his head that starts undeniably to wear him down over time.
As Rudolph Steiner states, "The unconscious ignores all the scruples the conscious mind cannot disregard. The unconscious takes the attitude that 'the end justifies the means,' whether they harmonize with our ideas of propriety and morality or not" (Steiner, 60). In other words, the id is the dark side of a person's consciousness. It is the side that is hedonistic in nature—it is the pleasure-seeker—the part of the mind that is only concerned with itself.
Mary Tyrone is the dark side throughout this play. She single-handedly is wearing her family down right in front of the audience. Her cynicism and panic-stricken thought process causes her family much undue stress. Her actions are wearing away the glue [James, the super-ego] that is holding them together.
Snowden further buttresses Freud's argument by stating:
Because the id has no concept of time it contains impulses and impressions that may have arisen from events that occurred decades before but which still affect the person as if they were happening in the present. These can only be recognized as belonging to the past when they are made conscious by the work of analysis. Only then can they lose their importance and stop affecting the person's thinking and behaviour [sic] (Snowden, 104).
If one were to look at Mary Tyrone, he would see that, throughout the play, she is living in the past. In fact, it appears she has no concept of the past at all, which only further buttresses the argument that she is the id. She continually talks about the theater and how she has always loved her husband, but if she had known then what she knows now, she would have never married him. This is common behavior of Freud's id.
The final part of Freud's psychology of psychoanalysis is the ego, which is derived from the Latin word for "I". The ego is the part of the mind that reacts to external reality and which a person thinks of as the 'self' (Snowden, 105). Freud explains that the ego can be categorized as such:
· The ego tells us what is real. It is a synthesizer—it helps us combine ideas and make sense of things.
· It is practical and rational, involved in decision making.
· Anxiety arises from the ego. This is seen as a mechanism for warning us that there is a weakness somewhere in the ego's defences [sic].
· The ego can observe itself—in fact, in a number of its functions it can split temporarily and then come together again afterwards.
· A whole system of unconscious defence [sic] mechanisms protects the ego. These are involuntary or unconscious ways of protecting the ego from undesirable feelings and emotions.
· The ego is seen as being rather weak in comparison with the id, but it is better organized and more logical, so that it usually maintains a tenuous upper hand (Snowden, 105).
After looking at this explanation of the function of the ego and comparing it to Edmund, the reader should start to actualize that Edmund is the one being controlled by his personalities (James and Mary) throughout this entire play. If the reader were to examine closely Freud's argument that the ego (Edmund) is weak in comparison with the id (Mary), he would notice that this might be the reason that Edmund continues to be vexed throughout the whole play by his mother and her illness, even more so than his own.
In the end, though, Edmund is better organized and more logical in his thought process so he continues to maintain an upper hand, however slim it might be, over his id. This is crucial to Edmund's survival from his own disease because, were he to wear down from vexation, his immune system would as well, thus he would die even faster from his ailment.
When everything is all said and done, it is important to realize that each character has his own psychological propensities, thus giving him his own unique flavor in a piece of work. With that said, it must be known that Freud cannot always be used to explain a character's tendencies—it really is all in the mind.
Works Cited
Psychology 101. AllPsych Online. AllPsych and Heffner Media Group, Inc, 1999-2003.
Roazen, Paul. Freud and His Followers. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc, 1975.
Snowden, Ruth. Freud. Chicago: Contemporary Books, 2006.
Steiner, Rudolf. Freud, Jung, & Spiritual Psychology. Anthroposophic Press, Inc, 2001.
Wollheim, Richard. Sigmund Freud. New York: The Viking Press, 1971.
In every work, a psychological profile can be made to explain each character for each character has his own unique style. This is no different in Eugene O'Neill's play, Long Day's Journey into Night. In this play, the reader can see a Freudian psychoanalytical twist to each one of the main characters' personalities.
In Freudian psychology, more specifically his theory on psychoanalysis, the human psyche is broken into three different subsections: The first one is the superego. The super-ego is categorized as this:
· It gives [a person] the sense of right and wrong, pride and guilt (Snowden, 106).
· It often gets [a person] to act in ways that are acceptable to the society, rather than to the individual. For example, it might make a person feel guilty for having extra-marital sex. The super-ego incorporates the teachings of the past and of tradition, imparting a sense of morals (Snowden, 106).
· It monitors behaviour [sic], decides what is acceptable and controls taboo areas, by means of repression. The fact that a person may not be aware of this repression shows that parts of the super-ego can operate unconsciously. In fact, Freud says that large parts of both the ego and the super-ego are normally unconscious (Snowden, 106).
· It allows the ego to measure itself and strive towards ever-greater perfection (Snowden, 107).
· It is rather bossy, always demanding perfection of the ego. In fact, it can be quite severe with the poor ego, humiliating it, ill-treating it and threatening it with dire punishments. Freud observed this sort of thing in his melancholic patients (Snowden, 107).
With the above mentioned topic's being limpidly stated, the reader must now look at the three main characters to decide who most likely fits this role. If one were to parse each character's personality traits, he would most likely adduce that James Tyrone is the most apt to fit Freud's super-ego traits. He fits all of the aforementioned traits that make him suitable for this position.
Some reasons that make James Tyrone most apt to be Freud's superego exemplar is the way he carries himself throughout the whole play. Throughout the play, he seems lost and bewildered as to what is happening with his family. There is his wife, Mary, who is seemingly caught in a continual state of stereotypy, his eldest son, Jamie, has had a rough life going from college to college, and his son, Edmund, is dying of tuberculosis. Through all of the turmoil, though, he appears to be the glue that is holding his family together. One can get the sense that if it were not for him, his family would have fallen apart a long time ago. He appears to keep his wife, Mary in check—retrieving her from her lost thoughts throughout the play. For his son, Edmund, he is the somewhat prototypical father. He spends time with him while he is sick, trying to comfort him over his mother's debilitating disease while keeping Edmund afloat towards his own disease. They can be seen carousing at bars, cavorting over card games, and laughing about the house. His being, in essence, the glue that holds his family together is what makes him a perfect candidate for the super-ego.
As Paul Roazen so eloquently expresses to his reader:
The sense of inferiority has strong erotic roots. A child feels inferior if he notices that he is not loved, and so does an adult...But the major part of the sense of inferiority derives from the ego's relation to its superego; like the sense of guilt it is an expression of the tension between them. Altogether, it is hard to separate the sense of inferiority and the sense of guilt. It would perhaps be right to regard the former as the erotic complement to the moral sense of inferiority (Roazen, 209).
One might notice that Roazen's exegesis on the relation between the ego and super-ego seems to typify the relationship between James and Edmund in the novel. Roazen claims that the "sense of guilt" is an expression of tension between the ego and super-ego. If one were to look at James' colloquies with Edmund , he would see that James is somewhat surreptitiously trying to convey a sense of guilt upon Edmund for his mother's woes even though the audience may notice James' trying to console and counsel his son. This sense of guilt is unconsciously stoking Edmund and thus keeping him afloat. In essence, James, the super-ego incognito, is laying a foundation of guilt upon the de facto ego, Edmund. This is entirely the job of the super-ego—"the part of [oneself] that tells [the person] what is right and what is wrong and judges [his] behaviour [sic] accordingly" (Snowden, 106).
The second part of Freud's psychology is the id, which is derived from the Latin word meaning, "it". "The id is the primitive, unconscious part of the mind that [a person is] born with" (Snowden, 104). The id can be categorized as being "disorganized and illogical in nature, and much of its content is negative and selfish. It can make no value judgements [sic]—it is completely amoral" (Snowden, 104).
With the above being said, the reader can infer that Mary Tyrone is Edmund's id—it is she who is the voice in Edmund's head—the aggressor—the voice in his head that starts undeniably to wear him down over time.
As Rudolph Steiner states, "The unconscious ignores all the scruples the conscious mind cannot disregard. The unconscious takes the attitude that 'the end justifies the means,' whether they harmonize with our ideas of propriety and morality or not" (Steiner, 60). In other words, the id is the dark side of a person's consciousness. It is the side that is hedonistic in nature—it is the pleasure-seeker—the part of the mind that is only concerned with itself.
Mary Tyrone is the dark side throughout this play. She single-handedly is wearing her family down right in front of the audience. Her cynicism and panic-stricken thought process causes her family much undue stress. Her actions are wearing away the glue [James, the super-ego] that is holding them together.
Snowden further buttresses Freud's argument by stating:
Because the id has no concept of time it contains impulses and impressions that may have arisen from events that occurred decades before but which still affect the person as if they were happening in the present. These can only be recognized as belonging to the past when they are made conscious by the work of analysis. Only then can they lose their importance and stop affecting the person's thinking and behaviour [sic] (Snowden, 104).
If one were to look at Mary Tyrone, he would see that, throughout the play, she is living in the past. In fact, it appears she has no concept of the past at all, which only further buttresses the argument that she is the id. She continually talks about the theater and how she has always loved her husband, but if she had known then what she knows now, she would have never married him. This is common behavior of Freud's id.
The final part of Freud's psychology of psychoanalysis is the ego, which is derived from the Latin word for "I". The ego is the part of the mind that reacts to external reality and which a person thinks of as the 'self' (Snowden, 105). Freud explains that the ego can be categorized as such:
· The ego tells us what is real. It is a synthesizer—it helps us combine ideas and make sense of things.
· It is practical and rational, involved in decision making.
· Anxiety arises from the ego. This is seen as a mechanism for warning us that there is a weakness somewhere in the ego's defences [sic].
· The ego can observe itself—in fact, in a number of its functions it can split temporarily and then come together again afterwards.
· A whole system of unconscious defence [sic] mechanisms protects the ego. These are involuntary or unconscious ways of protecting the ego from undesirable feelings and emotions.
· The ego is seen as being rather weak in comparison with the id, but it is better organized and more logical, so that it usually maintains a tenuous upper hand (Snowden, 105).
After looking at this explanation of the function of the ego and comparing it to Edmund, the reader should start to actualize that Edmund is the one being controlled by his personalities (James and Mary) throughout this entire play. If the reader were to examine closely Freud's argument that the ego (Edmund) is weak in comparison with the id (Mary), he would notice that this might be the reason that Edmund continues to be vexed throughout the whole play by his mother and her illness, even more so than his own.
In the end, though, Edmund is better organized and more logical in his thought process so he continues to maintain an upper hand, however slim it might be, over his id. This is crucial to Edmund's survival from his own disease because, were he to wear down from vexation, his immune system would as well, thus he would die even faster from his ailment.
When everything is all said and done, it is important to realize that each character has his own psychological propensities, thus giving him his own unique flavor in a piece of work. With that said, it must be known that Freud cannot always be used to explain a character's tendencies—it really is all in the mind.
Works Cited
Psychology 101. AllPsych Online. AllPsych and Heffner Media Group, Inc, 1999-2003.
Roazen, Paul. Freud and His Followers. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc, 1975.
Snowden, Ruth. Freud. Chicago: Contemporary Books, 2006.
Steiner, Rudolf. Freud, Jung, & Spiritual Psychology. Anthroposophic Press, Inc, 2001.
Wollheim, Richard. Sigmund Freud. New York: The Viking Press, 1971.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Georgia Dusk
GEORGIA DUSK
It is not a mystery that poems elicit different feelings and images from people of all categories and walks of life. It is possible that one poem could evoke a feeling of antipathy from one reader who remembers times he, too, had something similar occur whereas another reader may have a feeling of hopelessness from the same poem. It is this credo that works are intrinsically subjective that can make understanding and critiquing poems the most enjoyable because it is incumbent upon him who reads them.
In "Georgia Dusk," by Jean Toomer, a person may picture himself walking through a woody dale in Georgia. For instance, when I read this poem, I feel as though I were just going for a walk across the Georgia countryside and all I can see is the beautiful summer scenery in front of me as daylight turns crepuscular.
This is especially elicited in the lines, "The sky, lazily disdaining to pursue/The setting sun, too indolent to hold/A lengthened tournament for flashing gold/Passively darkens for night's barbecue" (1-4). In line one, the reader notices how the author has portrayed the sky as "disdaining to pursue"—in essence, that the sky is rejecting to continue its course of existence and is allowing darkness to envelop its environment. In line two, the "setting sun" is being referred to as being "indolent" in its effort to hold itself afloat. "Indolent" is an adjectival synonym for "lazy"; therefore it is safe to assume that the author is describing to his reader that the sun could very well hold itself up, but as the day lengthens, it has become tired and so has its will to stay afloat.
In lines three and four, the reader begins to see just what happens when the sky and sun become "lazy" per se. The "flashing gold" is referring to the streaks of colors in the crepuscular sky caused by the sky and sun's indolence. The word "passively," in this context, helps further portray the indolence seen in the first stanza. The reader gets this feeling of finality from these last two lines as if this stanza were describing the end of an epoch.
In the second stanza, the reader appears to get the sense that dusk has ended and it is already night. This is mostly portrayed when the narrator says, "A feast of moon and men and barking hounds " (5). Here, the phrase "feast of moon" appears to be describing a "harvest moon"—a common occurrence in the late summer months when the crops have fully grown. The depiction of "men and barking hounds" seems to portray those people who are working on plowing the crop and the hounds are the animals that are possibly used to hunt down runaway slaves if some should decide to make a break instead of picking the crop.
The picture above becomes even more limpid when the narrator describes it as, "An orgy for some genius of the South" (6). Here, the word "orgy" may be being used to describe the roistering nature of this harvest moon feast wherein all of these people are picking the crop late at night. Furthermore, at the end of the line is the word, "South" in its capitalized form, which seems to be representational of the Confederate States. Georgia was a Confederate state during the American Civil War and this pride may still be extant in the mind of this narrator.
It has already been discussed that different readers infer different parts of a literary work differently. This is especially true when the narrator says, "With blood-hot eyes and cane-lipped scented mouth/Surprised in making folk-songs from soul sounds" (7-8). It is in these two lines that one might get the impression that they are describing the slaves while they are in the process of picking a cane crop. The description, "blood-hot eyes" may be referring to how tired these slaves are from working all day in the fields and now having to continue their work throughout the night.
In the third stanza, the reader gets what appears to be a surprise twist: "The sawmill blows its whistle, buzz-saws stop/And silence breaks the bud of knoll and hill/Soft settling pollen where plowed lands fulfill/Their early promise of a bumper crop" (9-12). The description in line nine of a sawmill's blowing its whistle may make the reader picture in his head that the work day is coming to an end. This is clarified even more so when it mentions that "buzz-saws stop" upon hearing the sound of that whistle. Furthermore, the word, "silence" in line ten buttresses this argument that the work day has ended because silence appears to break the bud of the knolls and hills around.
At this point in the poem, the reader might feel as though he were being taken back in time to the days of yore. He may also think that the depiction of dusk is an ending of something more significant than another day—but the ending of an era wherein the South was contemned for its abusive treatment of blacks.
In the fourth stanza, the reader further gets this feeling of rustic life when the narrator says, "Smoke from the pyramidal sawdust pile/Curls up, blue ghosts of trees, tarrying low/Where only chips and stumps are left to show/The solid proof of former domicile" (13-16). The depiction of "blue ghosts of trees" in line fourteen lets the reader picture that the landscape appears to be getting darker. As it gets darker, the trees become silhouetted thus forming a blue ghost depiction to the narrator. Furthermore, this stanza discusses how some of these trees are gone and only the stumps are left, signifying even more so the end of the day because the sawmill is no longer in use so these stumps are just resting there undisturbed.
As the poem continues, the reader starts to notice that it take on a force of its own, especially when the narrator exclaims, "Meanwhile, the men, with vestiges of pomp/Race memories of king and caravan/High priests, an ostrich, and a juju-man/Go singing through the footpaths of the swamp" (17-20). In this stanza, the author seems to be portraying something grandiloquent. The phrase, "vestiges of pomp" may be used to describe the termination of the dusk as it becomes night. The "men" could be the overseers of the slaves as they pick the cane crop.
Furthermore, the description of "high priests, an ostrich, and a juju-man" seems to be signifying something ominous. A high priest is known for being a middleman for God and a juju-man deals with magic charms and amulets so these are possibly limning to the reader preternatural concepts. The ostrich might signify someone who has his head in the ground—as if to say that Georgia is stubborn and conservative in its views on its pre-Civil War principles. These figures may also be signifying that the Georgia dusk is somehow magical and ethereal in nature.
The author continues to describe the beauty of the Georgia dusk when he says, "...the pine trees are guitars/Strumming, pine-needles fall like sheets of rain/Their voices rise...the chorus of the cane/Is caroling a vesper to the stars" (21-24). The word, "vesper" is used in line twenty-four to describe the caroling of what appears to be these high priests and juju-man. A vesper is the evening star or the old canonical hour evening call to prayer. In this sense, the evening star is the planet Venus—the brightest object in the sky next to the moon and probably was instrumental, at least in this time, in helping these people plow their harvest.
The final stanza seems to précis the entire literary work when the narrator exclaims emphatically, "O singers, resinous and soft your songs/Above the sacred whisper of the pines/Give virgin lips to cornfield concubines/Bring dreams of Christ to dusky cane-lipped throngs" (25-28). Here, the reader can imagine perhaps the horde of slaves are now chanting while they work. The "virgin lips" seem to be directly antonymous with the term, "concubine" being used in line twenty-seven. A concubine is a type of mistress or secondary wife, which elicits the notion of something soiled or adulterated. This is completely antipodal to what the word, "virgin" connotes. The concubines, though, appear to be the slaves as they work through the night indefatigably.
In the end, this poem can be interpreted in many different ways. There are many aphorisms that can be used to describe this piece of work. One popularly used hackneyed phrase, "to each his own" comes to mind because each person may glean from this poem whatever he may, and no interpretation is wrong. Whether a person be inclined to argue that a piece of work is austere in nature or sarcastic in nature is really up for him to decide because there is no true right or wrong answer when trying to understand the meaning of any author's works. It really all depends on the reader's own response.
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
O Captain! My Captain!
O CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN!
"O Captain! My Captain!" is a poem that was written by Walt Whitman on the occasion of President Lincoln's assassination. It was first published in the New York Saturday Press in November 1865 and was an instant classic (Answers.com). For many years after its publication, children were taught this poem in school and many curricula in different schools made learning to recite it mandatory (Answers.com). In the poem, Whitman alludes that the fallen Captain is Abraham Lincoln and that his ship is actually his country—the United States of America.
In the poem, Whitman's narrator describes the feelings of people, particularly the people of the Union, in postwar America when he states, "O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done/ The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won" (1-2). Here, the "Captain" is Abraham Lincoln and the "fearful trip" is the Civil War. The "ship" is the country as a whole and when the narrator describes that it has "weather'd every rack," he is limning to his reader that the country has faced all of the adversity it could have possibly faced and has survived (2). The "prize" that has been won, in line two, is the war and the fact that the country will now be one again.
These first two lines in the poem are very important for the reader to understand because they are, in essence, the foundation of the poem. Without a clear understanding of who the Captain is and what allusions Whitman's narrator is referring to when he discusses the ship and the prize, the reader would be clueless throughout the poem. In order for the poem to make sense, this historical aspect must be fleshed out for its reader.
Whitman's narrator then segues from exultation over the winning of the Civil War to a more austere, somber situation:
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead (5-8).
Here, the narrator realizes that his Captain, President Lincoln has been shot and is now dead. The concept of being shot, as is how Lincoln was killed, is described when the narrator says, "O the bleeding drops of red" (6). "Bleeding" and "red" represent the loss of blood and the word, "drops" represents a small hole that is allowing the blood to exude from Lincoln's head.
Later on, throughout the poem, Whitman makes the reader have a sense that the narrator is having trouble coming to grips with Lincoln's death. For instance, he says, "Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills/ For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding," which seems to portray the narrator as incredulous towards the very notion that Lincoln has been assassinated (10-11). In these lines, he actually seems to be asking Lincoln's corpse to get off the ground when he cries for him "to rise up" so that he can apparently see how much he is loved by his people. There may be some binary oppositions in these lines because it is almost as if the narrator were telling Lincoln that he cannot die because he has won the war and heroes do not die. The concepts of winning and dying are seemingly antonymous to the narrator and therefore cannot occur in this instance.
Furthermore, after ordering Lincoln to rise up, Whitman's narrator asseverates, "It is some dream that on the deck/ You've fallen cold and dead" (15-16). In these two lines, the narrator seems to be finally starting to grasp the situation, but he still seems to be a little incredulous. It almost seems as though he were under the impression that he is having a bad dream wherein his Captain, Lincoln has been murdered. This is portrayed when the narrator states that "it is some dream" when referring to his Captain's falling cold and dead (15). The "deck" whereon his Captain lies may be the wooden boards of the balcony at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C. whereupon Lincoln was sitting when he was shot by John Wilkes Booth on the evening of April 14, 1865 (Norton).
The narrator further exclaims, "My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still/ My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will" (17-18). Here, he is finally coming to grips with the dour situation before him. In line seventeen, his Captain is not answering his repeated cries so the narrator is almost panicking in a sense. Finally, the narrator notices that his Captain's lips are pale and still and that he has no pulse; therefore he is dead. This represents the narrator's finally moving out of his denial stage and into a stage of realization and mourning.
After realizing his Captain, Lincoln is dead, he says, "The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and done/ From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won" (19-20). In the first line, the ship is said to be "anchor'd safe and sound" (19). It is here wherein the narrator is telling Lincoln that everything is going to be fine without his having to be alive to oversee it. The "ship" is the country and the "anchor" is the mark that Lincoln has left on the country. The fact that it is "safe and sound" is a testament to Lincoln's accomplishments. In the second line, the narrator is telling Lincoln that the war is won and he is the victor so he can rest in peace for all of eternity knowing this. Here, the "fearful trip" is the war, the "victor ship" is the country, and the "object won" is the Union's being united as one again.
It is important that the reader understand the allusions that Whitman's narrator is making so that he may understand what is occurring in the poem. If the reader were not told that the "trip" is the war and the "ship" is the country, he would have no clue as to what the narrator is talking about; therefore he would be lost throughout the entire poem.
Finally, at the end of the poem, the narrator is moving on from this horrific crucible. He has come to grips with the death of his Captain and, even though he still mourns him, he wants everyone to cherish and bask in his Captain's accomplishments:
Exult O shores, and ring O bells!
But I with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead (21-24).
When the narrator exclaims, "Exult O shores, and ring O bells," he is telling the hoi polloi to eulogize Lincoln's life (21). The ringing of the "bells" could signify the knelling of the church bells for Lincoln's funeral, which paints a very caliginous picture for the reader. This seems to create somewhat of a binary opposition because the word, "exult" describes jubilation whereas the word, "bells" seems to import a somber meaning and both words are being used together as one, abstract meaning.
In the end, each reader may glean from this poem whatever he may, but the fact remains that Walt Whitman wrote this poem to honor President Abraham Lincoln's life and accomplishments. The fact is, though, that without a clear understanding of certain allusions that Whitman's narrator makes, this poem would be nonsensical or vague to its reader and, without an understanding of history, the context of this poem would be lost to its reader somewhere in a rift in space and time.
Works Cited
"O Captain! My Captain!" Answers.com. 2008. Answers Corporation.
http://www.answers.com/topic/o-captain-my-captain
Norton, R. J. "JOHN WILKES BOOTH'S MOVEMENTS ON THE DAY OF THE ASSASSINATION - APRIL 14, 1865." Abraham Lincoln's Assassination. 1996-2009. Abraham Lincoln Research Site.
http://home.att.net/~rjnorton/Lincoln36.html
Monday, May 4, 2009
On Growing Old
Well, since I have run out of ideas, what I am going to do is publish old college papers online for whosoever wants to take a look at them. Most of these tractates were written from an anthology of poems, but not all of them. All of these papers got no lower than a C grade, and only one got a C—the rest were A's or B's, if anyone care.
Basically, I'm going to publish these papers so that anyone can use them if he so want. I am giving you carte blanche to use them however you may. I believe that they may be of use to many people who are in an intensive writing program that involves writing papers on poems. Well, without further adieu, here it is on the poem, "On Growing Old", written by John Masefield (1878-1967). My paper will be subjacent to Masefield's poem:
ON GROWING OLD
Be with me, Beauty, for the fire is dying;
My dog and I are old, too old for roving.
Man, whose young passion sets the spindrift flying,
Is soon too lame to march, too cold for loving.
I take the book and gather to the fire,
Turning old yellow leaves; minute by minute
The clock ticks to my heart. A withered wire,
Moves a thin ghost of music in the spinet.
I cannot sail your seas, I cannot wander
Your cornland, nor your hill-land, nor your valleys
Ever again, nor share the battle yonder
Where the young knight the broken squadron rallies.
Only stay quiet while my mind remembers
The beauty of fire from the beauty of embers.
Beauty, have pity! for the strong have power,
The rich their wealth, the beautiful their grace,
Summer of man its sunlight and its flower.
Spring-time of man, all April in a face.
Only, as in the jostling in the Strand,
Where the mob thrusts, or loiters, or is loud,
The beggar with the saucer in his hand
Asks only a penny from the passing crowd,
So, from this glittering world with all its fashion,
Its fire, and play of men, its stir, its march,
Let me have wisdom, Beauty, wisdom and passion,
Bread to the soul, rain when the summers parch.
Give me but these, and though the darkness close
Even the night will blossom as the rose.
It can be said that each poem may have its own psychological interpretation when dealing with its narrator whether it be from Maslow's, Freud's, or Erikson's perspective. In John Masefield's poem, "On Growing Old," this precept rings especially true. Masefield, throughout his poem, clearly allows the reader to see his narrator's ascendance throughout the tiers of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.
A perfect example of one of Maslow's needs can be limned by the reader when Masefield's narrator says, "Be with me, Beauty, for the fire is dying/ My dog and I are old, too old for roving" (1-2). These first two lines clearly point to Maslow's fourth tier, which is his need for esteem. Maslow believes that each individual wants to feel good about himself and, in these two lines, the narrator is asking that his "Beauty" stay with him. He clearly is observant to the fact that he is aging and that, with his age, he is losing his Beauty. Like any person, he is trying to beseech his good looks into staying with him even as he ages. This is a very common human psychological attribute that Maslow believes is innate in all individuals.
Masefield's narrator continues throughout his poem to show how he bounces from one tier to the next in his wizened years. For example, when the narrator says, "I take the book and gather to the fire/ Turning old yellow leaves; minute by minute," he is clearly expressing Maslow's fifth tier need for knowledge (5-6). This is limned by the fact that the narrator is riffing through pages of a book. This act clearly represents the narrator's thirst for knowledge in his old age. The fact that these pages are yellow shows that the book is old and that it may possibly be some sort of encyclopedia or reference book. One might picture an erudite man who is flicking through scholarly journals and lucubrating about concepts of great importance by candlelight if he were to envisage this.
These two lines could also portray Maslow's second tier—the need for safety. In the first line, the narrator expresses, "I take the book and gather to the fire," which could limn to its reader that the narrator is most comfortable with a book in his hands near a fire (5). In line six, the turning of the yellow leaves "minute by minute" could represent that the narrator likes to spend a substantial amount of time in this place of comfort.
Masefield's narrator can be portrayed as having an aesthetic quality when he says, "The clock ticks to my heart; a withered wire/ Moves a thin ghost of music in the spinet" (7-8). Here, Maslow's sixth tier can be limned in line seven when a spinet is mentioned. A spinet is a type of piano, which is a musical instrument and the love of music can portray an aesthetic quality in a person. Since it appears that the narrator has a spinet in his home, he can possibly be described as cultural or aesthetic.
Maslow's sixth tier need for aesthetics can also be limned in this poem when the narrator says to his reader:
I cannot sail your seas, I cannot wander
Your cornland nor your hill-land nor your valleys
Ever again, nor share the battle yonder
Where the young knight the broken squadron rallies;
Only stay quiet, while my mind remembers
The beauty of fire from the beauty of embers (9-14).
Here the narrator is expressing metaphorically that he is very old. The fact that he is using metaphors is an aesthetic quality. He says, "I cannot sail your seas, I cannot wander/ Your cornland nor you hill-land nor your valleys," which is his way of saying that his age has taken away his thirst for emprises (9-10). This lack of wanting to embark on emprises can also be limned when the narrator continues to say, "Ever again, nor share the battle yonder/ Where the young knight the broken squadron rallies" (11-12). Finally the narrator says, "Only stay quiet, while my mind remembers/ The beauty of fire from the beauty of embers" (13-14). This metaphor explains how, in the beginning, his life was tantamount to that of a raging fire, but now he is reduced to the beauty that embers imbue. An "ember" is what is seen when a fire dies out, which signifies the end of his life. All of these tropes ascribe an aesthetic quality to the narrator, which is significant to Maslow's sixth tier of needs.
In the final stanza, the reader can picture a transcendence of the narrator when he avers, "Beauty, have pity, for the strong have power/ The rich their wealth, the beautiful their grace" (15-16). It is here wherein the reader can ascribe Maslow's final tier of self-transcendence to the narrator because he has borne witness to other people's potential. The narrator has finally come to realize that this is how life works. There are the strong who have their power, there are the rich who have their wealth, and there are the beautiful people who have their grace.
Also, in the final stanza, the reader can notice the narrator's self-actualization, which is Maslow's seventh tier of needs. This can be portrayed to the reader when the narrator says:
Let me have wisdom, Beauty, wisdom and passion,
Bread to the soul, rain where the summers parch.
Give me but these, and though the darkness close
Even the night will blossom as the rose (25-28).
When the narrator expresses, "Let me have wisdom...wisdom and passion," he has actualized his potential in life (25). The narrator also knows that his life is ending when he states, "Give me but these, and though the darkness close," but it is here wherein he is asking to receive wisdom and passion for the remainder of his life (27). It is also in these last two lines that he explains to the reader that his life can still have meaning when he says, "Even the night will blossom as the rose" (28). Here the "rose" in line twenty-eight signifies the continuation of life whereas "night" signifies the ending of life.
In the end, one can conclude that, in every piece of poetry, some psychological argument can be made. Although whether that argument be the correct one is entirely subjective, a reader can infer whatever he may want because the true meaning of anything is always found somewhere in the psyche of its own reader.
Basically, I'm going to publish these papers so that anyone can use them if he so want. I am giving you carte blanche to use them however you may. I believe that they may be of use to many people who are in an intensive writing program that involves writing papers on poems. Well, without further adieu, here it is on the poem, "On Growing Old", written by John Masefield (1878-1967). My paper will be subjacent to Masefield's poem:
ON GROWING OLD
Be with me, Beauty, for the fire is dying;
My dog and I are old, too old for roving.
Man, whose young passion sets the spindrift flying,
Is soon too lame to march, too cold for loving.
I take the book and gather to the fire,
Turning old yellow leaves; minute by minute
The clock ticks to my heart. A withered wire,
Moves a thin ghost of music in the spinet.
I cannot sail your seas, I cannot wander
Your cornland, nor your hill-land, nor your valleys
Ever again, nor share the battle yonder
Where the young knight the broken squadron rallies.
Only stay quiet while my mind remembers
The beauty of fire from the beauty of embers.
Beauty, have pity! for the strong have power,
The rich their wealth, the beautiful their grace,
Summer of man its sunlight and its flower.
Spring-time of man, all April in a face.
Only, as in the jostling in the Strand,
Where the mob thrusts, or loiters, or is loud,
The beggar with the saucer in his hand
Asks only a penny from the passing crowd,
So, from this glittering world with all its fashion,
Its fire, and play of men, its stir, its march,
Let me have wisdom, Beauty, wisdom and passion,
Bread to the soul, rain when the summers parch.
Give me but these, and though the darkness close
Even the night will blossom as the rose.
ON GROWING OLD
A perfect example of one of Maslow's needs can be limned by the reader when Masefield's narrator says, "Be with me, Beauty, for the fire is dying/ My dog and I are old, too old for roving" (1-2). These first two lines clearly point to Maslow's fourth tier, which is his need for esteem. Maslow believes that each individual wants to feel good about himself and, in these two lines, the narrator is asking that his "Beauty" stay with him. He clearly is observant to the fact that he is aging and that, with his age, he is losing his Beauty. Like any person, he is trying to beseech his good looks into staying with him even as he ages. This is a very common human psychological attribute that Maslow believes is innate in all individuals.
Masefield's narrator continues throughout his poem to show how he bounces from one tier to the next in his wizened years. For example, when the narrator says, "I take the book and gather to the fire/ Turning old yellow leaves; minute by minute," he is clearly expressing Maslow's fifth tier need for knowledge (5-6). This is limned by the fact that the narrator is riffing through pages of a book. This act clearly represents the narrator's thirst for knowledge in his old age. The fact that these pages are yellow shows that the book is old and that it may possibly be some sort of encyclopedia or reference book. One might picture an erudite man who is flicking through scholarly journals and lucubrating about concepts of great importance by candlelight if he were to envisage this.
These two lines could also portray Maslow's second tier—the need for safety. In the first line, the narrator expresses, "I take the book and gather to the fire," which could limn to its reader that the narrator is most comfortable with a book in his hands near a fire (5). In line six, the turning of the yellow leaves "minute by minute" could represent that the narrator likes to spend a substantial amount of time in this place of comfort.
Masefield's narrator can be portrayed as having an aesthetic quality when he says, "The clock ticks to my heart; a withered wire/ Moves a thin ghost of music in the spinet" (7-8). Here, Maslow's sixth tier can be limned in line seven when a spinet is mentioned. A spinet is a type of piano, which is a musical instrument and the love of music can portray an aesthetic quality in a person. Since it appears that the narrator has a spinet in his home, he can possibly be described as cultural or aesthetic.
Maslow's sixth tier need for aesthetics can also be limned in this poem when the narrator says to his reader:
I cannot sail your seas, I cannot wander
Your cornland nor your hill-land nor your valleys
Ever again, nor share the battle yonder
Where the young knight the broken squadron rallies;
Only stay quiet, while my mind remembers
The beauty of fire from the beauty of embers (9-14).
Here the narrator is expressing metaphorically that he is very old. The fact that he is using metaphors is an aesthetic quality. He says, "I cannot sail your seas, I cannot wander/ Your cornland nor you hill-land nor your valleys," which is his way of saying that his age has taken away his thirst for emprises (9-10). This lack of wanting to embark on emprises can also be limned when the narrator continues to say, "Ever again, nor share the battle yonder/ Where the young knight the broken squadron rallies" (11-12). Finally the narrator says, "Only stay quiet, while my mind remembers/ The beauty of fire from the beauty of embers" (13-14). This metaphor explains how, in the beginning, his life was tantamount to that of a raging fire, but now he is reduced to the beauty that embers imbue. An "ember" is what is seen when a fire dies out, which signifies the end of his life. All of these tropes ascribe an aesthetic quality to the narrator, which is significant to Maslow's sixth tier of needs.
In the final stanza, the reader can picture a transcendence of the narrator when he avers, "Beauty, have pity, for the strong have power/ The rich their wealth, the beautiful their grace" (15-16). It is here wherein the reader can ascribe Maslow's final tier of self-transcendence to the narrator because he has borne witness to other people's potential. The narrator has finally come to realize that this is how life works. There are the strong who have their power, there are the rich who have their wealth, and there are the beautiful people who have their grace.
Also, in the final stanza, the reader can notice the narrator's self-actualization, which is Maslow's seventh tier of needs. This can be portrayed to the reader when the narrator says:
Let me have wisdom, Beauty, wisdom and passion,
Bread to the soul, rain where the summers parch.
Give me but these, and though the darkness close
Even the night will blossom as the rose (25-28).
When the narrator expresses, "Let me have wisdom...wisdom and passion," he has actualized his potential in life (25). The narrator also knows that his life is ending when he states, "Give me but these, and though the darkness close," but it is here wherein he is asking to receive wisdom and passion for the remainder of his life (27). It is also in these last two lines that he explains to the reader that his life can still have meaning when he says, "Even the night will blossom as the rose" (28). Here the "rose" in line twenty-eight signifies the continuation of life whereas "night" signifies the ending of life.
In the end, one can conclude that, in every piece of poetry, some psychological argument can be made. Although whether that argument be the correct one is entirely subjective, a reader can infer whatever he may want because the true meaning of anything is always found somewhere in the psyche of its own reader.
Sunday, May 3, 2009
A Tribute to Bea Arthur
Bea Arthur, one of the great American sitcom actresses of the 1970's and 1980's, died of cancer on April 25, 2009. She was 86.
Beatrice Arthur was born on May 13, 1922 in New York City. She is best known for her years as an American actress, starring as the character, Maude Findlay in the 1970s' sitcom Maude and her role as Dorothy Zbornak in the 1980's television series, The Golden Girls.
The Golden Girls first aired on NBC primetime television, September 12, 1985. The series remained a top ten ratings fixture for six seasons. Her performance led to several Emmy nominations over the course of the series and an Emmy win in 1988. Arthur decided to leave the show after seven years and in 1992, the show was moved from NBC to CBS and retooled as The Golden Palace in which the other three actresses reprised their roles. Arthur made a guest appearance in a two-part episode.
Arthur died at her home in the Greater Los Angeles area in the early morning hours of Saturday, April 25, 2009 at the age of 86. She had been ill from cancer for several years prior to her death.
God bless you, Bea Arthur. You shall be missed. I truly loved your acting. You have brought laughs to me for years. Your witticism, your guilelessness, your humor—it was amazing to watch you in action. You were truly a splendid actress. May you find peace and happiness in the next life, wherever that may be.
Friday, May 1, 2009
To Catch a Tartar
Let's flashback, shall we? It was spring semester 2003—I was a high school junior at the time. Back in those days, life was much simpler. I didn't have to drive thirty minutes to school and then go to work afterwards. I just got up, went to school, and couldn't wait for 2:05PM when school let out.
There was a day in this semester—a day I remember it well—well, a few days that I remember well. Though, one day in particular, I was in Mrs. Pate's British English class—God, how I had loathed that infernal class. "Hey, let's draw Beowulf, class," said Mrs. Pate. I remember thinking, "Screw Beowulf! Screw Macbeth! Screw Shakespeare and his falderal! What I wouldn't give to be playing baseball right now. How the hell do I draw Beowulf and give him a description in words? Well, I know that I wouldn't be teaching this tripe if I we...we...were the teacher? Hmmm, why is it 'If I were' in that instance? I know it's right, but I wonder why?"
I remember raising my hand and directing her towards me so that she could take a look at that sentence, which I had written out for her on the paper meant for Beowulf's description. "What is that," I asked. "Why, that's the past subjunctive?" I remember thinking, "Bah, you are no help. Explain it to me in layman's terms so that I no...not be confused? 'Not be'? Now, I'm really lost." I then spoke my thought to her so that she could hear this "not be". Mrs. Pate then gave her usual sardonic, pie-faced reply, "That's the present subjunctive."
Here I'm thinking, "Hey, Mrs. Pate, this crap is more interesting than your freaking caricatures of Beowulf. Why don't you teach this crap?" And so began my trek into understanding it myself. I had never known the reason that it is said like this, but I quickly picked it up after looking it up in a book. "Wow, this is easy because I say it like this for the most part. I've always wondered why the subject-verb agreement had seemed nonexistent in these clauses. I should have asked in 7th grade when I had first noticed it in the verse, 'God shed his grace on thee', which is found in the song, 'America the Beautiful'!"
Well, after quickly picking this up, I went into tutoring it at the local library. I remember that it was even more foreign to them than it had been to me on the day that I first learned its terminology.
This all happened just days after my French teacher had given her dithyramb (or more like her philippic) about how she couldn't teach us French since we didn't know English. All of this because I had been the only student, all day, in any of her classes to get the difference between "who" and "whom" correct. "Oh dearest Lord, Ms. Gurnack. God forbid we not know the difference."
I remember that my friend, Jeremy Kuznicki was definitely quick to give his reproof of my answering Mme. Gurnack's question correctly: "Who the hell says 'whom'?" The leer I got was unnerving to say the least—I remember replying, "It's a word," and Kuznicki quickly turned back towards Mme. Gurnack.
While this may not be anything on grammar today, it is a story that I had wanted to share with you so now I have. I can't believe it's been six years since that day. Heaven forbid time go faster. Yeah, one can only hope that it might slow down enough so that I can catch my breath. Six years...wow! I still cannot believe it. Where has time gone? Well, I shall write again soon, but this was just a short adumbration into my life as a 17-year-old high school student. I suppose one could say that it's some food for thought. Take care, everyone.
There was a day in this semester—a day I remember it well—well, a few days that I remember well. Though, one day in particular, I was in Mrs. Pate's British English class—God, how I had loathed that infernal class. "Hey, let's draw Beowulf, class," said Mrs. Pate. I remember thinking, "Screw Beowulf! Screw Macbeth! Screw Shakespeare and his falderal! What I wouldn't give to be playing baseball right now. How the hell do I draw Beowulf and give him a description in words? Well, I know that I wouldn't be teaching this tripe if I we...we...were the teacher? Hmmm, why is it 'If I were' in that instance? I know it's right, but I wonder why?"
I remember raising my hand and directing her towards me so that she could take a look at that sentence, which I had written out for her on the paper meant for Beowulf's description. "What is that," I asked. "Why, that's the past subjunctive?" I remember thinking, "Bah, you are no help. Explain it to me in layman's terms so that I no...not be confused? 'Not be'? Now, I'm really lost." I then spoke my thought to her so that she could hear this "not be". Mrs. Pate then gave her usual sardonic, pie-faced reply, "That's the present subjunctive."
Here I'm thinking, "Hey, Mrs. Pate, this crap is more interesting than your freaking caricatures of Beowulf. Why don't you teach this crap?" And so began my trek into understanding it myself. I had never known the reason that it is said like this, but I quickly picked it up after looking it up in a book. "Wow, this is easy because I say it like this for the most part. I've always wondered why the subject-verb agreement had seemed nonexistent in these clauses. I should have asked in 7th grade when I had first noticed it in the verse, 'God shed his grace on thee', which is found in the song, 'America the Beautiful'!"
Well, after quickly picking this up, I went into tutoring it at the local library. I remember that it was even more foreign to them than it had been to me on the day that I first learned its terminology.
This all happened just days after my French teacher had given her dithyramb (or more like her philippic) about how she couldn't teach us French since we didn't know English. All of this because I had been the only student, all day, in any of her classes to get the difference between "who" and "whom" correct. "Oh dearest Lord, Ms. Gurnack. God forbid we not know the difference."
I remember that my friend, Jeremy Kuznicki was definitely quick to give his reproof of my answering Mme. Gurnack's question correctly: "Who the hell says 'whom'?" The leer I got was unnerving to say the least—I remember replying, "It's a word," and Kuznicki quickly turned back towards Mme. Gurnack.
While this may not be anything on grammar today, it is a story that I had wanted to share with you so now I have. I can't believe it's been six years since that day. Heaven forbid time go faster. Yeah, one can only hope that it might slow down enough so that I can catch my breath. Six years...wow! I still cannot believe it. Where has time gone? Well, I shall write again soon, but this was just a short adumbration into my life as a 17-year-old high school student. I suppose one could say that it's some food for thought. Take care, everyone.
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