Williams writes that a reader must “complete” what the poet has begun. To me, that means as if a poem is an open-ended question asked of the reader, that a reader must answer with their interpretation of the poem. I choose to interpret “The Lake Isle of Innisfree” by W. B. Yeats due to its beautiful imagery and the sense of longing it paints. For the narrator is longing for the beautiful sounds and peace of Innisfree, and fantasize about the life that they could have there. They have it all planned out: from the material of which the cabin would be made of (“clay and wattles,” how many bean-rows they would plant (nine), and the hive for which they would care for. It is a poem of longing for the slow, self-sufficient lifestyle where one could look and listen at time passing, instead of rushing through life and missing the sights and sounds. Rather than just a passing fancy, the sound of the “lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore” is something they hear in the “deep heart’s core,” a stark contrast from the static, lifeless grey of the pavement.
Attina Zhao
This weeks readings bring me back to 12th grade AP Literature, in which we dissected sonnets. The familiar terms of rhyme, rhythm, and meter really are a throwback. It was definitely a good refresher to keep in mind during the readings. Something new learned was the difference between Elizabethan and Italian sonnets, and learning all the technicalities was interesting. Poetry has always been fascinating in that it can be both structured or free-flowing, but it retains the same sense of freedom. It was also interesting learning the difference between poetry and prose; I had always associated the two with each other almost synonymously. I never really enjoyed reading poetry with which one had to puzzle out the meaning through several readings; call it impatience, but I prefer things more straightforward and clear-cut. However, there are certain things that are created for a more thorough reading, meant to be combed through several times, and there is a beauty in that too.
My essay is about Langston Hughes’ “Salvation” and how the adult narrative voice serves to highlight the youth of the narrator and the significance of his lie. Though I had not considered it before, looking at secondary sources will help to bring a new aspect into my essay: how the author’s actual life and own identities may have influenced their writings. For example, from “Salvation” one can infer that Hughes was not a religious man, due to the ending in which he professes a lack of belief in Jesus, for He had not come at a time of need. However, looking through the Gale in Context site, I was able to find a biography, and an essay on a conference about Langston Hughes and his works. Through connecting the biography of his life and the time-frame that “Salvation” was written, one can deduce more through what the author had experienced in their life to influence their works. Similarly, the conference essay has information about what historians were able to piece together from Hughes’ life, or rather, the pieces that they were able to glean, as evasive as he proved to be.
Love, Poem 17: The Wife by Emily Dickinson shares the same theme of the wife who “dropped/ the playthings of her life/ to take the honorable work/ of woman and of wife” as “The Story of an Hour.” When Mrs. Mallard’s husband is thought to have passed in an accident, her immediate reaction is grief, but when given some time she comes to her senses. The “gold/ [that has] in using wore wore away” in “The Wife” parallels how, rather than going dull with grief, Mrs. Mallard’s eyes became keen and bright, picturing the years ahead of her with joyous disbelief. “As the sea/ develops pearl and weed” refers to how Mrs. Mallard had buried her emotions, her sense of awe and joy for the world, under layers much as an oyster buries a grain of sand in layers until nothing but a beautiful pearl is visible to the eye. She is exalted at the death of her husband, for as a widow she would have freedom from the “powerful will bending hers” (Chopin, 12).
As O’Connor says, readers “should know what is going to happen in this story so that the element of suspense in it will be transferred from its surface to its interior.” Her intent is to use the story as an instrument of Christian faith, to show the faith of the grandmother and the good-evil dichotomy. However, my thoughts go more along the lines of Stephan Gresham in that I see the piece only in an agnostic light. The malicious stranger is simply that, evil in the world. The grandmother’s epiphany and preaching only showed how useless her faith was, in the end. O’Conner herself makes the point that “it is the extreme situation that best reveals what we are essentially.” One has to question though, what good it is if the grandmother was only able to reach her epiphany at the end of her life, up until which she had spent her time ignorant, and manipulating those around her for her own selfish desires. O’Conner ends with foreshadowing that the grandmother was able to touch the heart of the Misfit, but the cynic in me believes that it was just a drop off the back of the malicious stranger.
Whereas history is particular, literature is universal. We see universal themes in Oedipus, most infamous of all the Oedipal complex. While Freud developed this millennia later, its base themes of an incestuous relationship are heavily inspired by Oedipus, but are far from singular in literature. For example, one can also reference the Electra complex in literature as well. There is also the social concept of men being “mama’s boys,” or more recently the concept of being a “boy mom.” Part of this is pushed by the age-old patriarchal expectation that a man can only be vulnerable around his mother, caregiver that she is. Another prevalent trope is “ignorance is bliss.” While remaining unknowing of the sins he had committed, Oedipus is revered as the savior and ruler. He is able to make such proclamations of driving the scourge from the land due to his pride in his identity as king. There is also the inevitability of fate, in that one can run and hide as much as one may like, but they cannot escape the machinations of fate and the gods.
The passage sung by the Chorus that I have selected to discuss is from lines 542 to 552: “who is the man proclaimed by Delphi’s prophetic rock as the bloody handed murderer, the doer of deeds that none dare name? Now is the time for him to run with a stronger foot than Pegasus for the child of Zeus leaps in arms upon him with fire and the lightning bolt, and terribly close on his heels are the Fates that never miss.” There is beauty in the image drawn by the figurative language used. Rather than saying “the murderer foretold by the Delphi’s rock,” Strophe uses words to evoke a feeling of malice. The simile about Pegasus impresses upon one the swiftness with which the murderer should take flight, and the image of the child of Zeus with fire and lightning bolt in hand really invokes a feeling of the justice and punishment to be meted. The usage of “the Fates that never miss” invokes an image of the Fates taking aim at the murderer with bow and arrow, as if he is being hunted. All of this together creates a vivid image in one’s head of an evildoer desperately trying to flee as he is being hunted down.
“Araby” is not a love story, it is a story about a boy’s fantasy about being in love. The young narrator is infatuated with the idea of Mangan’s sister, but not enough to actually flesh her out as an actual person, but as a two-dimensional being to be admired. Thus, throughout the entire text, he does not refer to her by name once, instead only referring to her as her identity as Mangan’s sister. “Araby” is a coming-of-age story, through which the young narrator passes through a dark, lonely path and goes on a journey, to return changed and wiser. He becomes disillusioned, or rather, following the theme of light and dark, enlightened, as to the realities of his delusions of love and the grandeur of the bazaar. Arriving at the end, when stalls are closing and the lights go out, his childish dreams come to an end as well.
“The Lesson” consists of a story of when a group of youngsters is brought to an expensive toy store by Miss Moore in an attempt to start them thinking about the inequalities of the world. Sylvia, the young narrator, responds to Miss Moore’s lesson with derision. She is a stubborn one, who is angered by both the audacity of this woman, to bring them to a store so clearly out of their league, and by her own response to it. One can clearly see that the lesson that Miss Moore was trying to instill was right at her fingertips, with how she said that the price of that sailboat “pisses [her] off,” and how she didn’t dare to touch it. By the end of the trip, she is upset at how she’s beginning to realize the lesson that Miss Moore was trying to teach, with how resistant she was in the beginning and how much she dislikes Miss Moore. Sugar initially was a cohesive unit with Sylvia. The majority of her mentions in the story up until the very end are always with Sylvia saying “me and Sugar,” as if they were two peas in a pod. When Sylvia hesitates to open the door to the store, she steps aside for Sugar to do it, but Sugar hesitates as well. When looking at the sailboat, Sylvia is angered by the opulence, and the fact that Sugar is able to touch it when she can’t. However, at the end it takes a competitive note after Sugar betrays Sylvia in a sense by “pushing [her] off her feet like she never done before” and replying to Miss Moore’s question by telling her what she wanted to hear. Sugar seems to reject Miss Moore’s teachings to pander to upset Sylvia, though.
The young narrator of “Salvation” has gone through an epiphany and matured by the end of the story. He started off expectant, having been told by his aunt and elders about how Jesus coming into one’s life felt, and he was anticipating the rapturous picture that these trusted, wise adults had painted for him. However, by the end he is jaded with how his expectations were dashed, and ashamed of his lies. He is guilty for lying, exacerbated by the joy that came upon the room when “the last lamb was bought into the fold.” There is some dramatic irony involved, in which the room’s exuberance directly contrasts the fact that the narrator lied about seeing Jesus. The boy felt pressured by the congregation, and lied to please them, lest he keep “holding everything up so long.” It is a lesson on what can happen when trying to induce children into organized religion at such young ages.
“The Most Handsome Drowned Man” is a story based off of perceptions. The villagers perceive this larger than life, elegant looking man and immediately make all manner of assumptions about his poise and demeanor, even though they had absolutely nothing to go off of besides the actual dead body in front of them. They had nothing going for them before this man washed up on their shores, and so the sense of wonder that they felt was amplified. I feel that this sets up the atmosphere for the course ahead of us: we are to take the unmoving, lifeless words in front of us on our screens and build worlds and context around them. With each new reading we are to be the village Before and After Esteban, coming out with a new understanding and view of the world. This piece serves as an appetizer for the works to come, which will likely be even more intriguing.
