Old Age Sticks

Old Age Sticks

E.E. Cummings

old age sticks 

up Keep

off

signs)&

youth yanks them down(old

age

cries No

Tres)&(pas)

youth laughs

(sing

old age

scolds Forbid

den

Stop

Must

n't Don't

&)youth goes

right on

gr

owing old.

"Old Age Sticks" is about the cycle of growing up, and the relationship between the young and the old. The old character in the poem respects property, and feels entitled to it. He’s been around long enough to want an object to represent his work on earth. The youth haven’t begun to understand what it truly means to “own” something, as they haven’t worked a day in their life. This is represented in the argument between the old men and the youth. The old man is alone, while the youth are numerous. This is supposed to represent how rare maturity is. There’s more time for ignorance to be “killed off” by corruptive experience. Time brings knowledge, but learning is often a lonely road. To me, the first line of the poem is peculiar, because it gives an image of old sticks, as in branches. Branches are detached pieces of wood that once were connected to a tree. They are detached from their “mother” and are alone. It could also mean that this loneliness the old man endures exists far beyond the feeling of being connected to a family tree. The youth still have the ability to laugh and sing while the old man appears to be upset, as he yells and scolds. Corruption that age and experience bring will eventually lose childlike characteristics such as outward displays of innocent joy. The old man tries to warn the young that they must respect the idea of property. Instead, they ignore him and go right on “growing old”. E.E. Cummings uses word play through the format of his poems. He means that the young go on growing and owing old. It’s cyclical. The first and last words of the poem are “old”. I believe this is meant to emphasize the cycle of youth turning old, and scolding their “past” selves. It also shows how inevitable growing up is. No matter how much the old man yells and explains, the youth are bound to repeat the mistakes of the old man’s past. It’s strange that Cummings splits up the word “trespassing”. I did look up the two words, and they are French. Tres translates to “very” or “a lot” in French. Pas means “step”. It’s a dance, but another rare use is “the right to precede”. Using these translations, we could say that the old man cries “No a lot step”. He doesn’t want the youth to take a large step into maturity. He wants them to relish their youth, instead children are often eager to grow up. It isn’t until they are mature that they realize there were perks to being young that they didn’t notice before. Now that I think about it, the trespassing sign may not mean that the old man is holding possession over the land. He’s occupies it, but doesn’t want the youth to tread into his territory. He doesn’t want the youth to become like him. It’s a more depressing look at old age. The old man doesn’t seem to be enjoying himself. His experience and knowledge wasn’t worth his happiness. I can’t seem to shake the cliched saying “ignorance is bliss”. I suppose many sayings are cliched because they’re true.

M'ama

“I did it for love, didn’t I?”(50). Nora considers these words to herself. It’s a rationalization, but one hidden behind a veil of genuine love. On the surface, Nora seems to be manipulative. While she honestly finds pleasure in telling the lie to Torvald, the reason she’s in her situation is because of “love”. She hides the information from Torvald to protect him. Well. . . this is all fine and dandy, except Nora ends up leaving Torvald. Her reasons behind her actions are revealed through conversation with Rank. Rank, who’s another victim of Nora’s manipulations asks why she leads him on. She replies, “Well, you see, there are some people whom one loves, and others whom it’s almost more fun to be with”(69). It’s sad to think that it isn’t fun to be with someone you love, but it’s important to first analyze Nora’s definition of love. She borrows money because of love. She stays with Torvald and amuses him for love. Love is merely an obligation, a duty. Nora mistakes love for her duties required by her marriage. Love is simple. It isn’t a game to be played between two individuals. Nora believes that love and pleasure seeking are mutually exclusive, but they can go hand-in-hand.This is similar to Archer in The Age of Innocence. He pursues Ellen, when his marriage to May should fulfill his needs for enjoyment with another partner. Archer however is robbed of any confrontation with May. He “loses” and is forced to fantasize about his life with Ellen. Instead, Nora reaches an end when she decides that  “I don’t love you anymore”(101). On the surface, this is one of the most hurtful things one can say to another. It reminds the person that the love they once had, the love that brought them happiness is now absent, and cannot return. This is all controlled by the one word “anymore”. Love needs to be reciprocated. No matter how Torvald still feels towards Nora, their abyss remains unbridged. . . This is aggravating because I’m having trouble assembling gnostic arguments for or against Nora. I’m not going to pretend that I  comprehend what “love” is. Nora - She’s incredibly unlikeable. She knows that everything that she is doing is wrong, and yet she’s able to leave her life with a clear conscious. She thinks that leaving her family behind so that she can work on herself is positive. The problem is that marriage confuses these two characters’ definition of love. To Archer, the worshipped virgin gives him the disillusion that “love” is the chance to teach an innocent girl the wonders of the world. It’s the ability to make a mark on someone else. It’s power. Property. It’s the ability to look at a person and think to oneself “I’ve imposed so much of my own philosophies, characteristics, and physical mark on this human that they are now an extension of me. They belong to me because I’ve created the persona sitting right in front of me”. Torvald is guilty of the same treatment. He often speaks of how he wants his marriage to Nora be like their very first night. He also idolizes virginity. To Nora, love makes people keep secrets and having a hand in the financial stability of the household. Once she exclaims that she doesn’t love Torvald anymore, she has no interest in investing herself in the stability of the life they’ve built. No matter how fake it is, it was still their life. It’s the end of their life. Her reasons for leaving the household can be interchanged with the reason she gives for loaning the money. She’s leaving Torvald for love. Love and respect she has for herself. That’s the only optimistic view I can give to the end of Doll’s House. I take what I said back. Love is extremely complicated, especially when it’s built on something as ephemeral and extreme as emotions.

Evil in Fargo and No Country For Old Men

Today I watched Fargo, and noticed striking similarities between the character Grimsrud in Fargo and Chigurh in No Country For Old Men. I think that the Cohen Brothers use these characters to display their definition of evil. The similarities span farther than the disturbingly silent performances by their actors and awful haircuts. In Fargo, after being caught for seven homicides, Grimsrud sits in the back of the squad car while Marge, the female police officer, tries to comprehend his motives. She says, "And for what?  For a little bit of money. There's more to life than money, you know. Don't you know that?...  And here ya are, and it's a beautiful day". Her words of reason are left on Grimsrud. He doesn’t reply and merely stares blankly ahead with what’s described in the screenplay as “hallow eyes”. I’ll compare this scene with the one in No Country For Old Men. 

ARLA JEAN
You don't have to do this.

CHIGURH
People always say the same thing.

CARLA JEAN What do they say?

CHIGURH
They say “You don't have to do this.”

CARLA JEAN You don't. . .

Chigurh stares at her for a beat.

CHIGURH
This is the best I can do. . .

He digs in his pocket for a coin.

CHIGURH . . . Call it.

CARLA JEAN
I knowed you was crazy when I saw you settin there. I knowed exactly what was in store for me.

CHIGURH Call it.

CARLA JEAN
No. I ain't gonna call it.

CHIGURH Call it.

CARLA JEAN
The coin don't have no say. It's just you.

CHIGURH
I got here the same way the coin did.

In both of these encounters, the Cohen Brothers use female characters to show the reasoning and humane nature of woman against the cold murderous rage of man. On the surface, Grimsrud seems to be motivated by 80,000 dollars, but to him, it is only a job. He’s a hired gun. Chigurh is also a hitman. But neither are truly motivated by the money their job brings in. Anton is offered money during one of his jobs, and he turns it down. It’s about seeing a job to its completion. He stands by set principles and rules, and does not falter. Both men are forces of evil that make sure purpose is enacted on a random and meaningless world.  Anton gives Carla Jean a chance to leave her life up to random fate, but she refuses. The coin toss is a random device that has no intentional purpose. This is juxtaposed against Chigurh’s purposeful assassinations. Carla Jean refuses to give her life to chance, and so evil takes her life. Evil in the Cohen Bother’s movies are personified as hollow men who strive to make sure their morals are fulfilled. They have purpose. It’s not chaotic. It may be born out of nihilism, but it’s evil with a purpose. This is in stark contrast with the evil we’ve been analyzing. There isn’t a sympathetic or relatable characteristic in either character. It makes them a terrifying plot device, but also fascinating characters whose absolute dedication to their law make them impossible forces to be reckoned with. There is no moral ambiguity. Perhaps this means the Cohen Brothers are arguing that evil comes from intent purely. Nature is random and has no consciousness, but humans do. Evil is born from striving towards fulfilled purpose. Their films show the dangers of committing to a way of life without remaining flexible or understandable to those who do not agree or fit in with established principles. To the audience, Grimsrud is a cold and empty vessel, but in reality he is a hyper focused man who has no room for outside influence. Both characters who speak to these agents of evil cannot seem to connect with them, and cannot comprehend their actions. To Carla Jean, Chigurh doesn’t have to kill her, but what she doesn’t understand is that in order for Chigurh to live a life full of purpose, he does. Evil’s motives are often mistaken for greed, similarly to how Marge thinks Grimsrud did it all for the money. This shows that once evil takes ahold of its host, they become disconnected and alone. Rebellion is a lonely road, and so is the gathering of knowledge. 

The One Who Couldn't Walk Away

I think that Blake and Gardner stand on the same ground concerning how society operates between the lucky and the poor. This is the same ground where the “Tree of Mystery” Blake speaks of in “The Human Abstract” grows on humility. In the paired Songs of Innocence poem Blake describes “The Divine Image”, an ideal destination achieved when mercy, pity, peace, and love are prayed upon until they meet together in the human form to create delight. Thankfully, Blake shatters this unsupported illusion and, in a slap-to-the-face-to-all-hopeful-optimists, he shuns this belief damning it merely as an Image, something the abstract human can never form to. That was mostly me talking though. I’ll acknowledge that Blake had no preference over either side. Gardner’s Grendel supports many of Blake’s arguments, as Grendel is the unlucky creature that must stand in darkness so the light can be appreciated. Grendel is humanized even if he must represent the darkness, showing respect to both sides. The first lines of “The Human Abstract” speak the purpose of Grendel’s existence. “Poor” (Gardner 174) Grendel must be made “Poor” (Blake 2) and unhappy for pity and mercy to exist. The fear that he brings upon the society of Hrothgar instils a mutual fear among the people, letting peace form. Grendel’s unhappiness allows the Comitatus to exist. Blake claims most of the negativity in the world begins at the point when Cruelty spreads “his baits with care”. This could be read as Cruelty spreading the traps cautiously and carefully, but I truly think Blake means to say that the trap is built WITH care. Man is initially lead towards his downfall by his surrender to care. I think this means that the beginning of Grendel’s real fall is when he approaches the mead hall with the body he finds. At this point, he’s ready to believe everything The Shaper says, and he brings the body back to the town purely out of care. He makes himself completely vulnerable to the town and cries out “Mercy! Peace!”. Sounds familiar? Grendel wants mercy - something Blake believes cannot exist without unhappiness - and Peace - that of which cannot exist without fear. Unexpectedly, Grendel’s wishes are granted as he is shunned, and Grendel fulfills his role and the Poor and the Unaccepted. Blake outlines the progress of this darkness in his poetry. The subject (implied Grendel) falls to the ground and waters the ground with tears of fear. Humility takes root, and mystery grows from this humility. I think that because humility follows vulnerability, a commitment to doubt (mystery) grows so that humility will never be experienced again. Usually care and humility occur when uncertainty is ignored, and uneducated impulse takes over. Still, Mystery is rather paralyzing. Grendel gathers The Dragon’s and The Shaper’s ideas, and battles between them throughout the novel. He lives in mystery and feeds on the fruits of “Deceit”. This could be connected to the tree of knowledge, and how some believe knowledge deceives. Grendel is forced to this limbo of misery so the privileged can experience happiness. I think both Gardner and Blake understood that there has to be an isolated child of Omelas to stand on so that the distant and divine virtues we crave are that much closer in reach.

When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer

When I heard the Learn's Astronomer

Walt Whitman

WHEN I heard the learn’d astronomer;
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me;
When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them;
When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick;	5
Till rising and gliding out, I wander’d off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.

I enjoy reading Walt Whitman’s "When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer" for the mere feeling it brings me. I haven’t tried to read too far deep into it, fearing that the meaning will not satisfy me, or it will ruin my emotional response. So. . . here goes nothing. The poem seems to be from the point of view of a student, or “lesser” who finds respect in the learn’d astronomer. Through mathematical proofs and displayed data I see that the astronomer is a man in search of answers. However, it is not theoretical or philosophical truths this man searches for. These are physical answers. The astronomer feels the need to share this knowledge and so the speaker is “shown” by the astronomer, graphs that are supposed to prove a point. I’m not sure how I feel about this. The cynic inside of me always feels uneasy at the thought that the only way to learn is to accept the reality from someone else. The speaker is at the complete mercy of the astronomer. While it’s possible that what the astronomer speaks is true, it’s impossible to know for sure, as all knowledge we gain from the world is passed down by those who have experienced it longer. Those who are already shaped by it, and are, even if unintentionally, paired with bias because of it. Still, the astronomer is met with “applause”, showing that despite the possibility that these may be lies, others have joined and collectively decided to agree that this is the truth they are wiling to give their lives over for. This appears to be too much for the speaker, as he is forced to leave. The feeling that he experiences is “unaccountable”. An ironic word, as the speaker is in this environment where everything can be explained and accounted for, the speaker still finds doubt and an inability to understand his reality. Perhaps it’s a cyclical process, as it leaves the speaker “tired and sick”. He ventures out alone. Oh no. See at the beginning of this poem, I found comfort in the message it sent to science, but now the phrase “wandering off by myself” reminds of the Allegory of the Cave. Even though reality is the majority’s perception, that does not mean it is correct. In the Allegory of the Cave, the wall shadows are the reality for most of the prisoners and yet they are incorrect and ignorant of the truth. Only one fortunate soul is able to wander away from the accepted reality and find true enlightenment. Even if the next step is enlightenment, that doesn’t seem to be the focus for the rest of the poem. The speaker becomes sick of overanalyzing and realizes how impossible it is to entirely understand the universe, and so he settles for enjoying nature for what it is - Beauty without reason or purpose. He walks into the “mystical” or inexplicable night-air, and stares that the stars. While he sits in silence, perhaps a nihilistic argument, or disconnection from God, the speaker is still able to appreciate the perfect silence of the stars. There’s no attempt to explain them, as he doesn’t feel pressured to accept another’s idea of reality, the speaker just enjoys the existence of figures in the sky that are far greater than himself. So going into the poem, I just liked the neat language of the charts, columns, and diagrams, and the space imagery that ends in fulfillment. It gave me trust in science. Now, I’m left with with a minor existential crisis. If there’s a message that is to be pulled from the poem, is seems to be along these lines: It’s a waste of time to try and explain the environment around you. Time wasted that could be spent enjoying its existence.

To have squeezed the universe into a small ball...

This week I returned, once again, as I do almost every other month, to my casual viewing of Apocalypse Now, Francis Ford Coppola’s Vietnam epic that’s essentially the movie adaptation of the novella Heart of Darkness. I’d like to spend my time describing the similarities between the two. What first stands out to me worth discussing is Marlon Brando’s Kurtz, and Joseph Conrad’s vision of the antagonist. In Apocalypse Now,  Kurtz is portrayed as a rouge general, who has gone insane. He beings to fight his own war with the natives against the government’s orders. His physical appearance is meant to mirror his excess of power. His bulk-ness verges on being overweight. Because of the costuming and shadowing it was hard for me to distinguish if Coppola wanted me to view Kurtz as unhealthy overweight or towering strength. Curiously, in the novel, Kurtz is depicted as something skeleton-like. Conrad blatantly compares Kurtz’s head to a skull of ivory. While contextually, Kurtz’s skinny weight can be blamed to his unnamed disease, it’s began apparent to me that Kurtz is shriveled and hollow because of his own excess. This draws an interesting parallel between symbols of excess. Now, realistically the reason why Marlon Brando was so fat was because he showed up to filming obese. He had weight problems. But for the sake of literary merit, Coppola decided that Marlon wouldn’t be sent home. Despite the excess, even if Coppola’s Kurtz appears full, Kurtz is a hollow man. Because of excess, there’s no humanity left, and so there’s only a structural store front that’s supposed to resemble a human. Watching the movie after reading the seventh chapter of Grendel, I spot an interesting comparison to Dennis Hopper’s character, the insane American journalist who decides to stay with Kurtz, and the slightly schizophrenic Grendel. Both obsess over twisted logic in rules that define their worlds. Hopper reveals his true disconnect from reality when he speaks cinema’s craziest dialogue:  “this is dialectics, simple dialectics. It is very simple dialectics: 1 through 9, no maybes, no supposes, no fractions. You can't travel to space. You can not go to space with fractions. What do you land on: on one quarter or 3/8th? What do you do when you go to venus or something. Thats dialectic. Physics. Dialectic logic is: there is only love or hate”. Similarly to Grendel, Grendel speaks of conics and keeping a steady balance of everything. The photojournalist holds to the belief that there are no compromises to the truth. There are only absolutes - there can only be polar outcomes. With two such absolutes, there’s almost a balance established between truth and lies. A line that is drawn straight down through reality, where there’s no complex truth. There’s a balance that’s been set in place, a balance that cannot change despite varying opinions and emotions regarding what the truth should be. Both of these characters seem to crack over their obsession for the truth. For enlightenment. While the journalist claims to have had his “mind expanded” by Kurtz, he’s limited himself because within all humans there is a limit. Grendel has difficulty following the Dragon’s logic - it can’t be helped. Both characters are representative of how incompetent humans are to understanding the entire universe; who can blame them? Instead of swimming in ambiguity, theses two characters have chosen a different path. An oversimplification of the truth. They’ve enclosed their minds in limited options as to what the truth can be. Grendel preaches existence’s meaninglessness. The journalist preaches there are only absolutes. One either loves something, or hates it. Ignoring all of the complications show how the character’s minds are receding back into ignorance. 

Winesburg, Ohio and The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

There lies a close parallel between the character of George Willard in Winesburg, Ohio, and J. Alfred Prufrock in “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”. Both male characters face sexual frustration, and disconnect from those around them. In order to describe the disconnect, they both seem to stem from the feeling that they cannot be understood, or they wish to touch or be touched by a woman in some way that communicates intimacy, a need they don’t get from exclusively communicating verbally. At Winesburg, Ohio’s peak, “Sophistication” correctly describes in words what this need exactly is. George wants to “be touched by the hand of another. . . he believes that a woman will be gentle, that she will understand. He wants, most of all, understanding” (Anderson 217). In contrast to the loud, industrious city George's dream wit take him next, George wants a gentler feeling. A more soothing one that comes from a female. Just speculating, the reason as to why he’d think that it would be more accessible coming from a female is the tender motherly feeling females are able to provide. I don’t have a lot of evidence to support that, but generally, woman have been shown in literature to be more in touch with their emotions that man are. Being able to fill the need for something and making it more comfortable to exist in a jarring world leads to understanding. Being able to locate that need, empathizing over how it feels, and being able to fix it is complete understanding. Alfred Prufrock meets the same roadblock of communication when he exclaims that what he has said in an attempt to connect and receive comfort is “not what I meant at all”(Eliot 97). Prufrock, having similar needs and the lack of a leading female role in his life, pushes him to reach out and ask for help. Disconnect follows as he isn’t able to articulate the feeling. This failure of verbal communication shows how touch is the most important mode of understanding, as words fail for both characters when they attempt to get what they want. This leads Prufrock to worry about social pressures, such as his appearance and his manner of speech at parties. George feels awkward around Helen when they converse. With the lack of physical touch, both characters face a difficultly of connection. Since physical touch involves actions, rather than words, it’s hard to understand why it wells up positive feelings like comfort. Both characters rely too heavily on words to communicate what they are feeling. The poem is titled as a love song for some intended. Prufrock is limiting himself from the beginning, as he can explain only as much as his capacity for forming the lyrics will allow. George Willard is a reporter and makes his living off of using words to communicate, and yet he fails at getting what he wants. In “Teacher”, Kate Swift advises that George must learn what people are thinking about, as to what they verbally say (Anderson 145). Because of these two character’s heavy reliance on speech, they are paralyzed from acting out their physical needs. Without engaging people physically, the characters cannot access the primal need for understanding that cannot be understood.  

Regarding "Vagueness" - Guilty as Charged

I think that every month I need to release a rant from my body about what’s on my mind concerning themes and literary analysis. Don’t get me wrong, I love analyzing literature, but my mindset is constantly changing regarding what I enjoy about it. I’ve been noticing what I like more and more when it comes to what I read and watch. It’s even been affecting my writing. I prefer it when a story is extremely specific and narrows the themes it’s trying to get across to the audience. It conveys more developed and interesting ideas than vague literature does. I’m going to be using that term a lot. Vague literature is a story that chooses broad narrative structures just for the sake of encasing hundreds of possible themes to remain relevant. For the sake of elaboration, in its simplest/dumbest form, vague literature looks like this: This is the story of a man (Oh he represents mankind as a whole) and this man, who’s name is withheld, (his name isn’t important because his true identity is mankind and his fear of the unknown is because of his need to control his own fate) does a literal biblical action or a forced allusion to one of Shakespeare's work to complete the story. Being a huge fan of Winesburg, Ohio, I was disappointed when I discovered some vague details regarding the Garden of Eden. Many characters sit under trees. Well I guess that that means Anderson was comparing them to Adam and Eve, and the tree houses the fruit of knowledge. The problem that I see in this is that it limits the possibilities that an author can say. I’ve spoken with peers who share this same concern. It’s as if we develop a logical pathway from the garden of eden, to a universal theme that’s kind of hackneyed “I’m looking at you, sin in the pursuit of knowledge” and as soon as we stumble upon an image that just barely resembles the allusion we’re trying to force the text to connect to, all deep thinking stops, and we immediately parrot the “universal truth” we’ve agreed on before hand. I’m guilty of doing this myself. I’m writing about this because I’m upset that I’ve done this myself. It’s lazy analysis, and I leave unfulfilled from a text. Specific stories have so many concrete details that they make it harder for a vague “truth” to finish the puzzle. This may limit some of the possible interpretations, but perhaps it’s for the better. Instead of getting a general society this and society that, I get specific themes that I may not have considered before. That is after all, the purpose of literature. To convey different truths and perspectives, not to repeat the same universal themes in altered ways. Personally, the most enjoyment I’ve received from analyzing literature comes from stories that are more developed and less vague. When an author has gone out of their way to make their work specific, they usually have more to say. 

I met a traveller from an antique land...

Ozymandias

Percy Bysshe Shelley

I met a traveller from an antique land

Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,

Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown

And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.

And on the pedestal these words appear:

`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:

Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,

The lone and level sands stretch far away". 

In the spirit of Breaking Bad’s series finale, and all of its splendid closure, I’m going to take a look at “Ozymandias” a poem, coincidentally, by Percy Bysshe Shelley. Notice how I did not say “ironically”. The poem opens with “I met a traveller from an antique land” (1). The speaker of the poem is retelling the words from a traveller who is retelling his tale to the speaker. Up front, there are echoes of frame narrative at play, which is also coincidental, seeing how Percy‘s wife, Mary, told her narrative through frame narrative. The traveler describes seeing “two vast and trunkless legs of stone / stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand, / Half sunk, a shattered visage lies” (3-4). This great figure that the statue was built in representation no longer stands. Instead, its feet lay planted into the ground, but the torso has collapsed under its own weight. This can be representative of the stubbornness of Ozymandias. While he held a steady ground for his empire, he couldn’t handle himself, and succumbed to the inevitable gravity his pride challenged. His feet stand, planted in what he believed was his, and yet the traveller looks around to find that Ozymandias has only claimed sand and dirt. Sand is a symbol that shows up whenever something is fleeting. Sand rarely belongs to a set territory and is roughly considered a solid mass. The million grains of sand that give it its mass, and still it is without definite form, characterize the ambiguous side of nature. The sand can then be representative of Ozymandias’ empire. The sand represents the thousands of souls that perished at the cost of Ozymandias’ power. And even after their departure from earth, they are lost souls, without a home and forced to roam the vast desert. Ozymandias’ broken face shows how delicate and weak his rough intimidating exterior was. He was only a human. The pedestal the traveler describes is Ozymandias’ declaration, “My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: / Look on my works, ye Might, and despair!”(10-11). This is immediately juxtaposed with the empty wasteland this crumbled statue occupies. This shows how empty Ozymandias threats were. Despite the threat that his pride displayed, it was no more than just that - a threat. Even if he possessed power during his occupation, his mere mortality meant nothing compared to the vastness of time.  That leads me to observing a certain “broken hourglass image”. Sand measures a set amount of time in an hour glass. Usually the end of this time is death, but the absence of an hour glass, and the ever bearing presence of the sea of sand puts time in a new perspective. By setting the poem in the desert, Shelley emphasizes how Ozymandias is lost in an ocean of time. A man, who possessed true power, is now nothing more than a cautionary tale, observed only rarely by a wanderer without a home. This is Percy’s way of warning humans of their ego. Power destroyed Ozymandias.

I wasn't prepared for that.

9/22/13

I just returned from the High museum, and experienced a feeling I never knew existed. It was supposed to be a simple day. My grandmother who was visiting wanted to see the The Girl with the Pearl Earring exhibit while she was in town, and I obliged, for I was interested in viewing the artwork with an analytical lens. The landscape paintings and portraits blew me away, as I searched on each canvas for a brush stroke. It was slightly depressing, knowing that the Renaissance housed some of the greatest talent our generation may never see in such a copious revival again. I can’t speak for the future. The basis for this post originated when I stumbled upon a certain painting titled, “View of A Lake with Sailing Ships”. I started crying. In the middle of an art museum, I was crying and I didn’t know why. The majority of the painting is swallowed by the sky. I’ll post the picture below. It was the colors that affected me emotionally though. The focus seems to be placed on two objects that appear immediately in the foreground. There are two vessels, shrouded by the shadow of an enormous cloud. The faces of the sailors on board are masked in darkness. The larger ship has its back turned, as if it’s sailing away, while the small dinghy is left behind. Upon further analysis of my emotions, I discover that the painting embodies adventure for me. The infinite sea compared to the even vaster sky accentuates the feeling of a awe-full world. Perhaps I connected to it because I saw myself as a passenger on that ship. Off in the distance, the other ships bathe in sunlight. With senior year ending, I think I see high school as one large cloud, comparatively to the openness of college and the possibilities that the future hold for a high-school graduate. When I cried, I felt feelings of loss. To me, it feels as though I’m leaving behind so many friends and loved ones, once I embark on this adventure. Seeing the two fishermen stuck on the small boat, doomed to their condition of...well...fishing, made me think they were the ones I was leaving behind. Adventure comes at a loss. The road of adventure really is a lonely one, especially if everyone else around you is comfortable with their situation, or have no interests to aspire for “greatness”. These themes are common in Frankenstein. Robert Walton embarks on a grand expedition to the arctic circle, but admits he has no friends. He is alone because moral isolation results from rebellion. Rebellion from the “system”. In Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, only one man is allowed to leave the cave. Upon returning, they come back forever changed. It’s that feeling of adventure in such a vast world where failure is an even greater possibility than success. When I saw the painting, I think I felt scared of how great it was. It was the feeling of adventure that struck such a feeling of forlorn in me. I’m not sure, I’ll leave it up to you. Just don’t call me strange if it doesn’t evoke a single feeling of sadness or melancholy. 

Tintern Abbey in Frankenstein

Mary Shelley alludes to "Tintern Abbey" after praising Victor's better half to show the true purpose of Henry Clerval. An innocent character from Victor's childhood, Clerval's purpose, other than to symbolize one of Victor's last connections to his past - that of which he abandons and is left unidentifiable from his natural form - isn't clear. In context, the allusion occurs when Wordsworth's speaker is looking back on his past. In Frankenstein's narrative context, Victor is recalling Henry Clerval: his past. Shelley choses to stop right before the line "That time is past" (Wordsworth 84). That time IS past. Time is frequently referenced to as water. The waterfall, and the water or time that falls from it, is lost forever. Mary uses this passage to enhance the hopelessness of how permanent Victor's change is. This chemical reaction that has transpired in Victor is immutable. At first, I thought the allusion to "Tintern Abbey" was paralleling Victor's past. As a child, his quest for knowledge lead him down the calm river of time in his childhood, where he met with the point of dropping off. I read this symbolism as birthing imagery, as Victor anticipated his expected birth by the sound of the rushing water and dropped off into the gloomy woods. It could also be read as Victor falling from Mount Olympus, and like Prometheus, Victor is banished to the material world where he suffers. However, Shelley does not use this passage to describe just Victor. Clerval is a foil for Victor. He represents the beauty Victor could have bestowed if he had learned to appreciate nature for what it is. The allusion develops Clerval's character even more. As others would view this awful waterfall with a superficial appreciation, Clerval loves this sight with his being. This innocence, an almost prepubescent child that contrasts with the parental Victor, cannot escape the terror of development. He too is dropped off from this cliff and into the gloomy woods. The odd aspect is the " haunting passions" he faces. It is natural to crave independence from the creator. After all, Wordsworth argues "there is no need of a remoter charm" (82). Someone as clean as Clerval is lured to this dropping off point. To descend from this heavenly, safe place, into a physical and depressing world does not seem to affect Clerval. This point of dropping off, where development takes place, is where Victor and Clerval branch. Victor's arrogance leads him to believe he is greater than nature. After his mother's death, Victor turns to nature for support. Eventually, he leaves nature and defies the gods by creating life. Clerval drops off too. Almost in a sense, puberty; however, Clerval keeps his appreciation of nature. It is his mother. In "Tintern Abbey", this memory of a thunderous cataract, a possible danger that nature inflicts on Wordsworth, is for a specific purpose. A certain "tough love". Wordsworth writes that the "sad music of humanity, Nor has nor grating though of ample power to chasten and subdue" (94) describes the power of nature. To chasten is to sometimes inflict suffering or strain to teach. Instead of rebelling against his parental guidance like Victor, Clerval uses these memories and sticks with nature so he can grow from it. Clerval is the man after accepting humiliation from nature while Victor is the man who decided not to return to his Abbey. Victor is the man who is "flying from something that he dreads" (72). Victor never contemplated or learned from nature because he chose not to participate in it, while Henry, a far more well off character accepted his position and acknowledged how important nature was in the development of his childhood.

Not I

This weekend, I read Samuel Beckett's extended monologue “Not I”. It had a particularly forceful impact on me. Reading the monologue, I took in the frantic nature of the lines, but I knew how different it would feel watching it performed. When performed, the actress’ body is completely obscured except for her lips, so when watched, it appears that the only object on stage is a pair of lipsticked...lips. When read, it's easy to follow the loose story of a woman and her repeated experiences. The lines are read at breakneck speed and are almost unintelligible. What was remarkable, was that Beckett captured the way that humans inner dialogue sounds like. It is relentless. It never stops talking. From personal experience, when I recall an event, I run over it multiple times, the same way the actress repeats the lines of her traumatic experiences. Theater has always had a different response to me than written prose has. Not that it is superior, it just serves a different purpose. To watch the pair of lips release the never ending dialogue, my own began to speak up. It’s almost deafening. Beckett has that gift of showing humans what they least like to see. I read in an interview that the audience tried to leave and escape out the door or to the bathrooms. Beckett had anticipated this and locked the doors and took out the lightbulbs in the bathrooms so that the only thing the audience members experienced for those fifteen minutes was the buzz of the lips and total darkness. Theater gives a tangible event to analyze, while written works leave it to the reader’s imagination. The reader only gets out as much as they put in, while theater forces the audience member to take in what’s happening. By comparing and contrasting that two, I don’t mean to rank them. Sometimes, certain messages have to be placed in different ways to be effectively sent across from creator to observer. 

The World's End

Over this weekend, I had the pleasure to a night with my four best friends and a screening of The World's End. Walking into the high security movie theater with a $20 dollar hole in my wallet, I anticipated a hilarious and action packed finale to the beloved Three Cornetto trilogy. And I got that; however, when the credits rolled, I sat still in my seat, patching over what I had just watched. Not that the ending was something profound that hit me deep down, I had just never really experienced the message that was delivered to me, and in the way it was delivered. A quick synopsis for those who haven't gotten around to seeing it (don't worry, there's plenty of commentary to make up for wasted summarizing words):

*Spoilers, if you were the minority who actually looked forward to seeing the movie then you should have already seen it already. If not, you've been warned*

The protagonist, Gary King, is an alcoholic who is still tied to the past and the glory he experienced during his teenage years. To describe his character: he is still attending a party that has ended over a decade ago. Thinking fondly of what he remembers to be his greatest night, he decides he must return to his hometown and drag along his five childhood friends so that can complete their unfinished business: The Golden Mile, a twelve stop pub crawl. (They had only made it through 9). Immediately, I recalled, not from experience, that alcoholics must follow a twelve-step program to recovery. This would be Gary's closure. And so Gary's adventure begins, but not without resistance from his five hostage. His friends, all of whom have adhered to the system, are stuck at their desk jobs and are in unhappy marriages. The contrast between their boredom and Gary's obnoxiousness is glaring. It is revealed that everyone in their hometown has been replaced by "Blanks", an alien robotic race that has set up the internet to assimilate into culture. Mankind's imperfection frustrates the aliens, and they leave, taking the internet with them, but leaving the "blank" duplicates behind. The world ends. Duh. The robots, who were previously unconscious, wake up and begin to search for guidance. They find it difficult to re-assimilate into society after the computers have gone down. I thought it was a shameless jab at those who are absorbed with technology, but it certainly reminded me how much I rely on the internet. If something were to happen to it, would I be able to properly function? Do I want that much reliance on it? But that wasn't the central point. The last scene of the movie features one last bar. Gary, sporting a cowboy hat and a medieval sword, strolls up to the bartender and orders a water. He is surrounded by 5 duplicates of his childhood friends. After sparking up an argument with the bartender, he releases a battle cry and rushes forward into the shot, abruptly ending the movie. He fate isn't important, but what is important to notice is that Gary orders a water. This led me to the assumption that he is no longer an alcoholic. He doesn't have to numb himself anymore with substances, and can handle the world through a sober lens. His friends are forced to view it through a sober lens, technologically speaking, but are still miserable. It was almost troubling to watch the movie, as it was difficult to discern what the moral was. Yes, Gary is a miserable alcoholic who is stuck in the past, but his hedonism gives him a reason to live. . . Am I to believe that either way I lose? But then I realized the folly of Gary's boring friends. They grew old and turned their back on their past. Gary was able to grow up, but still appreciated the company of his childhood. I turned to my best friends, and smiled at how appropriate this movie had been to our outing. I knew that wherever I ended up in life, it was important to hold onto friends like these. They tether me to my own identity. Without them, I'm a blank.

Regarding "Theme"

After I read Perrine's (I do not know who the specific author was so the subject for the remainder of the rant will be referred to as "Perrine".) breakdown of theme on Monday, I've been considering many of his arguments over the week. I've tried understanding his point of view, but I'm close to giving up. I understand that it's important to set aside literary works from commercial ones, but it's one thing to divide the literary world into two separate spheres, and another to never allow the two to overlap. It's rather pretentious to cast away a horror story or a science fiction tale as nothing worthy of literary merit because their purpose isn't to reveal a profound truth. I instinctively shutter when I read the passage taking a stance on how a theme exists only when an author has deliberately introduced a concept or theory of life. In my 10th grade honors literature class, where the basis of my understanding of literature stems from, I was taught that the author is dead. It doesn't matter what they wanted to say, or how overreaching the theme was intended to be. They do not matter. When the reader - yes, I am the reader - interprets a book, I bring more of myself to the analytical process than I bring in what was going on in the author's life or time period. In Frankenstein, I couldn't care any less that Mary Shelley had lost her mother or her children before writing the book. To me, Frankenstein is a cautionary tale of fixation on perfection. I'd love to discuss the abortion or masturbatory imagery and consider it a central theme, but I feel like that's impossible when following Perrine's guidelines to theme. Sometimes a theme doesn't have to be skull cracking-ly deep. In fact, I don't want them to. The themes that stick with me the most, that I actually consider in real life while examining my surroundings, and not in literature circles, are the ones that are so simple, they can be expressed in a short phrase like "Crap happens" or "sometimes there is no point". Cliched themes are cliched because society fails to change them. Perrine channels Oscar Wilde when he claims that an author must "seriously attempt to record life accurately or reveal some truth about it". Author's intention has nothing to do with it, especially due to how incompetent they can sometimes be. Unintentional themes are often better than the ones that are deliberately forced. Spring Breakers, a party movie, gave me more insight on the dangers of hedonism and mindless pop culture than what the director wanted me to take from it.  Oscar Wilde said that an artist's, or writer's, duty is to hold up a mirror to nature or man; however, Oscar Wilde contradicts himself and shouldn't be trusted. In the end, of his preface in The Picture of Dorian Gray he says that "all art is quite useless". There obviously are no rules set for establishing the way to interpret art for the whole literary world. In an AP Literature classroom, it's dangerous to narrow the possibilities of interpreting a text by forcing the reader to consider what universal, long lost truth that is hidden inside all of us. How can you expect that all truth's must be revealed and not taught? In The Book of the Grotesque, Anderson writes of how the world is made up of infinite truths that man makes for himself. Sometimes, perspectives must be taught, as they haven't been considered. I don't buy into the whole inherent connection that humans are born with. Babies are blank slates. Even more, teenage readers are impressionable and haven't considered every angle to life. If truths are never taught, only revealed, and the reader is either culturally illiterate, or has only been "revealed/reminded" by profound, often vague, truths, then themes wouldn't be very insightful, or descriptive. I think it's a step backwards. Sorry for the angry rant, it's just been boiling inside of me. If you think that I missed the point to Perrine's discussion on Theme, let me know. Maybe it just needs to be revealed to me.