The Importance of Being Earnest

December 11th, 2009 by

In the play The Importance of Being Earnest, Gwendolen and Cecily exemplify how society acts differently from what it says to. Girls are expected to be pure, innocent and sweet, some truths cannot be told to girls, as Jack mentions in Act I, and women cannot control their own lives, but in the book Oscar wild shows us, through irony and criticism, the practice behind the theory.

Gwendolen and Cecily diverge from what is expected from girls, in the Victorian time, when they take control of their future. They do not wait for their family to find a partner to them, but they do it by themselves, choosing the person they want. Cecily writes in her diary creations that she has in her mind and, through it, manipulates Algernon to marry her. Gwendolen also manipulates Jack, making him to propose to her, telling in advance that she would accept. This is not an expected action from a girl, since they do not accept by themselves, but they do what their parents plan to them: “engagement should come on a young girl as a surprise, pleasant or unpleasant as the case may be” (Lady Bracknell, Act I).

In the book we can see a lot of sentences in which it is clear the breaking of rules and the postures of no submission that the girls had, but there was one that called my attention, the one said by Cecily (Act 2): “I don’t think I would care to catch a sensible man. I shouldn’t know what to talk to him about”. Here, not only Cecily expresses her will about the man she wants to marry (what was not permitted), but she runs out from what was expected to a girl’s wish. She knows the importance of having a sensible man, what we can see when she looks for a man called Earnest, but in this sentence it is clear she is aware about the hypocrisy of society. She needs a man called Earnest to show everybody she is married to a respectful man, but in fact she doesn’t want it, to marry a sensible man is not her goal.

In the end of the story it is also clear the break of rules made by the girls, since even after they figuring out the truth they do not give up, but they manipulate the situation to get what they want, that is to marry a man called Earnest.

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The Glass Menagerie – Blue Roses

October 22nd, 2009 by

When I read The Glass Menagerie, by Tennessee Williams, I was touched by a character that shows that human beings are still able to have deep feelings. For sure we are great creatures that can build our own world based on our feelings when dealing with the “outsider”, we are beings that learn day by day through the experiences we have to face. We got use to face these experiences based on reason, as much that it can become mechanic, but our living can also be interpreted by our feelings… unfortunately not all of us have this pure sense.

The Glass Menagerie is a story that happens during a very difficult moment in the U.S. History. People have to worry not only with their future safety, but even more with their present tense, the food they need in the moment. In this difficult time people are brought up to fight for feeding their essential needs, weakness and wonder have no place.

In this context we can see characters such as Amanda and Jim, people that have to face their difficult lives and responsibilities, suffering with reality but taken strength from the dreams that they had to put aside, from a life of wonder that fills their mind in the moments they are able to.

The grey setting would be according to our expectations for this period of time if there was not a blue rose that was born from this floor, a very particular character, built by Tennessee Williams, called Laura.

Laura is a person with deep feelings, a sensible person open to feel the world, but that was hurt by this same world. She had no many experiences in her life, but each one she had lived was deeply felt by her. One of these experiences was her love for a boy, a love that was lived in her mind but, in the ‘real world’, meant just a photo and few words shared between them that, among these words, were “blue roses”, meaning his way to address her.

Laura, like the blue rose, is unique. This nick name to Laura is very meaningful, since both worlds (blue/rose) are symbols for many things. Blue, for some cultures, means something sad or melancholic, and roses mean fragility, purity, emotions… such as the glass menageries Laura used to love so much.

I could talk about many aspects that this symbols has in common with Laura, but I will focus in one that, for me, means Laura in her plenitude. Roses.

This living vegetable is a hundred per cent of the time living its full essence, making photosynthesis, perfuming and beautifying our lives with their flowers. With no doubt, carries a huge learning about what is to be humble. The people around Laura were shining the reality they were in, but Laura had always shone herself, she was not vibrating at the same frequency that the other were and, maybe because of that she was so unique, so different.

Something that brings Laura to the rose’s condition is her loneliness. Flowers have the male and female reproductive organs in them, and that is why the bloom is an act so extraordinary in the plant kingdom. In this moment the plants are showing all, saying who they really are. Laura has no another person with who she shares her ‘world’, she does not need another person to flourish, she is complete in herself but people do cannot see her beauty, she is not in the proper environment to dazzle.

Laura is a  wonderful woman, but I think she is not in harmony with her environment, the mother she has caused deep marks in her, she is afraid of the mean world she lives, since her own home is not so nice. A rose is completely dependent on the environment, for a rose to raise and flourish it must be in balance with the four elements of earth: fire, earth, air and water.

Being so, I see in the association of Laura with a blue rose, this characteristic of dependency of the environment. As she lives that environment, she reflects the atmosphere through herself. She is a rose, but the ‘poison’ she breathes turned her into a blue rose, a modified one.

Posted in Literature IV | | | 4 Comments

The Inner evil

September 18th, 2009 by

            When we compare Macbeth and Lady Macbeth’s fault in the murder of the king, it is difficult to precise which one is guiltier. Lady Macbeth had a very important role in the specific crime, but Macbeth was the one who did it, when he saw the dagger: “Is this the dagger which I see before me the handle toward my hand?”, he was the one who held it  and made use of it.

            Going deeply in the situation, not only he committed the crime, but he also knew what it meant “That is a step on which I must fall down, or else o ‘er-leap, for in my way it lies”, something that Lady Macbeth did not know. This last one was kind of naive in relation of the consequences that the braking of the taboo would mean, she was the one who encouraged Macbeth to commit the crime, but she did not force him to do it, it was a matter of his decision.

These are the reasons way I believe Macbeth was the guiltiest in the murder, what does not diminish Lady Macbeth’s guilt, but it is a way I found to rank the facts.

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Margaret Avison

November 14th, 2008 by

To Counter Malthus

 

None us in this so

burdened earth has known

how to live, let alone

who is too many.

 

Presence, each day

afresh, you give a

purifying signal to

sting us alive.

 

Vast territories and seashores

still bear these thronging

strangers. May none die

without somebody caring.

 

To know even one other is

costly. And being known.

Alive, among so many

more now? a concern…

 

Hunger makes men desperate, threatens

to congeal the quandary. Yet

Presence abides untouched

in the churn of Quantity.

 

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A Thunderstorm by Archibald Lampman

October 28th, 2008 by

Poem by Archibald Lampman

October 24, 2008

 

A Thunderstorm

A moment the wild swallows like a flight
Of withered gust-caught leaves, serenely high,
Toss in the windrack up the muttering sky.
The leaves hang still. Above the weird twilight,
The hurrying centres of the storm unite
And spreading with huge trunk and rolling fringe,
Each wheeled upon its own tremendous hinge,
Tower darkening on. And now from heaven’s height,
With the long roar of elm-trees swept and swayed,
And pelted waters, on the vanished plain
Plunges the blast. Behind the wild white flash
That splits abroad the pealing thunder-crash,
Over bleared fields and gardens disarrayed,
Column on column comes the drenching rain.

 

That poem written by Archibald Lampman shows us a very beautiful image, a wild moment from the nature. His writing style not only describes images, but transfers all the feeling that the moment transfer for the one who lives that. Another important thing that is shown is the Canadian way to see the nature, it can be beautiful, but sometimes it can be also perverse.

 This poem/sonnet is written in the Iambic Parameter way,  consisted of lines having ten syllables being five stressed and five unstressed ones, what gives  rhythm to the sonnet. The rhyme scheme, the combination of sounds order is abbaaccadeffde.

 I will try to analyse the poem line by line, forgive me if I “travel” I little, the reason is that this poem is very exciting and brings life to our minds when we are reading. Lets try some possibilities to interpret this sonnet:

 

A Thunderstorm

 

A moment the wild swallow like a flight

 

The author starts the poem with an image of a bird flying in the sky, that is a very typical image for representing peace, the purity… but according to what we are going to see in the development of the poem, nature is not always that ‘nice’, it is beautiful but can be also destructive and painful.


Of withered gust-caught leaves, serenely high,

 

Flying as high that it looks like leaves that are thrown, by the gust, high up to sky


Toss in the windrack up the muttering sky.

 

Tossed to the sky, the fragile bird is entering to a dangerous place, it is now in the open sky that is muttering it awaken, a sky changing to a giant waking up from its dreams, ready to swallow everything near it… the storm is approaching


The leaves hang still. Above the weird twilight,

 

Stopped, lost, without action and without direction the bird is now. His was confused by the lights, and now he is even more for the sky darkening.


The hurrying centres of the storm unite

 

Not only the colors were start changing, but the Sky started to move, concentrating itself in its unit, to its center, in circles.


And spreading with huge trunk and rolling fringe,

 

Now it is getting stronger, it is as strong and fast that the wind get shape with the rain, it now has a form of fringe that sweep everything that it touches. 


Each wheeled upon its own tremendous hinge,

 

The thunderstorm is now alive; it has shape, color, and too much movement, showing in the sky all its power, with its thunderbolt shining in the darkness enjoying the condensed wind dancing in circles around it.


Tower darkening on. And now from heaven’s height,

 

The tower made of Wind, but more destructive the iron, is now big, too big. It is touching the sky, maybe putting people in the heaven, if they are on its way.


With the long roar of elm-trees swept and swayed,

 

Even the big elm-trees roar when near this monster, roaring while swallowed by the thunderstorm, helping to sweep the earth.


And pelted waters, on the vanished plain

 

The earth was cleaned/swept by the thunderstorm; the second procedure is to wash it, to pour water on the new scenario. (I can also smell the earth being wetted by the rain)        


Plunges the blast. Behind the wild white flash

 

The Wind is stronger than never, florid with the white flashes in the sky

That splits abroad the pealing thunder-crash,

 

The thunderstorm is now completely, it has achieved its splendor, and we can hear, see, smell (almost feeling the taste), and also feel the turbulence touch.  This is the thunderstorm’s climax.   


Over bleared fields and gardens disarrayed,

 

The thunderstorm left the consequences of its presence, it gave results. The place is clear, there is nothing more, no fields, no gardens.


Column on column comes the drenching rain.

 

The thunderstorm is now over, the destruction is concluded, but nature is perfect, after all the sky cries in the damaged land, giving (through the water) the needed fertility to a new beginning, the earth is going to renew.

 

 

Posted in Literature II | | | 1 Comments

“If we know the past, we can understand the present and change the future”

October 14th, 2008 by

The poem “Welsh History”, written by R.S. Thomas, is a very good  one for undestanding the welsh view of past, present, and future. In that poem, that I will try to devide into three partes, the poet relate a little of the welsh people reality, bringing things facst, emotion, happines and saddness (history) from the past, talking about the present, and expressing his deeper wishes for the future.

 

Welsh History

We were a people taut for war; the hills
Were no harder, the thin grass
Clothed them more warmly than the coarse
Shirts our small bones.
We fought, and were always in retreat,
Like snow thawing upon the slopes
Of Mynydd Mawr; and yet the stranger
Never found our ultimate stand
In the thick woods, declaiming verse
To the sharp prompting of the harp.
Our kings died, or they were slain
By the old treachery at the ford.
Our bards perished, driven from the halls
Of nobles by the thorn and bramble.
We were a people bred on legends,
Warming our hands at the red past.
The great were ashamed of our loose rags

 

            R.S.Thomas starts the poem describing the welsh general view of their own history. In giving voice to the welsh people, we can can see clearly the past in all the verbs used by them, for the welsh people the past is sumething very marking.

            As the author wrote, the welsh people in the past were very independet and prepared for living, they were “taut for war”, and they knew how to get their food working in the fertile hills that used to gives them all they needed. Hills that were not too hard to work, but warmly with its thin grass.

            In the first part we can also see their indignation to what had happended to them in the past, their indignation with the stranger, thay tried to fight and it was in vain, it was a war with no hope, like snow upon the slopes. Despite they. Even after all the thing happend they are proud of not losing their “utimate stand”, their culture were tôo close to them in their soul… but the kings died, killed for treachery imersed in the atmosfeare of changes.

            The welsh people have much of their culture base don the past legents and past acts, and they still used the past things to revive themselves, “warming our hands at the red past”, surviving with all the splendor they they used to have, living with the red blood, whith the life that no longer exist.

 

Clinging stubbornly to the proud tree
Of blood and birth, our lean bellies
And mud houses were a proof
Of our ineptitude for life.
We were a people wasting ourselves
In fruitless battles for our masters,
In lands to which we had no claim,
With men for whom we felt no hatred.
We were a people, and are so yet.

 

            In that part f the poem, the author calls the welsh attention to the present, if in the past they were prepared and independent, now they are not. Writing a frase that, for me, all their present is resumed: “Clinging stubbornly to the proud tree of blood and birth, our lean bellies and mud houses were a proof of our ineptitude for life”, the author point out their obstinacy with the past culture, and their forgetfulness to their present situation. Of corse they do not have their culture in the way it used to be (things have changed), nowadays they just have a little part of what it were, but despite all thair pain they still have to survive, to eat and to continue their lifes.

 

When we have finished quarrelling for crumbs
Under the table, or gnawing the bones
Of a dead culture, we will arise
And greet each other in a new dawn
Armed, but not in the old way.

 

            In that parte the poet shows us a fact, unfurtunately a hard fact that, just when the crumb of their past culture in their mind have finished in when the are going to awake to their present, and in that time, only then, they are gong to reconstruct their identity, their culture. Nothing in the world is static, culture nither, they are going “greet each other” in a recommencement, but not as it used to be.

 

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First Poem – Welsh History – R.S.Thomas

October 13th, 2008 by


September 25, 2008

Welsh History

We were a people taut for war; the hills
Were no harder, the thin grass
Clothed them more warmly than the coarse
Shirts our small bones.
We fought, and were always in retreat,
Like snow thawing upon the slopes
Of Mynydd Mawr; and yet the stranger
Never found our ultimate stand
In the thick woods, declaiming verse
To the sharp prompting of the harp.
Our kings died, or they were slain
By the old treachery at the ford.
Our bards perished, driven from the halls
Of nobles by the thorn and bramble.
We were a people bred on legends,
Warming our hands at the red past.
The great were ashamed of our loose rags
Clinging stubbornly to the proud tree
Of blood and birth, our lean bellies
And mud houses were a proof
Of our ineptitude for life.
We were a people wasting ourselves
In fruitless battles for our masters,
In lands to which we had no claim,
With men for whom we felt no hatred.
We were a people, and are so yet.
When we have finished quarrelling for crumbs
Under the table, or gnawing the bones
Of a dead culture, we will arise
And greet each other in a new dawn
Armed, but not in the old way.

R. S. Thomas (1913 – 2000)

Read this poem and blog about what  view of the past, present, and future of the Welsh people  R. S. Thomas shows.

Posted in Literature II | | | 0 Comments

Life is to live

September 23rd, 2008 by

Woulda-Coulda-Shoulda
BY
Shel Silverstein
All the Woulda-Coulda-Shouldas
Layin’ in the sun,
Talkin’ ’bout the things
They woulda coulda shoulda done…
But those Woulda-Coulda-Shouldas
All ran away and hid
From one little Did.

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