A Response to Livy's The History of Rome

Reading four pages of The History of Rome is definitely not enough to walk away with a full and satisfying understanding of it, so I won’t claim to be an expert on it. What I’m mainly going to discuss is the role of heroism in the text, because that is perhaps the most prevalent motif.

Perhaps the most obvious hero is Lucretia, the heroin who the story is primarily centered on. She is the virtuous wife of Collatinus who is raped by the tyrannical Sextus Tarquin. Sextus Tarquin rapes her not because he is actually interested in her body, but because he is jealous that she is more virtuous than his own wife. Lucretia is a beacon of goodness, being productive and patient and devoted; she is virtually being the poster child for wifedom.  In raping her he deprives her of her chastity which is a direct attack on her honor. As a means to maintain her honor, Lucretia  commits suicide. The penalty for being unchaste was death, and despite the fact that Lucretia knows that she was wrong, she feels as though she must suffer the consequence anyway so future unchaste women will not be able to claim her name to defend themselves.  She goes so far as to say:  “although I acquit myself of the sin, I do not free myself from the penalty. No unchaste woman shall henceforth live and plead Lucretia’s example.” Her sacrifice for the sake of her virtue is clearly a heroic act; her honor is so important to her that she gives her life in order to maintain it.

 Following Lucretia’s suicide, Brutus steps in to completely cleanse Rome of Lucius Tarquinius Superbus’s tyranny. This act is also very heroic, as it is another figure working to maintain the honor and glory of Rome, promoting welfare for the greater good.  However there is also a small act of heroism that I overlooked the first time I read it that came from neither Lucretia nor Brutus.

The consul L. Tarquinius is a very subtle hero. He had no part in Lucretia’s rape or in the tyranny in Rome, yet when he was urged to leave Rome because he shared the same name as the tyrant, he (unwilling) did so. The simple fact that he shared the same name as the oppressive king was seen as “an obstacle to full liberty,” and even though it seemed to be a “groundless fear,” when the time came L. Tarquinius complied with the will and “yielded to the universal wish.”

Acts like these are what I think makes a hero: making a major sacrifice that you don’t want to make and probably shouldn’t have to, but doing it anyway because it would help protect others is the root of heroism. Lucretia most likely didn’t want to kill herself, but she did it anyway to uphold the Roman ideal. L. Tarquinius is very similar; he exiled himself because the Roman people felt he was an obstacle of liberty and he wanted to promote liberty for the greater good. That’s basically what heroism is: giving yourself up for the greater good.

There is so much more that could be said about Livy’s The History of Rome, but for fear of hopping off of one soap box only to climb onto another one, I’ll let it end there. 

Livy's The History of Rome

So I suppose that since I am finally posting, now would be an appropriate time to post a piece of literature I had the pleasure of discussing with some of the bright minds of the university I would like to attend. Earlier this month I was invited to sit among current students and alumni as they discussed an excerpt from Livy’s The History of Rome (private victory).  So I’ll put my response to it in a separate post, but here is the text. 

Link to "The Man He Killed"

Oops! Almost forget to include this link for "The Man He Killed"

A Comparison of The Awakening to The Age of Innocence

I don’t typically like feminist literature. This is not because I’m against feminism or anything, as I am very obviously female and also very obviously enjoy having equal rights and opportunities. I don’t usually enjoy feminist literature for the sheer fact that I feel that it displays women as being irrational and hard headed. That’s mostly because the first work of feminist literature I ever read was Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, and my sincere and eternal hatred of Edna and her silliness kind of tainted every work of feminist literature that followed.

That being said, it should seem obvious that I wouldn’t be overjoyed when I picked up Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence. The novel isn’t actually a feminist work; it is actually told from a male perspective. However, simply knowing that what I was reading was going to have a strong focus on gender roles sent me into one of those oh-lord-please-not-another-Edna-esque-character state of minds. I was as happy as is to be expected from me when I started reading it.

However, once I got into the story a little bit, I found that I really liked it. It was surprisingly appealing. The novel has an interesting storyline, which despite having some similarities to that of Kate Chopin’s novel, is much more exciting. I definitely found that I can tolerate the main character a lot better (which further shows my disdain for Edna, as I don’t like Newland at all).

Though reading a plot summary of the two would make them seem like identical stories told from the perspective of different genders, there is so much variation in the plots that makes The Age of Innocence superior to The Awakening. At least, that’s how I see it.

For one thing, the main character of The Age of Innocence, the one who is engaged in a war with himself, is male. Secondly, he is not married at the opening of the novel. Where I understand that Edna being female and being a complex, thinking creature is the heart of the novel and that her not doing things she doesn’t want to do is intended to show her strength, she just seemed really silly the way I read it. It seemed kind of backwards that a book that’s supposed to demonstrate that women are more than happy housewives would make the primary character seem so weak and irrational. Edna was entirely ruled by her emotions.  She did make conscious decisions to do whatever she wanted to do regardless of social norms, which is admirable, but she did little besides that. She had an affair. She hung out in a hammock. She moved out. But she failed to show her intellectual value or her rationality  or anything besides her selfishness. 

Newland Archer is just as silly as Edna in my opinion, but for different reasons. He is overly concerned with the public opinion, he is scholarly and doesn’t miss an opportunity to show his intellectual prowess, and he is overwhelming male. Yet at the same time, he is irrational and emotional and confused. Though he is so male which would make him seem so superior compared to his fiancée or her cousin, he possess traits which make him seem, for lack of a better term, feminine.  His silliness makes him seem weak and vulnerable while making the ladies in the story seem likable by comparison: May seems like a darling but unfortunate product of the social system, while Countess Olenska seems like a disturbed, but empowered woman who has overcome adversity to reclaim her destiny. The woman in this novel seem entirely more composed than Edna. The male is the one falling apart and being silly, which makes the women seem even more admirable. The characters are much more likeable, the plot is much more realistic, and the gender dynamics are much more equal in The Age of Innocence than in The Awakening.

I will get off my soap box before this turns into an anti-Awakening rant, but once I am deeper into The Age of Innocence, I will write a more formal analysis of it.

Until then, please feel free to leave me a comment either supporting or retorting my reasoning for disliking Edna.  

"The Man He Killed"

The poem “The Man He Killed” is a very brief poem that, despite the fact that it is merely 20 lines long, holds a big message about the aberrant and pointless nature of war. It focuses on the relevance of circumstance in war by stating that should the soldiers have met in any other place but on the battle field, they likely would be friends.  

As a quick history lesson, allow me to provide a tidbit of background information on the author. Thomas Hardy  is considered a “Victorian realist” due to the fact that his writings frequently criticize social norms that hinder people’s lives, ultimately leading to unhappiness. Hardy is a product of London, born to Thomas and Jemima Hardy in Higher Brockhampton in 1840. Hardy never truly felt comfortable in London, as he was conscious of class divisions and social injustice from a young age. His writings reflect his feelings towards society, placing emphasis on the strangeness of social norms and the status quo.

“The Man He Killed” is told from the perspective of a soldier as he reflects on killing a man on the battle field. It’s opening stanza creates an alternative situation in which the two opposing forces met in a place outside of the battle field, saying they would “have sat us down to wet/ right many a nipperkin!” The sense of peace and companionship between the two men in this imaginary circumstance differs drastically  from the circumstance posed in the next stanza, the situation that truly occurred. Instead of embracing each other as friends, they shoot at each other, and the speaker kills the other soldier.

The speaker is torn between a feeling of justification and guilt regarding the memory. He attempts to justify the kill, stating desperately that he “shot him dead because-- because he was my foe” but at the same time shows a clear sense of confusion as to why it was necessary to kill the other man. He sees a resemblance between himself and the other soldier. He draws the comparison on the reason why they enlisted: they were “out of work—had sold [their traps].” The comparison between himself and the other soldier causes him to question the purpose of the kill; it humanizes the other soldier, making him seem just as real as the speaker or any of his comrades and therefore makes the kill seem more like a murder than a justified act of war. The act of killing a man that “if met where any bar is” would likely be a friend solely because it is a war makes the war seem barbaric and pointless.

This poem is entirely demonstrative of the nature of war. It shows how a man who would most likely be a friend or at least an acquaintance instantly becomes an enemy for the sake of the fight. Both parties are wronged, but neither of them can be held fully accountable for their actions because it is a war and they are simply doing what is expected with them. They are going with the status quo.

 In any regards, Hardy's "The Man He Killed" is an extremely powerful poem that causes one to reflect on the status quo and question it. 

I just realized I've gone an entire month without posting anything. Oh no! I must post before November is gone!

Side Note

I'm on my way to bed and now I'm really wishing that I hadn't made writing about a psycho that kills you in your dreams the last thing I did tonight. Oh well. Happy Halloween.

In Honor of Halloween

Because it is Halloween, I felt it necessary to post one entry to acknowledge it. Just one. And I’m probably going to have nightmares after this, just for irony’s sake.

The story I’m talking about is one that started off scary, and then gradually became the joke of horror movies, being far funnier than they are scary. Admittedly the movies are not scary at all (unless you are under the age of 11 or have a very weak stomach).  But the story itself is horrifying, and still manages to terrify me simply because of the concept.

The story I’m talking about is the classic story of Freddie Krueger, the nightmare of Elm Street.

Before you lose all interest, allow me to explain why this is scary.

A Nightmare on Elm Street manages to focus on the most basic fears of people. One is the loss of identity. Another is the loss of control. And the third is a child or innocent coming into harm’s way.

Allow me to explain further. Freddie Krueger is the son of a nun who became trapped in a mental asylum overnight and was raped repeatedly by the inmates. It is for this reason that he is known as “the bastard son of one hundred maniacs.” If the subject of rape was disturbing enough, then the product of those rapes definitely is. It left Freddie not knowing his true parentage. Nobody was able to determine who his father really was, which left him with no true sense of identity apart from being a bastard child and the product of rape. He was born without an identity, and had to carry that burden with him the rest of his life.

Freddie attacks people when they are asleep. Disregard how he got the power to enter people’s dreams, because that’s not what matters here. The part of this power that creates fear is that these people are attacked at their most vulnerable moments. They are in a dream that they have absolutely no control over. Not only are they unable to fight back, but they are also alone in their own minds and are essentially destroyed from the inside out in a way that they have no control over. They have lost all control, and are destroyed in their weakest moments.

Freddie typically preys on children, specifically the children of the people who killed him (so you’re safe. Congratulations!) The fear of children being hurt is an easy enough fear to comprehend: people feel obligated to protect those who are innocent and helpless, and don’t like seeing them come into harm’s way. That’s why Slenderman and the Toothfairy from that horror movie are so freaky. Like Freddie, they find joy in destroying young and innocent lives.

 These fears are the core of the story, and they are what make it scary without the ridiculous special effects and weird methods of deaths. They target the most common fears of people and illustrate them. That is why they are still very relevant and still very scary. 

A Comparison of a Not-So-Good King and A Serpent

Something that disturbs me about John Gardner’s Grendel is that it makes the concepts of good and evil so indistinguishable from each other that, in the long run, everything seems very similar.  What I mean is that the main character, Grendel, is partially human and partially beastly. Therefore, he is a sort of link between what is referred to as the civilized world and the primal world. He is a character that would usually be labeled as evil, but because he is so human, it is difficult to just say flat out “Yep. Grendel is the bad guy.” Furthermore, because he has traits that make him so human but also so beastly at the same time, it by comparison makes the humans seem beastly and the beasts seem human.

Foil after foil is created: Grendel to the dragon, the dragon to the shaper, Grendel to the shaper, the shaper to Wealtheow, Hrothgar to the shaper, Grendel to Unferth, this one to that one and those guys and the list could keep going. However, there is one foil that, even though I was able to recognize it, I’m still not exactly sure how I feel about it.

The dragon and Hrothgar are very similar. At first it struck me as odd that they should be. After all, Hrothgar is supposedly a “good king” according to Beowulf. He is the ring-giving, the symbol of order and unity, the very heart of the Danes.  He is the person who originally brought the Danes together as a brotherhood. The dragon is the complete opposite, being a nihilist and a loner and probably a little crazy (although that’s arguable). In black and white terms, the dragon is the evil one and Hrothgar is good, and that’s all there is too it. However, they are too similar to let their likenesses go ignored. Both the dragon and the king seek gold and guard it. The king gathers it in his mead hall and distributes it to his thanes, and the dragon collects it and counts it. Additionally, both of them have an affinity for virgins. Hrothgar collects Wealtheow as a sort of war agreement and makes her the queen, and dragons typically just take them and guard them for no apparent reason. I don’t really understand the purpose of that, but to each his own.

Basically, both parties seek to acquire things that really serve them no purpose. They hoard virtually useless things, and their greed creates stagnation. The dragon’s greed and lust for virgins and gold is predominantly why he is associated with evil. Yet Hrothgar is doing the exact same thing.

This is where I am ambivalent. Is the foil of the dragon and the king to display Hrothgar as evil and beastly, or to display the dragon as human and good? Or even more likely, it is present to display both as neither good nor evil? Personally, I think that the foil is to demonstrate that all men, no matter how “good” they seem, are inherently evil and self-serving, but even now I can’t be sure that that was the intention. That’s the reason why this is both my favorite and most hated foil. It compares the king, someone who supposedly epitomizes good, to the dragon, a creature so indifferent to creation and destruction that he has to be evil. 

Link to "Plato's Allegory of the Cave"

http://www.greenvalleyhs.org/library/Documents/PlatoAllegoryCave.pdf

A Personal Response to "Plato's Allegory of the Cave"

As another companion piece for my current read (John Gardner’s Grendel) I read Plato’s Allegory of the Cave.  In summary, the allegory serves as an explanation of enlightenment: it opens in a cave where many prisoners are chained to a rock facing a wall, where they can observe nothing but their shadows. When one of the prisoners is freed and is able to escape to the outside world, he is opened up to knowledge that he never had in his days in the cave. When he returns to the cave, he tries to share his knowledge with the other prisoners, but is ridiculed and is considered stupid for understanding things differently from the rest of the prisoners.

                Grendel directly parallels the allegory: similar to the prisoner, Grendel makes an ascent to the surface world, an ascension that brings him out of the reality that has been created for him since his birth and up to the surface world where he finds himself in a world much bigger than he ever knew. They, alone, are the ones who are able to escape to the outside world and “contemplate the sun” as Plato calls it. This is what sets them apart; they are the enlightened, the sole possessors of knowledge that nobody else of their company can comprehend without experiencing it for themselves.

                As Plato says “It is the task of the enlightened not only to ascend to learning and to see the good but to be willing to descend again to those prisoners and to share their troubles and their honors, whether they are worth having or not. And this they must do, even with the prospect of death.”

                This statement brings me to the ultimate question: is it better to be enlightened, or is it safer to stay in the cave and never leave it?

                As the freed prisoner from the allegory found, once you leave the cave there is no way to return to it. Similarly, after Grendel was “charmed” by the dragon and given knowledge, he found it to be a burden, and wished that he was “curled up, asleep like a bear, in [his] cave” (pg. 137). This statement carries the full weight of Grendel’s burden. He is carrying the weight of knowledge, weight that he is finding himself having difficulty lugging around with him. Though it can be argued that Grendel (and the prisoner, for that matter) are better off knowing what the world has to offer, the burden they have to carry outweighs the benefit of the knowledge.

                This theme is seen over and over again: it is in Frankenstein, where Dr. Frankenstein pursues knowledge only to have it destroy him after his newly gained knowledge allows him to create a monster. It is in Winesburg, Ohio, when George Willard takes a “backward view of life” and is open to insecurity, pain, and struggle for the first time in his 18 years of life. It is seen in The Catcher in the Rye, when Holden Caulfield is able to see through the “phoniness” of others, and basically becomes an existentialist because of it. Over and over again, in novel after novel and page after page, the cycle is repeated: a hero is given knowledge, and it destroys him. So why seek it in the first place?

                Personally, I think it is better not to know. That is my personal opinion and I’m stating it expecting some criticism, but I would prefer not to know. A downfall is inevitable, so why speed it up by seeking knowledge that is not necessary to achieve happiness? Much like Grendel, I would rather be asleep in my cave. 

A Link to "The Mental Traveller"

http://www.bartleby.com/235/134.html

An Attempt at William Blake's "The Mental Traveller"

  Upon reading “The Mental Traveller” by William Blake, D.G. Rossetti  who initially published the manuscript declared it a “hopeless riddle.” It is with that knowledge that I very happily decided to take a crack at interpreting it to accompany my current read, John Gardner’s Grendel. Gardner opens the book with an except from the poem: “and if the babe is born a boy/ he’s given to a woman old/ who nails him down upon a rock/ catches his shrieks in cups of gold” (lines 9-12)

                The poem is rich with imagery, specifically biblical imagery. The aforementioned child seems like a model of Christ, as he is pierced on “both his hands and feet” and crowned with “iron thorns around his head.” Additionally, the “woman old” who initially nails him to the rock and feeds off of shrieks closely resembles the Whore of Babylon from the book of Revelation, a lady who was “adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls, having in her hand a golden cup full of abominations” (Revelation 17:4).

                Additionally, mythological references are present, particularly a reference to Prometheus. Similar to the infant boy, Prometheus is chained to a rock as an eternal punishment for stealing fire from the gods and giving it to man. His liver is pecked out daily by an eagle. The liver was believed to be the organ associated with life and emotion in the same way that the heart is the organ that is more modernly associated with emotion.

                However, the biblical imagery and mythological references seem very ironic when juxtaposed with the author of the poem himself: William Blake is probably best known for developing his own mythology based on religion in which God is a tyrannical figure, while the Luciferian  figure Ork is regarded as a hero for rebelling against the tyrant god. The majority of the belief system was based on the concept of contrast, the idea that with light there must be dark, and with creation there must be destruction to create balance.

                In my personal interpretation of “The Mental Traveller,” the idea of this balance was what I found to be one of the most prevalent themes. The poem is structured in a cyclical pattern, in which the old woman feeds on the energies of the infant to prosper and regain her youth, and then the infant, now a youth, must deprive the woman of her energy. The cycle repeats itself as the female character and male character struggle against one another. However, the struggle is necessary for the survival of both parties: one cannot exist without the other. They feed off of each other and one can’t live without the other.

                I think that this is predominately why Gardner chose to open Grendel with an excerpt from this poem: to introduce the idea of interdependence. Similar to the man and woman in the poem, Grendel and the Danes need each other. Grendel fuels their religious and societal beliefs: without being able to identify him as evil, the Danes would not be able to identify of appreciate goodness. As the dragon says, Grendel “improves” the Danes by giving them something to believe in. The Danes reciprocate this by giving Grendel something to believe in: The Danes give Grendel something to despise through their wastefulness and hatefulness.  

                “The Mental Traveller” was a mystery when I started reading it. It still is, for the most part. But overall, my take away from it was the motif of interdependence, how two halves are necessary for the creation of a whole, and that one half causes the other half to thrive. 

"To Autumn" by John Keats

                                      1.

    SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
        Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
    Conspiring with him how to load and bless
        With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
    To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
        And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
            To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
    With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
        And still more, later flowers for the bees,
        Until they think warm days will never cease,
            For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.

                                            2.

    Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
        Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
    Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
        Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
    Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,
        Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
            Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
    And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
        Steady thy laden head across a brook;
        Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
            Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

                                            3.

    Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
        Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
    While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
        And touch the stubble plains with rosy hue;
    Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
        Among the river sallows, borne aloft
            Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
    And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
        Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
        The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
           And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

http://www.potw.org/archive/potw279.html

Link to "Respectability"

http://www.bartleby.com/156/13.html

"Respectability"

Sherwood Anderson's novel Winesburg, Ohio is a book that I probably talk about too much. That is because it is so complex. It can be read as either a series of short stories or a novel, seems to go out of chronological order, and leads up to two huge, overpowering questions: 1. What did I just read? And 2. Why? 

I would like to focus on just one of the stories in it right now (though might decide to come back two or three hours from now and attempt to analyze the other stories and tie them to a novel as a whole). The story I want to discuss is called “Respectability.”

Firstly, let’s examine the question of “What did I just read?”

The story centers on Wash Williams, a dirty telegraph operator who has a strong hatred for mankind, especially women.

This hatred for women is rooted in Wash’s love for one woman. He was once married to a woman who he loved dearly, however she cheated on him with multiple men. Though he is disgusted with the act she committed, she longs to forgive her and to just put the matter aside. However, when he visits her at her mother’s house, her mother undresses her and pushes her into the room where he is waiting. He finds it so revolting that he beats the girl’s mother with a chair.

And now for the “Why?”

This story is another of Anderson’s commentaries on the difference between sex and love. Wash Williams is so repulsed by the perversion of his love that it drives him to the hatred of the entire sex of women. The entire story is ironic: the girl’s mother attempts to resolve an issue that began with sex with more sex. The title, “Respectability,” connotes high class people that are worthy of reverence, however, the family of the girl prove to be the exact opposite of respectable. Even the main characters name is ironic: “Wash” carries the implication of being clean, well-kept, and unsoiled. However, the character we find is dirty on the inside and out. He was tainted by his relations with the girl: she defiled their marriage through adultery, which, in turn, defiled Wash (first emotionally, as he was filled with disgust, then mentally, as his mind was made dirty with hatred). The only indication that he was not always dirty and foul is his hands, which he takes very good care of.

The story has depth to it: it is more than a story about how adultery is bad and should be frowned upon, or how the people who are the highest up in society are capable of committing the lowest acts. It compares sex and true love, and emphasizes the difference between the two.

In this sense, it is similar to Anderson’s other stories. “Hands” and “Nobody Knows” both involve a confusion between sex and love (in the former case, a teacher is accused of molesting his students, in the latter a young lady loses her virginity to a young man, thinking that the sexual act is a step into adulthood). However, “Respectability” makes a deeper impact than the other stories, portraying the perversion of love as a horrific, downright vile act. 

 

Link to "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"

http://www.bartleby.com/198/1.html

In the Room The Women Come and Go, Talking of Michelangelo: An Analysis of "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"

There comes a rare moment while reading a fine work of literature when everything makes sense. The reader makes a connection with the piece and with the author, and experiences a moment of enlightenment. 

Anyone who has ever experienced this feeling can either empathize with me or laugh at me because that feeling is the exact inverse of what I felt while reading "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock."

In parts I struggled to understand who or what the speaker was talking about, and in other places I found myself wondering how this poem was a love song at all.

To me, it seems to be less about love and more about sex (or sexual frustration, rather). Right from the first stanza, it's all about sex. The mention of what the speaker calls "muttering retreats/ of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels/ and sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells" immediately emanates sexual desire. It is no coincidence that the shell should be that of an oyster, which is considered an aphrodisiac and is commonly associated with sex. Additionally, there are only so many reasons that a night in a cheap hotel would be restless. Perhaps the street lights seeping through the window curtains were keeping the speaker up all night, but it's doubtful. 

I wouldn't go so far as to say that the speaker is wondering through a brothel during the poem, but the lines do hold a sense of desire and frustration.  

Personally, I found the message of the poem to be an attempt to express a desire (in this case a carnal desire) and the inability to communicate that desire due to human scrutiny.

The speaker repeatedly implies that he feels exposed in the public sphere, as if he were “pinned and wriggling on the wall” like a prized insect being labeled and displayed by the “eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase.” These eyes that scrutinize and examine him are the eyes of women at parties, which indicates that he feels judged by women and does not feel able to make a connection with them. The scrutiny causes him to be nervous and to doubt himself, dwelling on unattractive details about himself such as how he is growing bald.

The scrutiny and nervousness causes him to lose all human connection that he has; he no longer has any comfort in expressing himself, so much that he feels that he is unable to express himself at all. His tie with mankind has entirely been severed.

This is my main take away for the poem, but so much more can be said! I hate focusing in on one angel and not mentioning anything else, so for brevity’s sake I will just touch on a few key aspects.

1.     The epigraph of the poem is from Dante’s Inferno, and the speaker of these lines is Guido I da Montefeltro, who was condemned to the 8^th circle of hell (home to the fraudulent) for giving false counsel. The literal translation implies that the person speaking the lines is a sinner and is only telling the story because it will never be able to be retold. The use of these lines at the beginning of the poem implies that Prufrock is a sinner and has a story to tell that he is ashamed of.

2.     In the first line “Let us go then, you and I,” the personal pronouns are ambiguous. It is never clearly stated if there is a literal story teller and listener or if both the “you” and “I” are two different halves of Prufrock’s consciousness (which, in my opinion, seems more likely due to the fact that a story can definitely never be retold if you’re telling it to yourself.)

3.     None of the women in the poem are literally said to be women. They are described by their arms, eyes, dresses, and perfume, which emphasizes the feeling of dehumanization that the poem is meant to express.

     4.     Each stanza is a separate image. The poem transitions between the image of a patient         laying on a table, to a dirty city setting,  to a self-conscious middle-aged man grooming himself, etc.

The Hairpin by Guy de Maupassant

I WILL NOT RECORD THE NAME EITHER OF THE COUNTRY OR OF the man concerned. It was far, very far from this part of the world, on a fertile and scorching sea-coast. All morning we had been following a coast clothed with crops and a blue sea clothed in sunlight. Flowers thrust up their heads quite close to the waves, rippling waves, so gentle, drowsing. It was hot--a relaxing heat, redolent of the rich soil, damp and fruitful: one almost heard the rising of the sap.

I had been told that, in the evening, I could obtain hospitality in the house of a Frenchman, who lived at the end of a headland, in an orange grove. Who was he? I did not yet know. He had arrived one morning, ten years ago; he had bought a piece of ground, planted vines, sown seed; he had worked, this man, passionately, furiously. l hen, month by month, year by year, increasing his demesne, continually fertilising the lusty and virgin soil, he had in this way amassed a fortune by his unsparing labour.

Yet he went on working, all the time, people said. Up at dawn, going over his fields until night, always on the watch, he seemed to be goaded by a fixed idea, tortured by an insatiable lust for money, which nothing lulls to sleep, and nothing can appease.

Now he seemed to be very rich.

The sun was just setting when I reached his dwelling. This was, indeed, built at the end of an out-thrust cliff, in the midst of orange-trees. It was a large plain-looking house, built four-square, and overlooking the sea.

As I approached, a man with a big beard appeared in the door way. Greeting him, I asked him to give me shelter for the night. He held out his hand to me, smiling.

"Come in, sir, and make yourself at home."

He led the way to a room, put a servant at my disposal, with the perfect assurance and easy good manners of a man of the world; then he left me, saying:

"We will dine as soon as you are quite ready to come down."

We did indeed dine alone, on a terrace facing the sea. At the beginning of the meal, I spoke to him of this country, so rich, so far from the world, so little known. He smiled, answering indifferently.

"Yes, it is a beautiful country. But no country is attractive that lies so far from the country of one's heart."

"You regret France?"

"I regret Paris."

"Why not go back to it?"

"Oh, I shall go back to it."

Then, quite naturally, we began to talk of French society, of the boulevards, and people, and things of Paris. He questioned me after the manner of a man who knew all about it, mentioning names, all the names familiar on the Vaudeville promenade.

"Who goes to Tortoni's now?"

"All the same people, except those who have died."

I looked at him closely, haunted by a vague memory. Assuredly I had seen this face somewhere. But where? but when? He seemed weary though active, melancholy though determined. His big fair beard fell to his chest, and now and then he took hold of it below the chin and, holding it in his closed hand, let the whole length of it run through his fingers. A little bald, he had heavy eyebrows and a thick moustache that merged into the hair covering his cheeks. Behind us the sun sank in the sea, flinging over the coast a fiery haze. The orange-trees in full blossom filled the air with their sweet, heady scent. He had eyes for nothing but me, and with his intent gaze he seemed to peer through my eyes, to see in the depths of my thoughts the far-off, familiar, and well-loved vision of the wide, shady pavement that runs from the Madeleine to the Rue Drouot.

"Do you know Boutrelle?"

"Yes, well."

"Is he much changed?"

"Yes, he has gone quite white."

"And La Ridamie?"

"Always the same."

"And the women? Tell me about the woman. Let me see, Do you know Suzanne Verner?"

"Yes, very stout. Done for."

"Ah! And Sophie Astier?"

"Dead."

"Poor girl! And is . . . do you know. . . ."

But he was abruptly silent. Then in a changed voice, his face grown suddenly pale, he went on:

"No, it would be better for me not to speak of it any more, it tortures me."

Then, as if to change the trend of his thoughts, he rose.

"Shall we go in?"

"I am quite ready."

And he preceded me into the house.

The rooms on the ground floor were enormous, bare, gloomy, apparently deserted. Napkins and glasses were scattered about the tables, left there by the swan-skinned servants who prowled about this vast dwelling all the time. Two guns were hanging from two nails on the wall, and in the corners I saw spades, fishing-lines, dried palm leaves, objects of all kinds, deposited there by people who happened to come into the house, and remaining there within easy reach until someone happened to go out or until they were wanted for a job of work.

My host smiled.

"It is the dwelling, or rather the hovel; of an exile," said he, "but my room is rather more decent. Let's go there."

My first thought, when I entered the room, was that I was penetrating into a second-hand dealer's, so full of things was it, all the incongruous, strange, and varied things that one feels must be mementoes. On the walls two excellent pictures by well-known artists, hangings, weapons, swords and pistols, and then, right in the middle of the most prominent panel, a square of white satin in a gold frame.

Surprised, I went closer to look at it and I saw a hairpin stuck in the centre of the gleaming material.

My host laid his hand on my shoulder.

"There," he said, with a smile, "is the only thing I ever look at in this place, and the only one I have seen for ten years. Monsieur Prudhomme declared: 'This sabre is the finest day of my life!' As for me, I can say: 'This pin is the whole of my life!'"

I sought for the conventional phrase; I ended by saying:

"Some woman has made you suffer?"

He went on harshly:

"I suffer yet, and frightfully. . . . But come on to my balcony. A name came to my lips just now, that I dared not utter, because if you had answered 'dead,' as you did for Sophie Astier, I should have blown out my brains, this very day."

We had gone out on to a wide balcony looking towards two deep valleys, one on the right and the other on the left, shut in by high sombre mountains. It was that twilight hour when the vanished sun lights the earth only by its reflection in the sky.

He continued:

"Is Jeanne de Limours still alive?"

His eye was fixed on mine, full of shuddering terror.

I smiled.

"Very much alive . . . and prettier than ever."

"You know her?"

"Yes."

He hesitated:

"Intimately?"

"No."

He took my hand:

"Talk to me about her."

"But there is nothing I can say: she is one of the women, or rather one of the most charming and expensive gay ladies in Paris. She leads a pleasant and sumptuous life, and that's all one can say."

He murmured: "I love her," as if he had said: "I am dying." Then abruptly:

"Ah, for three years, what a distracting and glorious life we lived! Five or six times I all but killed her; she tried to pierce my eyes with that pin at which you have been looking. There, look at this little white speck on my left eye. We loved each other! How can I explain such a passion? You would not understand it.

"There must be a gentle love, born of the swift mutual union of two hearts and two souls; but assuredly there exists a savage love, cruelly tormenting, born of the imperious force which binds together two discordant beings who adore while they hate.

"That girl ruined me in three years. I had four millions which she devoured quite placidly, in her indifferent fashion, crunching them up with a sweet smile that seemed to die from her eyes on to her lips.

"You know her? There is something irresistible about her. What is it? I don't know. Is it those grey eyes whose glance thrusts like a gimlet and remains in you like the barb of an arrow? It is rather that sweet smile, indifferent and infinitely charming, that dwells on her face like a mask. Little by little her slow grace invades one, rises from her like a perfume, from her tall, slender body, which sways a little as she moves, for she seems to glide rather than walk, from her lovely, drawling voice that seems the music of her smile, from the very motion of her body, too, a motion that is always restrained, always just right, taking the eye with rapture, so exquisitely proportioned it is. For three years I was conscious of no one but her. How I suffered! For she deceived me with every one. Why? For no reason, for the mere sake of deceiving. And when I discovered it, when I abused her as a light-o'-love and a loose woman, she admitted it calmly. 'We're not married, are we?' she said.

"Since I have been here, I have thought of her so much that I have ended by understanding her: that woman is Manon Lescaut come again. Manon could not love without betraying for Manon, love, pleasure, and money were all one."

He was silent. Then, some minutes later:

"When I had squandered my last sou for her, she said to me quite simply: 'You realise, my dear, that I cannot live on air and sunshine. I love you madly, I love you more than anyone in the world, but one must live. Poverty and I would never make good bedfellows.'

"And if I did but tell you what an agonising life I had lead with her! When I looked at her, I wanted to kill her as sharply as I wanted to embrace her. When I looked at her . . . I felt a mad impulse to open my arms, to take her to me and strangle her. There lurked in her, behind her eyes, something treacherous and for ever unattainable that made me execrate her; and it is perhaps because of that that I loved her so. In her, the Feminine, the detestable and distracting Feminine, was more puissant than in any other woman. She was charged with it, surcharged as with an intoxicating and venomous fluid. She was Woman, more essentially than any one woman has ever been.

"And look you, when I went out with her, she fixed her glance on every man, in such a way that she seemed to be giving each one of them her undivided interest. That maddened me and yet held me to her the closer. This woman, in the mere act of walking down the street, was owned by every man in it, in spite of me, in spite of herself, by virtue of her very nature, although she bore herself with a quiet and modest air. Do you understand?

"And what torture! At the theatre, in the restaurant, it seemed to me that men possessed her under my very eyes. And as soon as I left her company, other men did indeed possess her.

"It is ten years since I have seen her, and I love her more then ever."

Night had spread its wings upon the earth. The powerful scent of orange-trees hung in the air.

I said to him:

"You will see her again?"

He answered:

"By God, yes. I have here, in land and money, from seven to eight hundred thousand francs. When the million is complete, I shall sell all and depart. I shall have enough for one year with her--one entire marvellous year. And then goodbye, my life will be over."

I asked:

"But afterwards?"

"Afterwards, I don't know. It will be the end. Perhaps I shall ask her to keep me on as her body-servant." 

Duality by Tina Chang

Perhaps I hold people to impossible ideals,

I tell them, something is wrong with your

personality, (you’re a drinker, you’re

too dependent, or I think you have

a mother/son fixation). This is usually

followed by passionate lovemaking,

one good long and very well meaning

embrace, and then I’m out the door. 

In daylight, I’ll tip my sunglasses forward,

buy a cup of tea and think of the good

I’ve done for the world, how satisfying

it feels to give a man something to contemplate.

The heart is a whittled twig. No, that is not

the right image, so I drop the heart in a pile

of wood and light that massive text on fire.   

I walk the streets of Brooklyn looking

at this storefront and that, buy a pair of shoes

I can’t afford, pumps from London, pointed

at the tip and heartbreakingly high, hear

my new heels clicking, crushing the legs

of my shadow. The woman who wears

these shoes will be a warrior, will not think

about how wrong she is, how her calculations

look like the face of a clock with hands

ticking with each terrorizing minute.

She will for an instant feel so much

for the man, she left him lying in his bed

softly weeping. He whispers something

to himself  like bitch, witch, cold hearted

______,  but he’ll think back to the day

at the promenade when there was no one there

but the two of them, the entire city falling away

into a thin film of yellow and then black,

and how she squeezed his hand, kissed him

on his wrist which bore a beautifully healed

scar, he will love her between instances

of cursing her name. She will have long

fallen asleep in her own bed, a thin nude

with shoes like stilts, shoes squeezing

the blood out of her feet, and in her sleep

she rises above a disappearing city, her head

touching a remote heaven, though below her,

closer to the ground, she feels an ache at the bottom.