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ENG 45C, Elaborating on the idea of existence, Waiting for Godot also…

- - - - Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury is structured into 4 different perspectives, and he utilizes the art of language to situate readers into the minds of unnamed narrators. Where Benjy's memory is fragmented and non-linear, Quentin's narrative is fraught with anxiety and a deep fear. Jason's language is coherent, yet rooted in anger and a resentment for life, and Dilsey's chapter is almost detached from the personal pattern Faulkner has established previously.
    - - Melville emphasizes the use of "choice" in Bartleby. The whole phrase, "I would prefer not to," works because of its specificity in its word choice. We've talked a lot about the word "prefer", and how it adds to the meaning of the phrase because in a sense, Bartleby is acting in his inaction by speaking and actively choosing to not do something. Like Faulkner, language becomes an indication of the inner workings of a character's mind, allowing us as readers to draw connections between the power of "words" and the reflections they give us as insight.
      - Importance of word choice and language.
    - - The structure of "In the Station of the Metro" is condensed into a poem of two lines. Could the title be considered as part of the poetic structure? It is capitalized, and centered, while the contents of the poem itself are spaced strangely, with specific punctuation. In a poem like this, every single word matters, and Pound thoroughly depicts the power of choice within writing. The words in the lines of poetry almost stand as both literary and visual representations of meaning, and Pound manipulates the format in a way that renders it highly interpretative.
    - - "The Red Wheelbarrow" experiments with its style as each line relies on the one before it. The speaker also uses stark colors, namely white and red, to paint the scene of a wheelbarrow filled with rain water, and chickens pecking the ground beside it. This relates to the idea of "existence" that we have discussed, particularly in Waiting for Godot. Do the chickens exist without the wheelbarrow? If so, how does their existence change? Can they exist more with the wheelbarrow present, or less? Can the rain water exist without the wheelbarrow? If there is no container to rest in, there can be no pool of rain water in red.
    - - Hughes' language is lyrical and rhythmic, accentuated by the structure of his poetry. Mimicking the beat of music, "The Weary Blues" reflects the art of black music, carrying both the traumatic suffering of black history, and the celebration of creativity and art as a release of grief.
  - - - William Butler Yeats, "The Second Coming"
        
        "The Second Coming" includes Christian Imagery of the Apocalypse, referencing scripture from Revelations in the Bible. Yeats uses this Christian language to reflect the changing landscape of the world after World War I, illustrating the state of the shifting gears of bloodshed.
      - Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot
        
        Waiting for Godot also features religious motifs, including the root of the name "Godot" fundamentally. However, beyond that, there is an interesting section in Act I where Vladimir discusses the criminals who were crucified alongside Jesus Christ. He raises the question of "belief" in salvation, and whether or not we should believe that the thief who had faith was saved. Like Yeats, Christian references are used to reflect the states of the world, and in Beckett's case, to reflect the state of the mind.
      - William Butler Yeats, "Sailing to Byzantium"
        
        In "Sailing to Byzantium", Yeats depicts the connections between youth and old age. Within the poem, he writes of "God's holy fire", "the holy city of Byzantium", and depictions of an immortality that is achieved from leaving the mortal body. While not necessarily Christian in reference, like "The Second Coming" and "Waiting for Godot", "Sailing to Byzantium" uses religious language to illustrate a spiritual journey against the hardships of time.
    - - Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God
        
        In Hurston, we get many instance of nature being a reflection of a character's relation to the world around them. For example, we know about the pear tree, and its connection to Janie's relationship to sexuality and maturity. The lake at night, and the act of fishing in the wild, connects to Janie's taste of freedom. The hurricane as a symbol of devastation reflects the power of nature to give and take, and it ultimately takes Tea Cake's life. Even the mule is an element of nature that becomes a part of the town, though its treatment after death is something worth exploring. Nature becomes not only a way for Hurston to communicate beyond the level of the characters, but also becomes a natural indication of how deeply entwined the elements of the story are.
      - William Butler Yeats, "The Lake Isle of Innisfree"
        
        In this poem, Yeats describes the tranquility of Innisfree, emphasizing the "peace" of nature. Yet juxtaposed with the surroundings of nature is the presence of pavements and manmade roadways. In Yeats, nature is placed alongside industrialization, and we are made to think of the relationships between the coldness of modern convenience, and the warmth of traditional nights spent by the lake.
      - Langston Hughes, "The Negro Speaks of Rivers"
        
        In this Hughes poem, the river is deeply intertwined with the soul. The repetition of the line, "my soul has grown deep like the rivers" points to a parallel growth that cannot easily be unraveled. The act of "knowing" the rivers is also concrete. It is abstract, yet tangible and indestructible. The passage of time is evident, and yet the speaker, like the river, achieves a timelessness that flows with the currents.
      - H.D., "Oread"
        
        "Oread" is a short poem filled with depictions of nature. The sea has "pointed pines", and there are "rocks" and "pools of fir". "Oread" seems to be a marriage between the forest and the ocean, overseen by the commanding voice of the speaking nymph. Beyond the union of the trees and water, there is also a union between mythology and modernity.
      - James Joyce, "The Dead"
        
        The imagery of the snow in "The Dead" functions as a multi-purpose metaphor of nature. Snow both covers the character Gabriel, and also blankets the whole of the city when the story ends. There is much debate about what the snow represents, and some argue that the snow is a depiction of paralysis, both in marriage, and in politics. However, snow melts, and there is a certain sense of hope that lingers at the end of the narrative, when Gabriel looks out of the window and notices the falling specks. Despite the lack of movement that the snow represents, it can also be said that there are moments of great movement in the text as well. When Gretta listens to the music as the party ends, she is greatly moved, and in her memory there is movement, there is emotion. Though the snow may blanket everything, there are also ways in which it can be thawed, and places that it cannot touch.
      - H.D., "Eurydice"
        
        The depiction of flowers within this poem contrasts with the mentions of "dead lichens", "dead cinders", and "moss of ash". H.D.'s version of Eurydice is tragic because she knows of the beauty of the world. She can accurately describe the "golden crocuses", the "golden hearts of the first saffron", and "great fragrance", which is why "loss" holds another meaning for her. In the flowers she remembers, she finds no solace. Instead, those beautiful petals have turned into an inferno, a "hell [that] must open like a red rose/ for the dead to pass."
      - H.D., "Sea Rose"
        
        Much like "Eurydice", "Sea Rose" illustrates flowers as well. The speaker contrasts the harshness of the rose that harbors "meagre flower" and is "sparse of leaf" with the "wet rose/ single on a stem". Somehow, the rose that is less desirable is more "precious", illustrating a world of "crisp sand" and rising winds where resilience matters more than the delicacy of aesthetic appearances.
        
        Depictions of flowers as a mirror of feminine struggles and resilience.
      - William Carlos Williams, "Spring and All"
        
        "Spring and All" utilizes a set of natural depictions alongside manmade roads. The poem begins with a path to a contagious hospital, which evokes senses of danger, disease, and death. However, the speaker then describes a "sluggish dazed Spring", with the hope of grass and leaves growing "tomorrow". The last word of the poem is "awaken", and compared to the opening of the stanza, offers a hopeful approach to the coming days as warmth settles in. There is a sense that nature is thawing, just as humanity is undergoing the shifting of its seasons.
      - Langston Hughes, "Nude Young Dancer"
        
        "Nude Young Dancer" includes descriptions of "jungle trees", "forests", "nights", and "star-white moons". The young nude dancer is entwined with these descriptions of nature, as though her identity is in part deeply rooted in these depictions. The speaker questions the dancer, forming most of the lines as an inquiry. There is a sense of traditional history and modern industrialization meeting, clashing, and ultimately melding.
- - - - This was written shortly after the Easter Rising, where several Irish leaders were executed by the British for the uprising. Yeats moves from the vague uses of "they" and faceless figures, to the deliberate naming of those Irish leaders as commemoration. Through the poem, Yeats expresses his relation to Ireland's struggle for independence, and his poetic language depicts the anxieties that came along with the shifting tides of politics and war.
    - - The speaker continuously questions the state of America and the dream that it once was. And yet, amidst the idealizations and the dreams, the speaker also states, "America never was America to me." The American dream is one that seems ungraspable, or unattainable for those it was meant to be for. The question of "Who said the free? Not me? Surely not me?" emphasizes the state of confusion, uncertainty, and chaos that America has fallen into. There is a sense that though America was not, it can be, and will be. "And make America again!" suggests that the true idealization of America, where dreams come true, will be an America that is same in name, but different in nature.
  - - - In Poe's short story, we are thrown into a world in which the narrator tirelessly follows a strange man around the city. We are given descriptions of his clothes, the way he walks, and the way he interacts with his surroundings, but even at the end of the story, Poe gives us no clear answer to who "the man of the crowd is". It is stated that the narrator never finds out, and the story ends with ambiguity and room for interpretation. Poe's portrayal of uncertainty is one tightly linked to the idea of the Gothic, shrouded in mystery and containing elements of the bizarre and the unsettling.
    - - In The Turn of the Screw, the story builds up suspense by easing readers into a dreadful environment filled with mystery and hauntings. Like Poe, James' implementation of the idea of "uncertainty" likely stems from roots of Gothic literature. Both Poe and James use ambiguity to evoke the sense that there are many things we will never truly grasp or hold in our knowledge, as at the end of James' novel, one of the characters inexplicably dies without much explanation, leaving the narrative with a ghostly, yet unsolvable ending. In the era of Modernity, technology begins to rise, and science becomes a crucial part of society. And yet, despite all the new things that are coming to life in the world, there will always be uncertainties that are rooted in the mysteries of the past.
        
        Gothic Traditions
    - - Eliot's poem famously depicts the indecisive Prufrock, who oscillates between doubt, regret, and the lost possibilities of love. Perhaps it is here that we see a different sense of uncertainty, one that lies not in the Gothic horror of mystery, but in the musings of affection and passion. Prufrock's uncertainty is characterized by his repetitive questions as he seeks reassurance, and begs the question of whether "uncertainty" stems from external circumstances, or one's own inability to act.
    - - The play tackles themes of boredom, existence, memory, and time, but at the center of it all is the fundamental uncertainty of where the characters are, and who they are waiting for. While there may be speculations, this ambiguity renders the setting as a limbo of possibilities. Compared to the other texts, Beckett's uncertainty is characterized by manipulation of space, and connects to concepts of religion, philosophy, and human nature. If Poe's uncertainty reflects the relationship between man and the unknown, and Eliot's uncertainty touches upon the idea of "inability", then perhaps Beckett's uncertainty is best connected to speculation and a sense of self.
    - - Mrs. Dalloway experiments with the idea of uncertainty as well. Clarissa, throughout the entire book, constantly wonders whether or not she made the right decisions in life. The characters within the novel constantly are wondering about one another, never certain, never sure of what the other is thinking. In the case of Septimus, there is the sense that the doctors believe they know what is going on, but there is an uncertainty and a distance between the truth of Septimus' trauma. Furthermore, Woolf's use of stream of consciousness makes it so that thoughts and characters seem to blend seamlessly into one another. Beyond the uncertainties that exist within the plot of the narrative world, uncertainties also leave the fiction and reach us as the readers as well.