Joseph Melanson
American Literature II
Prof. McAllister
15 April 2012
Third Written Assignment
1. Consider one of the pieces of literature from Modules 6 and 7 and explore its connections to the political and social context in which it was written. Give specific examples from the work to support your response.
When Bob Dylan’s song “The Times They Are A-Changin’” came out in 1964, America had already been through two long brutal wars in World War II, in the Korean war, and now it was entering the early stages of the Vietnam conflict. Bob Dylan references Noah in the Bible’s Book of Genesis, where God told Noah to build an ark and save himself and the people he cares for.
“Come gather ‘round people
Whenever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You’ll be drenched to the bone”. (1-6. 1531-32.)
Dylan calls to the people of power, those educated people, those who have the ability to influence others, those who can get the world’s attention with their way with words to use their power for good.
“Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen” (10-11. 1531-32).
Dylan warns these people “the chance won’t come again” and to choose your words carefully “for the wheel’s still in spin”, and “there’s no tellin’ who that its namin’” (13-16. 1531-32).
Dylan speaks to the government officials specifically in these lines, “Come senators, congressmen” and in “there’s a battle outside and it is ragin’”, he informs them “It’ll soon shake your windows and rattle your walls” (25-26. 1531-32).
But no matter what happens “the times they are a-changin’.”
3. Select one poem from Modules 6 or 7 and write a clear and detailed explanation of its poetic structure (stanza form, rhyme, rhythm) and language (sentence structure, diction, figurative language).
The poem is 16 stanzas, at five lines each. The lines in each stanza are more or less the same size, ranging from nine words in one line of one stanza, to two in another stanza. It is in relation to the purpose of the stanza, that the words are used. The rhyme seems to center on the word “you” which figures prominently in the poem. In almost every line, other words that rhyme with “you”, words like “who”, “two”, “do”, “through”, “blue”, and “Jew” are used in comparison or contrast of the word “you”, this
word referring to Sylvia Plath’s father.
She has been under his stifling heel for thirty of her years, perhaps the sum of her life, being confined and crushed by his existence. She relates him to the German people and nation, perhaps equating the idea of her father to the idea of Germany, and all the atrocities and torment it had cost the world in the past few decades of Plath’s writing this poem. A “Polish town” flattened by the “roller, Of wars, wars, wars” (1519, 16-18). “I thought every German was you” (1519, 29) and equating herself to a “Jew to Dachau, Auschwitz, Belsen” (1519, 33). As much as the horrors and atrocities of the German dictator Hitler still live and terrify the people who live at the time of Plath’s poem, so does the legacy of Plath’s father still effects her. In order to be free of him and the power and influence that he had over her, she must kill him, in her own mind anyway.
5. Sometimes people who are taking a literature study ask me, “Why aren’t there any happy stories/poems/plays? Everything seems so bleak and depressing.” Reflect on the readings of Modules 1-7 and then write a response for me to offer to students who voice this complaint. Use examples as appropriate.
I think that there are no “happy stories/poem/plays” in our anthology because the urge in the one who desires to record themselves and communicate with others, the urge to become an artist generally does not come from a peaceful, happy experience of the world. I believe the artist is attracted to understanding and expressing parts of themselves that may not necessarily be allowed to express in one’s environment and in one’s age.
Generally too, the most affecting events of life do not come from long periods of happiness, but rather from traumatic events, death, war, injustice. It is the artist that tries to make sense of, and reconcile for themselves and others through art, the common experience of living that we all share. It is the artist that is compelled to try to make sense of his times both for himself and others.
Mark Twain writes about being alienated in his own country, within his own family and community in “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”. At one point Huck, his protagonist, believes that he will suffer in the fires of hell forever if he goes against the practice of slavery that was common in his time.
Stephen Crane in “Maggie: A Girl of the Streets” writes about the tenements and slums that destroy people in its confining spaces with dysfunctional people, in its mindless and manual labor jobs which reduce the human to a mere machine.
In “Barn Burning” by William Faulkner, its protagonist must abandon his family when he can no longer take place and maintain his place within the family’s dysfunction.
Perhaps there are no happy stories because life is generally not happy for most, that we catalog all sorts of trauma and pain, but the artist is compelled to do something with or about these events, over the regular person who just watches them go by.
Works Cited:
Crane, Stephen. “Maggie: A Girl of the Streets”. Perkins and Perkins 706-747.
Dylan, Bob. “The Times They Are A-Changin’”. Perkins and Perkins 1531-1532.
Faulkner, William. “Barn Burning”. Perkins and Perkins 1187-1198.
Perkins, George, and Barbara Perkins, eds. The American Tradition in Literature.
12th ed. Ed. Vol. 2. New York: McGraw Hill, 2009. Print.
Plath, Sylvia. “Daddy”. Perkins and Perkins 1519-1522.
Twain, Mark. “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”. Perkins and Perkins 154- 327.
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