Dis Poem

Mutabaruka’s poem “Dis Poem” employs personification, a unique structure, and metaphors, along with a hurried yet non-chalant tone, to present an infinity of events at any moment in time. It makes reference to things that have happened a long time past, and things that are yet to happen. The author relies on time to set a context, or a lack off such, for his ideas. Mutabaruka’s text is an attempt to encompass only a fraction of the humanity he describes, such insignificant portion of the whole.

Mutabaruka presents the poem along with an abnormal structure, which lacks punctuation and, in some cases, leaves words incomplete. The structure relates to the speed at which everything in the world happens, allowing no time for pausing, much less for correcting the past. Initially, the author states that this poem “shall speak of time unlimited time undefined.” Mutabaruka mentions this in an attempt to remove the limits and constraints of content, similar to the limitless and unpredictable structure of a poem that rushes line after line with little time for respite. The author finalizes the poem, in which minimal presence of punctuation is evident, with “in your mind…”. In recurring to a sustained pause he is liberating his writing for anyone else willing to elaborate upon it as more things happen, as time continues to elapse. Mutabaruka leaves out some letters as he writes his words, an example present in the fourth to last line where he writes: “this poem is to be continue”. According to the lines that immediately follow, it is evident that the word should be “continued,” including the missing “d”. The author alienates letters as he tries to give the reader a sense of rushing through thoughts that have but moments to exist.

Likewise, Mutabaruka’s hurried tone and use of literary elements further build upon the meaning of the work as a whole. The recurrent mention of time in the poem alludes to the infinity of existence, for even when we put an end to our part of “Dis Poem.” Someone else will carry on as more things happen, just as we are extending the meaning of something that has already happened in reading it under the light of a different humanity over a decade after. In the same manner, Mutabaruka personifies the poem as he shifts the vision of writing as a means to record a story to the protagonist of that same story. In other words, the poem no longer narrates history, the poem is history. It acquires a personality as “dis poem is watchin u tryin’ to make sense from dis poem dis poem is messing up your brains making u want to stop listening to dis poem”. The author turns the reader into a part of a conversation, as he no longer reads but listens. Now this poem really is “ a part of the story his-story… her-story… our-story”. Mutabaruka plays with the concept of our story as part of The History. In doing so, the author makes the poem personal, he makes us care, he writes not for us but about us.

Therefore, Mutabaruka has given his part to the whole poem. He has written a small segment of a much larger story, a greater poem regarding us, and our story. For this reason, the end of the poem remains open, for “dis poem needs to be changed”. In fact, it will forever need to be changed as more things happen and more poets come to immortalize humanity, millions of stories running parallel in time.

Timed Writing 2

Robert Frost’s poem “Mending Wall” employs stoic imagery and structure, encompassed in a nonchalant tone, to portray the importance of boundaries. The narrator insists upon the unimportance of the walls even as he builds them back up. In contrast, his neighbor cordially defends the importance of setting the limits for fruitful relationships.

Frost introduces the first stanza by distinguishing those that “[don’t] love a wall.” The word “wall” immediately strikes the reader as a metaphor to boundaries, the most important being territorial and social boundaries. But those walls deteriorate and show gaps which the narrator comes “after them and [makes] repair.” In depicting the deterioration of the walls, Frost refers to an intangible boundary. He refers to social relationships, where limits begin to fade with time and governments must rebuild through laws, or parents through education. Frost purposely omits any separation into stanzas in an effort to mimic the absence of walls in his text. He describes different standings on the subject, but suggests his position in his writing. Accordingly, the characters meet “to walk the line and set the wall between us once again.” Frost alludes to the difficulty of maintaining boundaries and questions their productivity. Limits are constantly checked and zealously maintained by both sides regardless of what they say.

However, as the narrator mentions that “we do not need the wall,” because his apple trees will never invade the pines, his actions contradict him. In response, the neighbor suggests: “Good fences make good neighbors.” The words mean that boundaries avoid trouble. They prevent people from invading others’ privacy. The narrator then comes to the conclusion that before “I build a wall I’d ask to know what I was walling in or walling out.” Frost alludes to alienation and discrimination in the words “walling out.” A wall may work wonders for those it protects, but how about those it leaves out to face their troubles? A wall is an instrument of rejection, a method to distance oneself from others. For that reason, the narrator argues that “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall.” These words bring about all those who live outside the barriers society has erected, especially if we take into account the time period during which the poem was written as one of discord and civil unrest.

The poem culminates with the resurgence of “Good fences make good neighbors.” The repetition of these words demonstrates the neighbor’s unwillingness to change his mentality. In effect, some degree of metafiction kicks in, for the walls built inside the neighbor’s mind prevent him from considering the narrator’s words. A reflection upon the inefficiency of walls meets some solid mental blockades, thus rendering it obsolete.

Timed Writing 1

Kevin Young’s poem “The Mission” juxtaposes life and death through the use of imagery and structure. He describes children experiencing life right next to souls of those whose time has elapsed. Imagery of death, amidst a detailed description of the pleasures of the living, depicts both ends of a spectrum. Young invites the reader to reflect upon his own vision of the two, upon the efimerality of life.

Young introduces the poem “across the street from a home for funerals.” He sets the tone for a conversation about the banality of death. In front of the funeral house, “soul after soul she watched pour into the cold New England Ground.” The culmination of one’s time on earth is no longer a surprise but an expected part of routine. Likewise, the structure of the poem reflects the continuation of this imagery, almost as if every couplet was a “soul after soul.” In a similar manner, Young juxtaposes the sun of the living with the cold ground of the dead. It is interesting that the author depicts as souls going down into the cold ground, for it challenges the usual depiction of a blazing inferno beneath.

Likewise, young introduces children as the symbol of innocence. He remembers, “back there” when he was a child, “[paying] tag out front, while the bodies snuck in the back.” His reference to children is especially powerful when combined with free verse, for it foreshadows their liberty in choosing what to make out of their life. They begin their life as others come to an end behind their backs. However, to Young as well as every other being, the time comes when the realization of death corrodes this vision of a gay life. It becomes a custom, a reason to wear old suits, “praying they still fit.” Death becomes so banal that that “most laughed despite themselves.” People have succumbed to its reality and resign themselves in expectation for their moment.

In effect, it is as if our clocks had broke and “always read three.” We have lost notion of the importance of time. In his use of the imagery of time, Young plays with the limited time we have under the sun before we head to the shivering depth of the ground. It is as if when “the sun is too bright. Your eyes adjust.” These words convey our conformity. We have simply adjusted to the sorrows of death forcing it through a metamorphosis to the mundane. At the end, “the cars fill & start to edge out,” signaling the end of a cycle. The poem begun with their arrival and culminates with their departure, playing with the idea of cycles. The last words read: “I could not see to see.” Young finalizes with the loss of his sight, he has become one more of the numbed spectators of life. He began to realize when he poured down to the cold ground. His understanding did not come in time to illuminate his sight when he should have seen.

Interview With Toni Morrison

As I listened to Charlie Rose interview Toni Morrison, it intrigued me to learn that the author begins most of her works with a question. All questions have something in common: every word following the question mark has a specific purpose, a role in the answer. In effect, Morrison strives to instill learning in her readers. By opening with a question, she defines the whole novel as matter of importance, a process through which she leads us in the answering of the question. But what learning is she trying to put forth?

Later, Morrison describes the extensive research she conducts before the writing of a novel. She must master a historical context as well as specific relationships and patterns in a time period. She believes that “everybody changes all the time,” and after a short pause she adds, “like the country.” Morrison gives and added importance to relationships in her novel in her comparing them to the development of a country. This is true in Song of Salomon, where characters encompass ideas that represent groups of people. Guitar, for example, represents those who fought for the acquisition of equal rights for blacks. As the novel progresses, his relationship with Milkman begins to corrode as he takes on a more radical position. Conversely, Milkman takes on a passive stance towards racial discrimination. He represents northerners who chose to ignore the situation in the south in face of their own fortune. In effect, Morrison presents a dichotomy in her descriptions of Milkman and Guitar, a clash of ideals very real in America during the 1950’s.

Likewise, Morrison’s dependence on biblical allusion is supported by historical tendencies. As part of her research, she tried to locate the factors people where running from. She mentions Bacon’s rebellion, where a group of white and black gathered to bring down an oppressive government. They succeeded only to be caught and hung later. At first the relation isn’t very clear, but then Morrison explains: “religion supported people.” The bible was that driving force that led people to think and act the way they did. It led them to gather in an attempt to rebel against tyrannical rule, it gave blacks a reason to hope for a better future, and it even gave whites a reason to alienate blacks. Morrison explains how Satan was perceived in the bible as “the black man.” In one of her novels, a black girl is alienated because whites think she is a minion of Satan. The bible, she beliefs, is deeply related with the African American evolvement from slaves to Americans.

Enduring Themes

In reading Song of Salomon, I began to encounter Biblical allusions every few lines. Before I could recollect what I knew about a biblical figure, another appeared. I began to wonder why Morrison made so much reference to this sacred book. For centuries, the ancestors of African Americans suffered the whip of slavery under humiliating conditions. With few possessions, and access to little or no entertainment, religion became a central element in the lives of slaves. They perceived the Bible as a source of hope and purpose for years. Eventually, when the abolitionist movement came, African Americans continued to gather around religious ideals. The Bible contains themes that are as valid in modern society as they where for the slaves during the darkest period of American history. In including biblical allusion in her novel, Morrison demonstrates how these themes are present regardless of time or geographic location.

However, names like Pilate, First Corinthians, Magdalene, Solomon and other biblical names pursue definite purposes. As a result, characters in the novel are defined by the history and traits of their equivalents in the Bible. In it, Hagar was a handmaiden who bears Abraham a son and is punished as a result. Her story reflects a patriarchal society and the idea of women as an object of pleasure. Likewise, Milkman’s Hagar symbolized his sexual initiation and his positioning as a man. She had brought change for “Sleeping with Hagar had made him generous” (69). Marrison points to sexual activity as the factor that triggered change in including “sleeping with her.” It isn’t what she is, but rather what she provides, that makes her important to Milkman. This happens short after Macon Dead hits Ruth. This is another display of masculine superiority, which reveals that the position of women in society isn’t that much different from what it was during Abraham’s time. In effect, Morrison confessed “The challenge of Song of Salmon was to manage what was for me a radical shift in imagination from a female focus to a male one” (Foreword).

Number 176002

“Grab a copy of Song of Solomon from the EVL and begin reading the first fifty pages tonight.”

Those where the final instructions I heard before the class concluded. I had a few minutes before my next class and decided to stop by and grab copy from the library. The title resembled that of a National Geographic documentary: The Song Of Salmon. Already my expectations where not the best, but as I took a first glance at the cover, depression overtook me. White letters over a plain blue background, and not just blue, it was bathroom blue.

I began reading with what was definitely not the best of first impressions. However, things began to change. Mr. Smith was standing on the roof and determined to fly. It was not a threat and he wasn’t crazy. Mr. Smith was not the typical suicide, in fact, “jumping from the roof of Mercy was the most interesting thing he had done” (8-9). Robert Smith had an ambition: freedom. He had lived a monotonous existence until that day when he chose to rebel against his confinement. The fact that the novel begins with this anecdote foreshadows a fight for freedom through the novel. Toni Morrison describes every character with their limitations. Be it Ruth enslaved to her marriage or Macon Dead tied to every penny, Morrison incorporates a limiting characteristic in every one of her characters. Only Mr. Smith did she set free from these limitations.

Likewise, Morrison’s naming of the characters is also peculiar. We encounter hidden meaning within names and names that mean nothing at all. Macon Dead received his names from “somebody who couldn’t have cared less” (18). Names are given to distinguish individuals from the masses, to give them a sense of identity. However, characters in the novel lack this sense of identity. Names such as Macon Dead, which are probably not real in the first place, begin to blur the importance of the individual. In the same manner, a nickname of the sort of Milkman casts a shadow over any real qualities the individual might have. His most important asset, and the characteristic by which he will be remembered, is an empty nickname.

As a result, I went back to my initial impression on the novel. What if, resembling its content, the cover purposely lacks an identity? It is a great risk, but maybe Toni Morrison tried to mimic the naming of her characters in the naming and presentation of her book. At first glance, the novel fails to outshine any other title in a library, but those who give it a chance find a novel far more intricate than those contained in the more extravagant covers.

Exposing The Truth

Adam Hochschild uncovers the truth behind Belgium’s dominion over the Congo in King Leopold’s Ghost. Concerned specifically with the effects of slavery over the African territory, Hochschild narrates the toil of individuals who strived to expose this cruelty. As he shares the factual evidence in history, he contradicts an erroneous take on events that has become widely accepted as the legitimate account. Belgium was nowhere near to being the victim. How could a group of people ever imagine that they would manage to hide events of such magnitude from the world with any success?

In Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad describes an expedition into mysterious lands in Africa. The novel deals with the Dark Continent as the unknown. Conrad tries to expose those interior lands, where Kurtz dwelled in harmony with the natives, to help shape our understanding of European colonization. Likewise, Hochschild deals with a dark period in history as the unknown. There was minimal information available, for most of the historical documents “burned for eight days, turning most of the Congo state records to ash and smoke” (294). These authors try to trace our understanding of European colonization back to its origin in an attempt to correct modern understanding of history. Slavery decided the fate of countries for centuries after it vanished as they fought to “[emerge] from the shadow of its past” (301). If this is true in places where its existence is widely admitted and confronted, how much harder will it be for territories where slavery is dealt with as fiction to overcome their burdens?

Consequently, schools preach about the importance of understanding the mistakes of our ancestors as to avoid their concurrence but filter the cruelty from our memory, thus failing to prevent their repetition. This might help explain how the world appears to be a worse place as day goes by, as if humanity had no limit to its cruelty and our only limitation was the time taken to device new means of cruelty. How can we progress in our understanding of human behavior when its flaws are treated as “taboo. Like the history of millions killed” ?(298). Both authors reach places previously barred to the public. If we take Conrad’s novel as an adventure into his own mind, we face the mysterious functioning of human brain as another limitation to our understanding of human cruelty. In effect, they try to prove how enlightening the general public naturally concludes in progress. The more we know, the more we are able to understand and assimilate. When we are able to filter things through our reason, we prevent the fueling of passions that often drive people to bestow disaster upon others.

Finally, I think it is important to highlight the power Europe had in shaping the face of the world. There has been no place on earth where Europeans didn’t determine the fate of its people. Their legacy survives to the present days where many of the habits of tyrants translate into corrupt individuals leading countries. Only by acknowledging our heritage will we ever overcome the obstacles engraved in our history. There is no use in denying what has happened. We must strive to shed light onto those dark spaces in human understanding if we are to evolve out of the shadows and “a hundred black fiends” that trouble us daily (295).

An Eternal Conrad

The final pages of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness reproduce Marlow’s anxiety in the reader. The novel gravitates around Kurtz, his life, and his legacy. He symbolized direction and guidance, giving the expedition purpose. But with his appearance comes the “turn of the tide” (1). He is no longer guidance but an enigma, a being that was so many things at once and nothing at all. On their voyage back to civilization, this mysterious character dies. His last words: “The horror! The horror!”(130). How are we to interpret this?

Let us regress to a living Kurtz. This mysterious individual chose to dwell in the remote corners of the African wilderness. Marlow’s expedition was one to the unknown, to the core of Conrad’s own mind in search for him. When he finds Kurtz, he encounters much resistance in taking him back to civilization. Living in the wild, he had found an escape from all the pressures of a materialistic society. It was his form of rebellion against the atrocities of the human heart. Consequently, Conrad employs this encounter to juxtapose the civilized and the uncivilized. As Marlow blows the whistles of his ship, “two thousand eyes followed the evolutions of the splashing, thumping, fierce, river demon beating the water with its terrible tail and breathing black smoke into the air” (125). By employing demonic imagery in describing the industrialized nations, Conrad exhibits the destructiveness and greed of the human heart.

However, Kurtz does not make it back to the world he fled from. Marlow witnessed how his life began to “ebb out of his heart into the sea of inexorable time” (127). Here, inexorable time refers to the unalterable mortality of humans, to the insignificance of an individual when put in the context of eternal time. And as Kurtz felt the last breath leave his lungs, a weak and yet desperate cry gave way to his last words: “The horror! The horror!”. There is no definite interpretation for his final words, for they are extremely ambiguous. However, I think they might mean one of two things. First, in muttering ambiguity Kurtz incites mystery and interminable enigma. In doing so he was taking a hit at immortality by leaving the end to his story open. On the other hand, Kurtz might have been condemning the horrors of the human heart. His rejection to the atrocities of civilization was so real that he would rather die than face “the horrors” he initially fled from.

Eventually, a connection between Kurtz and Conrad may be evident. Heart of Darkness comes to an end amidst much ambiguity. Conrad’s novel poses similar enigmas as Kurtz' final words. Maybe they are both rebelling against society, or maybe Conrad wanted a grab at immortality. We are left alongside Marlow to interpret what we have read and try to give it meaning. These pages are the means through which reader and Conrad will continue to interact long after mortality takes her claim.

Shed Some Light

Joseph Conrad wrote a novel of deceptive meaning. It appears to be straightforward in its objective, but it is not so simple. Everything inside those pages suggests meaning beyond the literal. On the surface, it appears to be the narration of an experience: Marlow’s experience. Mildly entertaining, the story talks about his adventures as a ship captain and the obstacles he encounters as he travels into the heart of the continent in search of Kurtz. Heart of Darkness has much more to it than what is imminent on the surface. There are a number of levels of interpretation. It is reading from different angles, and each angle provides a different context.

As Marlow nears his objective, he begins to understand how far into the unknown they have come. Kurtz inhabits a place “so impenetrable to human thought, so pitiless to human weakness” (103). They have traveled far into a mysterious land towards the core of Africa. In it Kurtz lives in solitude, “far in the depths of the forest” (103). The depth of a mysterious land alludes to the unknown and undiscovered. Humanity has conquered all sorts of mysteries. We have mastered numbers, science, art, deceit, politics and many other tools that enable us to live in a global community. However, we are still in the quest to master ourselves. It is that quest for spiritual realization and mental control than continues to intrigue humanity. We are yet to find the answers to that puzzle.

Kurtz lives in the midst of such mystery. Characters hint towards his greatness but all they can relate are those “splendid monologues” (109). As the word suggests, monologues include a single individual. A monologue in this context is the talking with one’s self: reflection. When we reflect we dwell in the darkest places of our mind as we search for answers to infinite questions. Marlow was also searching for answers in his adventures. He was also trying to find a purpose for himself. This process tries to understand the functioning of human emotion through logical reason. But these reflections “echoed loudly within him because he was hollow at the core” (108). Conrad’s use of the word hollow refers to a hole or a gap in knowledge. No matter how long we search for answers, our thought will only echo indefinitely without conclusion because we lack the tools to understand the ultimate creator of reality: the human brain.

Marlow’s road into the unknown in search for Kurtz goes beyond the literal level. It has clear relationship with humanity’s quest for knowledge and understanding. Conrad describes his own attempt to crack into his brain in search for the answers through Marlow’s experience. It represents himself wondering into the darkest corners of his mind where the final pieces of the puzzle dwell guest to the unknown.

Black And White

Joseph Conrad juxtaposes black and white imagery in Heart Of Darkeness. Clear distinctions exist between these two colors as they transmit opposing sensations. White is a clean color, generally associated with enlightenment and divinity. Black is the color of mystery, evil and death. Accordingly, black and white have definite connotations in Conrad’s novel.

Europeans are supposed to be superior in knowledge and understanding. They are the white, after all. They dictate the norms of society and set the peace for development. Conrad exposes their cruelty in his novel as he uncovers their abusive behavior. They harass the natives, exploiting them to the point of exhaustion. They think of themselves as “supernatural beings” in the face of the “savages” (92). Thus, the white individuals feel enlightened, as if it was a natural consequence of the color. On the other hand, the black people become savages. Their only sin lies in their skin, but it is big enough to anticipate hell. They become but “a grain of sand in the black Sahara” (93).

Racial discrimination is present through the pages, deeply engraved in everyone’s reality. Even in the face of adversity we find “the contrast of expression of white men and the black fellows” (72-73). White Europeans are described as men, but blacks only attain the title of “fellows”. And they are so savage that “they belong to the beginnings of time” (73). It is also as if humanity had split according to color, and the white had fallen into the darkest possibility. Blacks may fall into the unprivileged group, but they got to keep the white emotions.

Consequently, moral questioning arises. Is it better to be master of a white body but slave of a dark soul? Are Europeans superior at all, or is it an act staged for centuries? Conrad’s novel begs the reader to search his soul in a quest to attain spiritual reflection. Maybe there is no white and black but shades in between. Maybe there is white and black but they never fully align with actions. Everything brings consequences, and having an undeserved advantage for centuries eventually caught up with those “supernatural beings” Conrad envisions.

Sound Asleep

As Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness progresses, my interest dwindles. It is not that the novel lacks quality, the problem is the way it translates into words. Take movies, for example. An action film maintains our interest as it manages to inscribe purpose into every second of the plot. There are moments where blinking may represent the absence of a bullet breaking through a human skull, where even the sound of gunpowder burning in the cannon calls for attention. But not everything may be high-tech warfare, for there must be something for romantics. If I ask you to recall one of such films, I bet the visual memory is not nearly as detailed. This is because, at least to my simple mind, there is no amusement in the picking of a flower, the waiting for a train or the entrance to a restaurant. But I would be wrong in arguing that the crushed skull represents a wider portion of human emotion than the message embedded in a rose. This same situation is staged in my reading of Conrad’s novel. The meaning is clearly there, but where’s the action?

There’s no doubt that European colonization was packed with action. Imagine how many rounds where fired, how many battles fought, how many succumbed to illness. Conrad is satisfied with the isolated effects. We stumble across a body “with a bullet-hole in the forehead” but have no access to the action that led to it (34). I am not insensible in my thirst for action. I clearly understand the message the lies inscribed in a dead body after a description of the ill treat towards black slaves, but it fails to welcome the reader into a story. When we become part of what is being said, when we understand the causes and implications, the effects mean so much more.

Pages display empty conversations and alienated descriptions. Many words go by between any two intriguing events, and when these appear, they are always a consequence of cruelty and punishment. Even if we have no exact location, it is evident the story takes place upon wild and unknown lands. What better context for mystery and adventure. Hidden in descriptions we find “beyond the fence the forest stood up spectrally in the moonlight” (45). What a waste of opportunity. Why wouldn’t Conrad take advantage of the suspense related to a mysterious forest? But he is so immersed in describing interactions between characters whichever those may be that he fails to provide the action.

Heart of Darkness vividly describes a hierarchy and a mission crucial in the understanding of a historical context. Through Conrad’s writing we learn much about European colonization and their relation with native peoples. Many things can be inferred from the text, especially concerning the questionable side of human spirit. However, the novel fails to maintain my attention for long. The pages lack the action that keeps you awake at times where a nap can easily seduce the mind.

A Harsh Reality

Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness portrays cruelty and mistreatment through unusual lenses. He vividly describes situations beyond the moral comprehension of human mind without flinching. Maintaining a serious tone through the pages, he resembles news presenters who seem equally affected by a massacre and a celebrity gossip. He describes his situation as if human sin was universally accepted and mundane, as if we had seen everything and whatever else happened was merely a repetition of a past catastrophe and not nearly as impressive.

Charles Marlow happens to come across some hostile situations with such frequency that they define his routine. When word comes that the previous captain to his ship was murdered, he sets out to find the body. As he finds it we face detailed descriptions ranging from the murderers to “the grass growing through his ribs tall enough to hide his bones” (13). As a reader I have time to picture the organs decomposed into the soil, maybe swallowed by some starving animal, the brothers that never had a chance to give him that last hug, maybe kids that never really knew what it was like to grow up with a father, a lonely woman with the duties of a household left by herself and so much misery that accompanies death. To Marlow death is a natural consequence of life and misery is part of everything humanity comes across. He cares not about another tragedy more than the waves that rush past the stern.

But death is a light matter when human creativity meets egocentric greed. Humans are capable of far worse than murder and Conrad knows it. Back at the camp, Marlow goes for a walk only to find slaves walking around in chains. He “could see every rib, the joints of their limbs where like knots in a rope; each had an iron collar on his neck, and all where connected together with a chain whose bights swung between them, rhythmically clinking” (25). The image would fail to be more impressive if we where there. Conrad’s imagery and attention to detail makes situations drill into our conscience even as Marlow discards them hastily. The narrator becomes a vehicle through which Conrad condemns the conditions slaves where subject to, the conditions in which humanity was building a future.

What we find inside the novel is no surprise after the title. The pages portray a cruel reality resulting from dark hearts and wicked leaders. There is no hope in his writing, no allusion to grandeur and honor. I only expect to find more misery, greater injustice and moral dilemma as I continue my reading of Heart Of Darkness.

Oh Comedy

The third Act of Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard exhibits element of comedy. Comedy isn’t always great. In this case, it is so lame that it becomes funny. It is almost as if the comedy lied behind ridiculing comedy by making it absurd. Of course, that is what it seems to me, facing a device capable of sending an entire human experience to another country in seconds. Checkhov might have been facing a quill, or maybe he was inscribing words into clay tablets. Whichever his preferred method of writing was, his comedy was that much different from my wireless keyboard. My guess is he wouldn’t have found a your momma joke very funny. What a party-pooper.

The third act is much like the two previous. A comedy so tedious should be illegal. How thrilling would it be to read Chekov then? Okay, we get it. They have no money to pay for their luxuries. Chill Checkhov, no need to make that any more evident. Much like a child begging for you to listen to his story, the intrusive musicians finally make their way into the stage. Varya says, “here we’ve hired musicians, and what are we going to pay them with?” To which Trofimov responds, “if the energy you have expended… had gone into something else, ultimately, you might very well have turned the world upside down.” (353). How absurd. The stubborn Trofimov puts down the few words that make some logical sense in the play. But who’s lines would you rather read? The play is already monotonous as it is, imagine if things started to make sense. His comedy lies in making a representation of routine so absurd that questions the utility of our existence.

The family lies in the brink of bankruptcy. They have been given a solution to their troubles and the means to achieve it. However, they remain unshaken by their future. Unless it is college, for who would want to miss so much fun? When some more sense finds its way miraculously into the play hinting towards future stability, the mother confesses that she “would gladly let you marry Anya, I swear it, only you must study, my dear, you must get your degree” (358). Because that will be really useful once they’ve lost all possessions. As long as they have enough material to feed their tedious conversation it makes sense to keep it up. I warn you, the modern Chekhov lives in Pasto, and we just haven’t been able to find him.

His comedy lies on absurdity. Everything the character say from their solutions to their responses makes no sense with anything any other character thinks about. He mocks something so mundane as routine making it absurd, thus demonstrating how empty so many things we praise could really be. I’m sorry if my comedy is worse than his. I find comfort in thinking we could have been good friends.

A Blog Post

In his play, The Cherry Orchard, Chekhov exhibits possibilities of literature new to my experience. In his description of events, he integrates vivid detail along with mention to banal activities. As we read we find characters doing anything from smoking to eating pickles, even when mention of these makes no relation to the dialogue. I had never read anything of the sort, expecting every word to add up to the ultimate meaning of a text. It took some time for me to adapt to this new narration, and still longer for me to appreciate such intense detail.

At the beginning of Act 2, Charlotta begins to share her past. She mentions details about her parents, her education and her country of birth. Suddenly, the narration intrudes into her story as we learn that she “takes a cucumber out of her pocket and eats it” (337). Not only is it completely isolated from her story; there is nothing that leads up to, or suggests, the entrance of a vegetable. At first it seems weird, almost as if this play was some sort of strange production from one of those guys in history whose strange mental state is their most intriguing asset. It continues to happen repeatedly, and as we read “Yawns, then lights a cigar,” we feel as if we were about to yawn as we create connections to reality. Then, after enough yawns, we realize that the problem is not this text but other narrations we are used to. Our frustrations don’t come from abnormality, but from extreme normality. It is Chekhov’s intent to mimic reality, or the normal, mundane events of everyday life, that exasperates us.

Reflect now upon the implications of reality. The first problem I face after such reflection is the intent of literature. Is writing, and other forms of art, supposed to imitate reality as to produce a tangible record of history? Are they supposed to recreate reality with opinion as to allow other to live their experience, or is it supposed to be an outlet for creativity and the materialization of individual conceptions? I tend to be very objective, and therefore writing in my life used to be primarily a means to keep record and reflect reality. Although I continue to enjoy objective writing and such texts that analyze numbers and a reality founded in science, these past years I have undergone a paradigm shift. With every novel that I read I begin to question my mentality as I find delight in literature beyond the mere facts writing can transmit. Even beyond that, this play proves how facts can become tiresome at times when our lives are already being bombarded by meaningless data.

So Similar

As I turned the pages of Anton Cheekhov’s The Cherry Orchard , its resemblance to Pride And Prejudice immediately stood out. The play revolves around impressions and the relationship between personalities. The plot itself fails to stand out as extraordinary, but rather it is relations that make ordinary events entertaining. Again, money drives people and their actions, social standings are made evident in descriptions and the event are easily foreshadowed. When relating it to something so similar in the near past, my mind made quick connections between the two works to enhance my understanding. There were more logical connections than I would have predicted.

In a family of such bluff and materialist personalities, it would be a shame not to have at least one thinking individual. It used to be Elizabeth Bennet, now we have Anya and Varya in her place. Even as they publicly recognize their poor financial situation, the family continues to live as if it was seasonal trouble and would soon disappear. Anya is first to recognize their mother’s habits, for she “had dinner in a station restaurant, she always ordered the most expensive dishes and tipped each of the waiters a ruble” (320). Not only are they concerned with the situation, they recognize that a change is in order. And so, much like Elizabeth rejected Mr. Collins and a world based on impressions, these two girls disregard public opinion as long as they get to eat. When Pishchik asks for money to pay the interest on his mortgage, it is as if their mother had been role-playing a while ago and quickly forgot their condition. Varya intervenes, reminding both “we have nothing, nothing at all!” (329). A character that is able to keep a grasp of reality when everybody else builds upon optimism is always a character with which the great majority of readers identify. These two girls meet this role and eventually become a source of credibility in the play.

In the animal kingdom mothers are always example to their offspring, which grow up imitating their behavior. Humans are part of such tendency, making it logical for mothers in the texts to encompass the spirit of society. Mrs. Bennet used to incite her daughters to marry a rich man in order to live a worthy life in the luxuries of a great estate: those where the priorities in her society. Her substitute, Lyubov Andreyevna displays similar indicators. She lives in a great estate full of luxuries that work towards appearances. She is not stupid, even if not incredibly bright, and understands the extent of her assets, or lack of. She chooses to ignore trouble and live the day with little care for distant future, which reflects the attitude of a society. This mentality is evident in Pishchik as he asks for a loan while “something else [turns] up, if not today- tomorrow…Dashenka will win two hundred thousand… she’s got a lottery ticket” (330). It is a consumer oriented society that has little understanding of investment, perfectly portrayed by the mother.

As similar contexts come together in describing an idea, characters bred by such contexts connect immensely. This is probably a result of logical human behavior, for our context shapes who we are and how we think. More than coincidence, these connections emerge as a result of authors understanding the every detail in a situation from the social trends to popular behavior.

The Wrong Lens

Even the bravest heroes and most brilliant minds in history conformed humanity. Capable of sin, humans will always have something target of critic, both as a group and as individuals. Mark Twain is no exception. Our character is shaped out of everything that senses encompass. If society labels something as “evil” we will forever take it as such, even if it might have been heroic had society chosen so. Highlighting the positives serves no purpose. If we are to comprehend and study Mark Twain we must embrace his every particularity.

There have been, and still are, societies in which the concept of a single man courting various women is not only tolerated, but praised. In fact, great historical figures ranging from military geniuses to exemplary leaders fall into this category. Should that make them less heroic? The question is not whether Mark Twain experienced influence and even inspiration from minstrel shows, but how important this might be. Does it really matter? Will it change the way we perceive his novel? Is it really such a surprise? All forms of art are ultimately a representation of reality and our understanding of such, including writing. If, in writing a novel heavily reliant on historical data, Mark Twain embraced an already existent representation of the communication that goes on between certain individuals, should that be looked down upon?

In The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn Twain demonstrated a clear opposition to slavery and racism. He narrates a story of liberty and depicts the friendship between a white boy and a black slave. In making the reality clearer through language, he even makes our opposition to racism stronger as we connect with Jim on an emotional level. At the end “they all agreed that Jim had acted very well, and was deserving to have some notice took of it, and reward.” We accompany Jim through his troubles only to discover an exemplary person and true friend in him. Twain exposes the character’s ignorance as his strength for in it he irradiates trust. Unlike a minstrel show, the novel concludes in a heightening of a black individual as a result of his condition.

Mark twain is not a racist, and he did not intend to mock a respectable group of people. Far from it, he acknowledged them as equals in the conditions of a friendship. Many things add up as influence in the resulting piece, but if we must resent the responsible consider history and those who enforced it. Mak Twain accepted a reality and masterfully put it on paper for those to come, for those of us with the bliss of having had society say no to “racism” as it shaped our character.

So Much Drama

Authors are as subject to misunderstandings as we all are. It is highly possible that out of 400 pages a few words end up conveying the wrong ideas. But, when said word appears 200 times it is naive to call it a mistake and ignorant to meddle with it. Disagreeing with the use of the language in a novel expresses dislike for the novel itself, for it is one of the components of the work, sometimes far beyond content.

I wouldn’t use “nigger” in my writing and much less in my daily experience, strongly disapproving of anyone who tries to do so in a demeaning manner. It is disrespectful and demeaning to flag a group of people with an offensive term, but isn’t in equally disrespectful to forget their past as one of the building blocks for humanity. A whole community did not go through slavery and discrimination for centuries to be forgotten in the diplomacy of modernity. Dr Sarah Churchwell expresses a similar point as she argues such “word is totemic because it encodes all of the violence of slavery.”

In reading The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn we find this argument even more absurd. Mark twain not only evades any offences as consequence of racism, but he exposes a critique to this behavior. We find Huck’s adventures and his plans intriguing, but tend to forget that they all revolve around Jim’s freedom and his dislike for racial misconceptions. When Tom Sawyer describes the typical prisoner he explains: “they wouldn’t use a goose-quill if they had it. It ain’t regular.” In the same manner, Mark Twain imitates the real language as part of narrating a story with historical context. He could have replaced “nigger” with a vast number of words, but “it ain’t regular.”

The method for introducing this classic of literature into scholar curriculum is not a change of words, but a change of mentality. With a simple introduction to a context, and minimal historical understanding, any reader should feel unaffected by Mark Twain’s vocabulary.