Pros and Cons

"No! No! No! It was impossible. Her hands clutched the iron in frenzy. Amid the seas she sent a cry of anguish!" ("Eveline," 24).

The sixth question for "Eveline" in Perrine's awkwardly shaped textbook asks if Eveline decided not to board the ship. My answer is that she could have made a logical decision based on her feelings about her present circumstances and her potential life with Frank, but Eveline herself never made that conscious decision. First, let's look at the pros and cons of Eveline's life, which Eveline should have done more critically:

Pros: Her home is "familiar" to her, and she "never dreamed of being divided" from the objects within her house -- she shows no desire to part with that familiarity (3). Additionally, while her father can be violent, threatening, frugal, restrictive, and completely incompetent, he can be "very nice" sometimes and made her toast once (13). Who could leave a model father like that? In all seriousness, Eveline has a connection to her father not because he is an apt father but because he is her father. Finally, she promised her dead mother that she would "keep the home together as long as she could" (14). To be clear, she made the promise when her dead mother was alive.

Cons: Eveline works extremely hard "in the Stores" for her family, and her supervisor, Miss Gavan, was demanding of her (5). I already listed the cons of her father within the pros, but I can repeat them: "violent, threatening, frugal, restrictive, and completely incompetent" (9). In addition to the difficult life at home, Eveline has a potential life with promise. In Buenos Aires, Eveline would marry Frank, who is "kind," "manly," and "open-hearted" (10). Spell check thinks I should change "open-hearted" to "open-heated" -- perhaps this is an indication of Frank's loving warmth. This potential life serves as a kind of foil to her present life in Dublin.

How did Eveline finally make the decision not to board the ship? For the same reason that I think she is the one of the most annoying characters we have encountered in this class; Eveline made a last minute decision, and it seems like there was no will in the decision. She "prayed to God to direct her," so there could have been some divine intervention (19). When a metaphorical "bell clanged upon her heart," Eveline had an epiphany that Frank would metaphorically "drown her" (20-22). "No! No! No! It was impossible" (24). Eveline could not decide to leave with Frank, for whatever sudden reason, which probably had something to do with a theme having to do with a spiritual connection to one's home that prevents him from exploring new destinations.

Pain or guilt? Or am I the only person who cares about this scrap of paper?

"The paper curled as Mr. Kapasi wrote his address in clear, careful letters. She would write to him, asking about his days interpreting at the doctor's office, and he would respond eloquently, choosing only the most entertaining anecdotes, ones that would make her laugh out loud as she read them in her house in New Jersey" ("Interpreter of Maladies," 89).

The central conflict in this story is emotional, inside Mr. Kapasi, and in response to Mrs. Question Four (that question is a girl), I would argue that the conflict is resolved. During the story, Mr. Kapasi develops of "feeling of intoxication" for Mrs. Das, who his unhappily married like himself (79). The "scrap of paper" (88) on which he wrote his address serves as a metaphor for Mr. Kapasi's fantasy-relationship with Mrs. Das, which changes throughout the plot.

Mr. Kapasi first develops his feelings for Mrs. Das just before he writes his information on the scrap of paper, and once he does, the fantasy begins. "The promise that he would hear from Mrs. Das" (89) makes everything in the world seem right. Later, he develops a desire to be "alone with her" (100) and an obsession with when he will hear back from her (109). The feeling begins to fade when Mrs. Das assumed that Mr. Kapasi had children (147 -- my favorite integer). By the time the paper "fluttered away in the wind" (179), Mr. Kapasi preserves an image of the Das family from the monkey attack, which is not a particularly flattering image.

When the scrap of paper was in Mrs. Das's purse, Mr. Kapasi fantasized about their potential relationship. When the paper was absent from the purse, Mr. Kapasi had no intimate feelings toward Mrs. Das. Thus, the presence of the scrap of paper is a metaphor for that fantasy-relationship.

If I define the major conflict in the story as Mr. Kapasi's internal relationship development with Mrs. Das, then the conflict is resolved. When the scrap of paper flies away, Mr. Kapasi has come to the conclusion that he has different family values than Mrs. Das, and she does not have any feelings for him.

I should probably not take everything in this poem literally.

"Do not go gentle into that good night. / Rage, rage against the dying of the light" ("Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night," 18-19 and half of the other lines).

I'd first like to point out that we wrote villanelles last year in English, and I wrote mine about an old man telling kids to get off his lawn. The benefit of the villanelle is presumably the repetition of two refrains over and over again, connecting all of the ideas throughout the poem.

Going "gentle into that good night" is probably a euphemism-y metaphor for a quiet death like our friend Tennyson described in "Crossing the Bar." However, as the speaker addresses his father, he is making a case against a quiet death. Question two is staring me down, so I'm going to try to tackle the speaker's view of the various types of men toward death.

The speaker argues that they all have relatively calamitous deaths for separate reasons:

• Wise men: because their words "forked no lightning" (5), which presents a bunch of confusing images to me, most of which end in electrocution. I think it means that the words of the wise aren't received as well as they would like them to be.
• Good men: because their "frail deeds" did not "dance" as they would have liked them to (8)? Maybe the deeds of good men seem unsubstantial and ineffective in retrospect.
• Wild men: because they "grieved" the sun as the "caught and sang" it (10-11). This is a little bit too metaphorical for my taste. It's a metaphor for . . . being ashamed of their lives, perhaps.
• Grave men: because they see with "blinding sight" (13). They have a very good understanding of life and death.

That was a lot of speculation on my part. My point is that the speaker doesn't want his father to go "gently" because none of those other guys in the four groups go gently for whatever reasons.

Ooh.

We Will All Go Together When We Go

"And may there be no moaning of the bar / When I put out to sea" ("Crossing the Bar," 3-4).

I distinctly remember reading this in Channel 1 today and getting "We Will All Go Together When We Go" stuck in my head. Tom Lehrer sings, "We will all char together when we char, and let there be no moaning of the bar." Good allusion, Mr. Lehrer -- he's so smart!

I'm going to dissect the meaning of this metaphor here. "When I put out to sea" (4) is a metaphor for death. Later, "When I have crossed the bar" (16) serves as another metaphor for death, but what about "no moaning of the bar"?

Looking at it in the context of Tom Lehrer's song (which I know I'm not supposed to do, Perrine, but bear with me), we must accept that we're all going to "char" when the bomb drops on all of us. Lehrer sings about why dying together is a good thing -- it's a "comforting fact" that we're all going to be glowing with radiation when we all die, and there's no reason to "moan."

I'm going to use the definition of "bar" in my AHD that says "attorneys considered as a group." A "bar" defined thus is a group of attorneys, who state someone's case on behalf of him. The speaker does not want the "bar" -- those metaphorical "attorneys" -- to mourn his death on his behalf. Rather, he wants a quiet, subdued, and peaceful death.

Folding Laundry: Metaphor for Love? Or the Black Plauge?

"A mountain of unsorted wash / could not fill / the empty side of the bed" ("Sorting Laundry," 49-51).

I think this poem is pretty adorable. (You know, until we discuss it in class and I find out it's actually a metaphor for the Black Plague. I don't . . . think it is. Nope. I just wanted to consider that idea.)

The first three lines establish a metaphor. As the speaker folds clothes, she thinks of folding her lover into her life. When I fold clothes, I think of how horrible I am at folding shirts -- they just never look good once I'm finished. I need one of those shirt folders. Maybe I'll try to think of something more philosophical next time. I'll get back to you on that one.

For most of the duration of the poem, the speaker describes in detail all of the clothes, towels, and sheets she folds as she does the laundry, and how they are connected to her and her lover. "So many shirts and skirts and pants / recycling week after week, head over heals / recapitulating themselves" (16-18). It's just very nice!

The last three lines (quoted above) contain an overstatement, "a mountain of unsorted wash," which is supported by the continuous and lengthy description in the poem of all of the laundry the speaker was folding. What the speaker is saying at the end is that a mountain of just her own clothes would not be able to fill the empty side of the "bed." Her lover is an integral part of her life.

The Joy of Cooking (in your pants)

"Best with horseradish / and economical -- it will probably grow back" ("The Joy of Cooking," 5-6).

There was a speck on my computer screen to the right of that closing parenthesis, and I thought it was a period, so I kept clicking to the right of the speck but my cursor would never get to the other side of it! Man. Poetry is hard.

This poem is definitely metaphorical, but I also think it's amusing -- I laughed a little bit about the quote I quoted. We'll get to that a little bit more later. What's happening in this poem, though, is that the speaker is judging her sister's talkativity (don't tell me that's not a word) and her brother's heartlessness.

Her sister's tongue has a lot of parts to it -- the skin, roots, and bones -- and it will probably "grow back." That suggests to me that she talks too much and is unyielding in whatever she says. Her brother's heart is firm, dry, and not interesting, and it barely feeds two people. I can interpret that as a brother who is kind of callous and boring, and he has little love to offer.

I haven't gone through the funniest poem titles for "in your pants" yet, so I'll do that now:

• "I felt a Funeral, in my Brain" in your pants
• "The Convergence of the Twain" in your pants
• "I taste a liquor never brewed" in your pants
• "The Joy of Cooking" in your pants

EXPLOSION!

"Or does it explode?" ("Dream Deferred," 11).

The basic structure of Hughes's poem is this:

• First stanza: four rhetorical questions, each presenting one simile
• Second stanza: one declarative sentence, presenting one simile
• Third stanza: one rhetorical question, presenting one metaphor

The speaker begins by comparing a dream deferred to a dried-up raisin, an oozing sore, smelly meat, and crusty candy. All of these comparisons suggest that an abandoned dream deteriorates and pesters us. The second stanza compares it to a heavy load, suggesting that it drags us down.

There's nothing wrong with those comparisons because they all have truth to them, but they aren't as vivid as the final metaphor, directly comparing a deferred dream to an "explosion." When we abandon a dream, the results are sudden, sharp, and violent -- this image makes abandoning a dream less appealing.

The speaker uses his first four rhetorical questions to deny that things like raisins and meat are not vivid enough comparisons for a deferred dream. The second stanza's declarative sentence is a detached resignation -- maybe it's just something that drags us down like a load. Then, the third stanza's rhetorical question is an assertion that a deferred dream and an explosion have the same effects. The metaphor and the italics single out that image as the most significant one.

Toad on the Road

"For something sufficiently toad-like / Squats in me, too; / Its hunkers are heavy as hard luck, / And cold as snow" ("Toads," 25-28).

It's like a more elegant version of "The Lazy Song." I despise that song.

My goal in this post is to identify the two metaphorical toads described in the poem. The first one is easy because it's explicit: "the toad work" (1). That first toad represents the speaker's questioning view of work as he ponders a bunch of alliterative lifestyles -- "Lecturers, lispers, / Losels, loblolly-men, louts" (10-11). Those people "don't end as paupers," "seem to like" their lives," and do not actually "starve." So essentially, the first toad (work) restrains the author who doesn't understand the necessity of it.

I'm going to say that the second toad is the speaker's pragmatic and positive view of work. The similes I quoted at the beginning of the post suggest that this toad is steady and unyielding. With a pun on the word "stuff" in the sixth stanza, the speaker develops his point that work and pensions are "stuff" that form dreams (which apparently happened in The Tempest -- I don't recall). The second toad won't allow the speaker to "blarney" or get everything he wants "at one sitting" (32). He has a steady conscience (the second toad) that reminds him that work creates dreams, which require patience and effort to achieve. That's a more uplifting and reasonable view of work than the one presented in the first half of the poem with the restrictive toad.

Has anyone else read Toad on the Road? It's a classic.