Their Eyes Were Watching God 1-60g

1)

(Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the horizon, never out o sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dream mocked to death by Time. That is the life of men.) Page 1

This is the opening paragraph of the story, Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston. This is a statement made in generalities. Hurston has grouped together all men, making them all one and the same. The significance of the ships is a connection to the sea and previous earthly exploration. The sea is said to be a mysterious place, filled with creatures unable to breath air, a different way of life entirely. Only those living in the sea can understand the meaning of life underwater. The ships are connected with earthly exploration because when the New World was discovered, men were sailing in ships, doing all the work on the sea. Just like in the Navy, the sea was no place for a woman at this time. The ships, and the sea is a way of life only men can understand, just as the underwater creatures understand the sea. They are the same. No coincidence then, that Poseidon, God of the Sea, was a man.

The meaning of the wishes on board is that some men’s dreams come true, while some men have to accept defeat and let go. If the ships come in with the tide, they’ve done so for a good reason. The men who’s dreams are brought to them are of great importance and the ships have heard of them. These men have made a name for themselves so the ships actually have a reason to come in. Men who just sit and watch, have no need for the ships, so they look away after a realization. If men don’t dream, or dream of the wrong thing, their wishes won’t come to land. Maybe they already have their dream, or maybe they just aren’t enough man to chase it.

2)

(…women forget all those things they don’t want to remember, and remember everything they don’t want to forget. The dream is the truth. Then they act and do things accordingly.) Page 1

In this passage, Hurston states that women have all the know-how in the world. Women obviously know what they know is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth so help me God. Basically, if there is any question on if something happened was good or bad, the women would know. If I ran to McDonalds in the snow, and the middle of day, naked, women would know if that was a good or bad thing. Even if they don’t know why it happened. They don’t have to know why, they just know. They get to pick and choose their memories.

Strange then, if they can pick and choose memories and yet, what they know is still truth. If I did go running naked in the cold, they could easily forget it and say it never happened (except that with me, the chicks dig it. They don’t forget the Danny ;). So now, that didn’t happen. Truth be told that didn’t happen! Why? The women said so, so it’s true now. But of course what they didn’t know is that I ran there naked in the cold because I gave my clothes to a hobo family and was running to McDonalds to get cheep food for all of them. Not such a bad thing right? But now it never happened because the women said so…and thus the battle of the sexes begins…

3)

Or main character is Janie Starks. She is a beautiful, black woman with some flaw. What flaw, we do not know yet. The story starts out, and Janie is being judged by everybody. (What’s she doin coming back here in overhalls? Can’t she find no dress to put on? Where’s dat blue satin dress she left here in? Where all dat money her husband took an died and left her? What dat ole forty year ole ‘oman doin’ wid her hair swingin’ down her back lak some young gal? Where she left dat young lad of a boy she went off here wid? Thought she was going to marry? Where he left her? What he done wid all her money? Betcha he off wid some gal so young she ain’t even got no hairs, why she don’t stay in her class?) Page 2. They do not know what happened to her, that she has come back home a changed woman. It seems Janie hasn’t told anybody anything, and she is okay with them making their crazy assumptions.

From what they all say about her in this passage, I see a woman of beauty none can match, a black stallion, lounging in dirty, torn overalls smokin’ a bowl on a hammock as a way of presenting the world a big F U/Spondee. Something happened to this woman, and now she has no desire to search out a fine man to fill her life. She has everything she needs, and while others just don’t understand, she has life all figured out. Simplicity is the way to true happiness, and this woman is simple. She has no money, no nice clothes, no man, no worries.

4)

(…you know if you pass some people and don’t speak tuh suit ‘em dy got tuh go way back in yo’ life and see whut you ever done. They know mo’ ‘bout yuh than you do yo’ self. An envious heart makes a treacherous ear. They done ‘heard’ ‘bout you just what they hope done happened.) Page 5

This is a great quote. If people don’t know your business, they’ll look for it if they really have nothing else going on. People who do this are sad little bitches. One person’s life really isn’t anybody else’s business, but sometimes people have no business and seek out drama. This is unfortunate, but also can be fun for some. Janie chooses not to tell people of her past and lets them think what they want to think. Why? Probably because she knows her business is her business, and nobody has to know anything. She is a woman, and Hurston clearly stated that woman forget what they don’t want to remember; this woman, whatever happened to her, didn’t happen. So she has nothing to tell people. They can make up whatever they want to make up, and none of it would be true because to Janie, nothing happened.

There isn’t a lot I can say on the subject pass what has been stated already because I am unaware of the events between Janie and Tea Cake. I can predict she was being controlled by him, and wanted some control herself, so she killed him and is now laying low. What a great way to take control. Maybe Tea Cake was control, and she had to take it because she had none. No sense in trying to make any sense out of them, a woman is a psycho-hoe’s-beast.

5)

(…Sam say most of ‘em goes to church so they’ll be sure to rise in Judgment. Dat’s de day dat every secret is s’posed to be made known. They wants to be there and hear it all.) Page 6

This is why people make odd assumptions of other people’s business. They want to know what happened because the suspense has just been killing them. The rise in Judgment is relevant to the Last Judgement, or the end of the world. Every secret is known, and it causes people to go crazy. People shouldn’t know everything; some doors are better left closed.

6)

Okay, I’m just going to say it, Janie and Pheoby make out. They totally kiss each other, and whatever else. There is proof on pages 6 and 7:

(…Dat’s just the same as me ‘cause mah tongue is in mah friend’s mouf…

…if they wants to see and know, why they donn’t come kiss and be kissed?...

…They sat together in fresh young darkness close together. Pheoby eager to touch and feel Janie…

…Pheoby, we been kissin’-friends for twenty years…)

Now, don’t get me wrong, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with this. She’s obviously bangin’ hott and I bet Pheoby isn’t a total cow.

7)

(…Tea Cake is gone. And dat’s de only reason you see me back here—cause Ah ain’t got nothing to make me happy no more where Ah was at. Down in the Everglades there, down on the muck.)

This is the all we know about the situation between Tea Cake and Janie. She told this to her partner Pheoby, and this is all she’s told anybody of it. Now, I thought the Everglades were nice. Why then, does she find no happiness there? Tea Cake obviously wasn’t very entertaining, but he must have been worth suffering the Everglades. We need to know more about her and Tea Cake to understand why she was down on the muck.

8)

Janie is not like every other person. She never knew either of her parents, and had to learn things on her own, for nobody was there to teach her. Her grandmother raised her, but controlled her mind. Janie is one of the most beautiful women put on this Earth, yet she stands out from even the rest of the pretty girls. She has a good heart. She knows how good she looks, but she never uses it to her advantage. She’s just another one of God’s creations in her mind, and everyone around her is equal. That is, before she meets them and can judge her thoughts on them. What separates Janie from the rest of the pretty girls is that Janie isn’t a bitch, and that she doesn’t take things for granted. She can see that people don’t have much to live on because she is one of them.

Another thing is that she is black, and didn’t know it until a picture she took with her friends as a young girl. She looked at the picture and didn’t see herself in it. It wasn’t until she asked, “where am i?” everybody laughed and then Miss Nellie pointed to the black child and said, “that’s you”. She had thought she was the same color as all the other children. Nobody was there to teach her about races.

9)

(Oh to be a pear tree—any tree in bloom! With kissing bees singing of the beginning of the world! She was sixteen. She had glossy leaves and bursting buds and she wanted to struggle with life but it seemed to elude her. Where were the singing bees for her?)

Janie is at a rebellious age now and so many more questions are coming into her head. None of which can be answered at home, Janie knows she wants to search for the answers. She wants to live! She is getting older, probably a little bit horny, and maybe even wants to cause a little trouble. She is a girl with daddy issues, this is normal for teens like her. She is “waiting for the world to be made.”

There are questions she asks throughout pages 10 and 11. How? Why? What? How? Why? Where? When? How? This is all that’s going through her head at this point and she wants to have experiences. She needs an adventure.

10)

(Have some sympathy fuh me. Put me down easy, Janie Ah’m a cracked plate.)

This is grandma talking. She doesn’t want Janie to go off and do all those things she knows she wants to. Grandma was a slave woman and even had to hide with Janie from General Sherman in his March to the Sea. This is a direct allusion. Grandma worked so hard to give Janie what she needed to survive, and to keep her young an innocent. Now that she is growing up, she’s not so young, and isn’t as innocent.

Janie was caught kissing a boy on the fence late one night. Her grandmother saw her kissing Johnny Taylor. Janie was yelled at, and told she wasn’t acting like a woman. She replied, telling her grandma she doesn’t want to be a woman. She wants to stay young. Her youth is her freedom, and in youth, she can explore her curiosity of the world. Grandma wants her to marry right away. Janie doesn’t like this idea because grandma wants her to marry Logan Killacks. Janie doesn’t love Logan, but she does marry him for her grandmother.

This is how controlling her grandmother is, she can make her marry against her will. She is not the only controlling force in Janie’s life in the story, but she is the first and foremost.

11)

The First Marriage

Janie is married to Logan Killacks at this point. This is her first marriage and she doesn’t know for sure what to expect. She has been told, “Husbands and wives always loved each other, and that was what marriage meant. It was just so. Janie felt glad of the thought, for then it wouldn’t seem so destructive and mouldy. She wouldn’t be lonely anymore.” She keeps thinking of this Pear Tree, and what it would be like to lay under one with her love just to pass the time, happily.

But it seems that Janie isn’t doing her part in the marriage and Logan may not put up with it. “…He ain’t kissin’ yo’ mouf when he carry on over yuh lak dat. He’s kissin’ yo’ foot and ‘tan’t in uh man tuh kiss foot long. Mouf kissn’ is on uh equal and dat’s natural but when dey got to bow down tuh love, dey soon straightens up.” This makes it seem like Logan is doing everything he can to please her and she isn’t really doing much in return. She doesn’t kiss mouth or foot, and she isn’t happy with him.

Grandma dies, and with her, a part of Janie dies too. With the passing, Janie ends up finding out that marriage doesn’t make love, and she is done with Logan Killacks. “Her first dream was dead, so she became a woman.”

12)

The Second Man

Logan Killacks isn’t the pleaser he was in the beginning years of the marriage. Janie saw their relationship fading. Logan says he is to go in to town to get another mule. He wants one for him and another for a woman to work through the year. It doesn’t sound like he’s coming back into her life. Right when he leaves, a new man comes into the story. His name is Joe Starks and he gets quite the introduction. He wears a suit, and he has a way of leading people. Something about his face makes others want to follow in his beliefs.

Joe and Janie sit and talk for a while under a tree. This is significant to her dream of marriage with the image of the Pear Tree. Janie feels this man would make her happy. So then Logan comes home and Janie hints that she wants to leave. He then goes off on how no man will want her so he isn’t worried about her leaving. Of course, she wasn’t lying and she does leave him for Joe Starks and they move down to an all colored town where Starks would become mayor. The town they come to live in represents the time of the Harlem Renaissance.

13)

(What was she losing so much time for? A feeling of sudden newness and change came over her. Janie hurried out of the front gate and turned south. Even if Joe was not there waiting for her, the change was bound to do her good.)

This is a reference to the way women deal with problems in the beginning pages of the story. It was stated right off the bat that women forget things they don’t want to remember because what they know is the truth. They must believe the truth, so by forgetting something ever happened, there is no proof, and it is no longer true. Why this works for them, I will never understand. But Hurston, in this book, seems to think that what women know is true, is true indeed. So now she never married Logan Taylor…just like that.

14)

The Second Marriage

(It must have been the way Joe spoke out without giving her a chance to say anything one way or another that took the bloom off of things…she went down the road behind him that night feeling cold.)

This marriage won’t last long. Joe is a man who will do things for the good of mankind. He makes his name known. Janie feels proud of him, but is lonely. Her husband becomes a workaholic and she knows there is a storm coming.

Joe ends up being another controlling force in Janie’s life. She is always to help out around the store. He tells her what to do, when and how to do it. All day, every day. He is the boss, and everybody listens to him, even Janie. Janie is a Pear Tree Girl. That is, she wants to sit and lay under a tree and talk, just to pass the time. She doesn’t want to grow up and have responsibilities. Joe is forcing them upon her for becoming so big among the people. His fame is then represented through her, and she has to be something she is not in order to depict his magnitude the way he needs it.

15)

We’ll walk in de light, de beautiful light

Come where the dew drops of mercy shine bright

Shine all around us by day and by night

Jesus, the light of the world

This is a song sung after the lighting of the first lamp in a black town. This is a big moment in history, just as it is a big moment in the storyline. This short song represents light as a symbol of life. It is a motivational message; let your light shine on, don’t be afraid to put yourself out there with what you truly believe is right. This is what Janie needs to do. She is being controlled so much and she needs to be more independent, not listen to so many people, and shine her light.

16)

People start to grow envious of Joe Starks, but nobody could fill his shoes. They like what he is doing for the town, but begin to think they are being taken advantage of. (…how could they know up-to-date folks was spitting in flowery little things like that?) At this moment, a little order turns into chaos. (It was bad enough for white people, but when one of your own color could be so different it put you on a wonder.) There is some racism going on here, but it’s within one race. There are no white people in this story really, this makes it really harsh. Not only are black people beginning to loose trust within their own race, but they then start to feel a little crazy what with everybody hatin’ on each other.

People begin to turn on Starks (…he’s de wind and we’se de grass. We bend which ever way he blows…He’s got uh throne in de seat of his pants…he’s uh man dat changes everything, but nothin’ don’t change him)

17)

(The town had a basketful of feelings good and bad about Joe’s positions and possessions, but none had the temerity to challenge him. They bowed down to him rather, because he was all of these things, and then again he was all of these things because the town bowed down.)

Comparison between the town and Janie maybe?

The town, and Janie both have the same feelings towards Joe Starks. They love him, but they hate him. They can’t live with him, but they can’t live without him. Joe brought them so much product and order into their town, and he has become such an important person. Janie has to be what he is to some extend. She is acting as a first lady in this town, and from what we know about her, she just wants to sit under an apple tree, this is too much responsibility for her to handle, and she is being forced into it. Joe has her working in the store a lot too, more than she wants to be in there. He even goes as far as forbidding her to indulge in conversations about the mule because (He didn’t want her talking after such trashy people.)

18)

(Abraham Lincoln, he had de whole United States tuh rule so he freed de Negros. You got uh town so you freed uh mule. You have tuh have power tuh free things and dat makes you lak uh king or something….Yo’ wife is uh born orator, Starks. Use never knowed dat befo’. She put jus’ de right words

tuh our thoughts.)

Matt Bonner’s yellow mule is the subject of ridicule among the people of Eatonville. When Joe Starks frees the mule by purchasing it from Matt, there is a moment of triumph for him because the people didn’t like to see the animal abused. However, his victory is wrecked because his wife finally grew a pair. Janie mocks him in a speech comparing him to President Lincoln. Hambo quickly shows his appreciation. This is a moment in the rising action that fuels the drift in Janie’s marriage to Joe. His jealousy will not allow him to be upstaged by his wife. (Thank yuh fuh yo’ compliments, but mah wife don’t know nothin’ ‘bout no speech-makin’…Ah never married her for nothin’ lak dat. She’s a woman and her place is in de home.)

The WasteLand: Part V

The first four lines of the first stanza talk about the aftermath of war, lifeless land and the shouting a crying of people affected by it. Eliot is referencing the aftermath of WWI. Rich and poor are affected by it, and that makes them all equal. This sort of reinforces the idea in the first poem that death is better than life. In this deathly wasteland created by WWI everybody is one, and there is some sort of peace among the people. Then the last four lines in stanza one, “He who was living is now dead We who were living are now dying With a little patience” represents the idea of hope.
The second stanza is about a wasteland. This land is dry and “one can neither stand nor lie nor sit.” In this wasteland, there is nothing you can do, because it is so dry. The people are in dire need of water. I think the line “If there were water” is one whole stanza. It is the symbol of hope they are searching for.
Stanza six (A woman drew her long black hair out tight) is about darkness. Bats hang upside down with “baby faces?” Bats represent darkness, but with baby faces? This is a way of saying there is still some good inside them, some hope. Here in this stanza, time becomes unimportant, and there is still no water. This is the lowest of the low.
The next stanza brings some life back to the picture. The grass is singing in the mountains, and there is a chapel, or a Holy Grail. The Holy Grail is symbolic of hope. It is the idea that there is something worth searching the whole world for that will fix everything. This stanza ends with rain, the water has arrived, and now the thunder speaks!
The thunder is god. He makes three main points, or ideas: Give, Sympathize, Control. He asks, what have we given, because in the other poems all there was were rapes and failed relationships. In WWI there were obviously failed relationships among countries. The Sympathize speech puts us all in one boat. It tells us that everyone is locked up, and this makes us equal, so there is no need to fight. Control is exactly what it sounds like. There needs to be control, in this world of no control. Team: Together Everyone Achieves More.
The next stanza is about the fisherman again! I like the fisherman. Anyways he has the grail but he is wounded and cannot regenerate his land. Another way to think of this is when you have searched your entire key ring for the right one to open the door, but when you get there, you find that the mop you were looking for isn’t in the room and you can’t clean the wrestling mats!
The last four lines are the happy ending of the poem. There is hope, and there is rain. “These fragments I have shored against my ruins” is what Eliot saw after WWI. It can be related to Pangea. The world was united, and now it has fallen apart and there is no more teamwork. “Shantih Shantih Shantih” is the rain. It is the hope.

The WasteLand: Part IV

The first stanza is about Phlebas the Phoenician. Eliot states that he has been dead for two weeks. He also says he has forgotten about the “cry of gulls, deep sea swells and the profit and loss.”
The second stanza speaks of the way he died. He must have drowned because Eliot says, “a current under sea picked his bones.” He “passed the stages of his age and youth” in the water, he spent a lot of time out there. This part reinforces the title, Death by Water, and that there can sometimes be too much water.
This part of the poem is about what happens when there is too much water. In all the other parts, water is pure, and people need it to live. Here, it is the cause of death.

The Waste Land: Part III

Part III of The Waste Land opens describing a river that is "broken." Water is pure, and usually rivers each have a God that watches over it and protects it. The river described here does't. The color brown is brought up a lot. The land is browned by the polluted air, and by the cardboard boxes and cigarette ends. The first stanza ends with, "But at my back in a cold blast I hear the rattle of the bones, and the chuckle spread from ear to ear." To me, this is the first time in the poem where death is not thought of as a good thing. This is an evil death. It is a cold blast and it follows him from ear to ear.
The second stanza is where the river is really described. In this Godless river, evil lurks. There is a rat dragging it's belly along the bank, on a winter evening behind a gashouse burning dirty, dirty coal. There are white, dead bodies, and bones. And for some reason, the speaker is fishing here.
"Twit twit twit Jug jug jug jug jug jug So rudely forc'd. Tereu" This is reference to the Nightingale Song, which connects this part of the poem to the previous one. Whenever this song comes up, there is some kind of sexual abuse. So rudely forc'd is proof of this.
Stanza number four is about the "Unreal City" which we notice as London. Brown comes up again, representing a dirty, erie feeling "on a winter noon". Winter being death, noon being the height of the sun/day. This is the height of evil. So it is no coincidence the one eyed merchant comes up again. He relates back to the previous section as well.
The speaker now, Tiresias, is strange. He is and old man, with female breasts...hmm...Anyways, he is kind of watching this sailor come home from sea, and settle in at her home. He sees there is another man there who sexually explores her with no resistance. This woman is asleep, or even drugged and getting raped. Then he just walks away like nothing happened and creeps up the "stairs unlit" like he's done it many times. This is an example of a failed relationship. The man only wants the joy of sex, rather than the commitment of two becoming one. This ongoing theme of failed relationships symbolizes the failed relationships between countries, and the separation of Pangea. Thus, resulting in WWI and WWII.
The next four stanzas all reinforce the idea of women being stuck in a failed relationship, and therefore cannot live life to the fullest. They are spiritually dead. The woman who got date-raped wakes up looks in the mirror "hardly aware of her departed lover" and thinks only one thought, "Well now that's done: and I'm glad it's over" She knows something happened and she is okay with it? She doesn't want to loose him. She has something to prove to others it seems like and staying with this guy seems to be the way to do it. It all relates to Queen Elizabeth. She will not find herself a lover because then, they would take some of her power, therefore she cannot live life to the fullest and is spiritually dead! Queen Elizabeth stands for London, and she knows she has a reputation to uphold, so she takes it, just like the date-rape girl. :(
The end of part iii sets up part iv, which seems to be the climax. The word burning is said over and over again. The burning occurs in London, probably alluding to the Great Fire of London in 1616. They didn't have enough water to put out the huge fire...

The Waste Land: Part II

Any relationship can be compared to a game of chess. You can cheat, you can make no moves and be stationary forever, and you can give up and do something else. The title of part ii is A Game of Chess and it is fitting because the speaker tells a story of a failed relationship.

The relationship is found at the end of the poem mostly. The speaker is at a bar talking about her relationship with her friends. This woman has many kids, probably poor, does drugs and stays out late at the bar so often that she can say goodnight to everybody there. Her husband only stays with her because she relieves his sexual desires. "He's been in the army four years, he wants a good time, and if you don't give it to him, there's others will." She has had five children already, so they are obviously not using protection, because more kids means more childcare money. This relationship fails because there is no love. The man just wants sex, and the woman is stuck giving it to him. She took drugs to abort one of the children, and she already looks so "antique" so she can't really get another man.

There is a rape in the first stanza of the poem. "'Jug Jug' to dirty ears", "so rudely forced." This supports failed relationships. "Jug Jug" is the rape that occurs and her hair is "spread out in fiery points" She is pissed. Then she "would be savagely still." She is dead. Spiritually or physically is undefined, but it could be either one. It is more likely a spiritual death, but the speaker says nothing about the rapist killing the victim.

There is a repetition of words that represent the roots in Part I. "My nerves are bad to-night. Yes, bad. Stay with me. Speak to me. Why do you never speak. Speak. What are you thinking of? What thinking? What? I never know what you are thinking. Think." First the speaker is asking for words. When words do not come out, she searches further, she asks what he is thinking. This idea of searching the roots to find the problem goes back to the seasons changing and covering up the memories. "The forgetful snow." Then the speaker goes on and repeats the word nothing many times. The word nothing represents death. When there are no words to be said, and no thoughts to be thought, there is nothing and the relationship is dead. "Are you alive, or not? Is there nothing in your head?"

A Game of Chess supports death as a theme by the relation to failed relationships. People do kill themselves over the end of a relationship because it is an escape. Some things are worse than death.

The Waste Land: Part I

The Waste Land starts out with a quote from Petronius Arbiter’s Satyricon. In this quote Sibyl is asked what she wants and she says she wants to die. This sets the mood of the poem right away, making death a main theme. Death being wanted, death is something that characters in this poem will want to escape to.
Next there is a dedication to Ezra Pound, with a sub note that translates to, "The Best Blacksmith." This is fitting because he "...is generally considered the poet most responsible for defining and promoting a modernist aesthetic in poetry." Says Poets.org. Blacksmiths create solid swords and armor for great warriors just as Pound creates poetry so powerful, it can move people who don't even like poetry.

The first stanza has one speaker. They tell that April is the cruellest month because it brings life out of the dead ground. The life must be polluted then right? The speaker says this new life mixes "memory and desire, stirring dull roots with spring rain." This means the rain falls on the roots/beginning (memories) of the cause of death, and sprouts them back to life. They already died, so they already failed. Why then are they brought back? That is what I get from the first four lines.
Next, the speaker says, "winter kept us warm" because it covers the earth in "forgetful snow, feeding a little life with dried tubers." Winter is usually associated with death while spring brings life. The first four lines put down spring and these lines here tell why winter/death is more comforting. In death, you can forget your bad memories, allowing you to move on a little.

The next stanza is a different speaker. The speaker asks again, why do the plants sprout back to life? "What are the roots of that clutch, what branches grow out of this stony rubbish?" Death is favored here by people, but nature seems to think otherwise, always finding a way back to life. However, the shadow theory we see here is interesting, and backs up the idea of death being great. The speaker says your shadow strides behind you in the morning, while at night it is rising to meet you. Morning can represent spring, everything is coming to life. People are waking up to go to work and school, and things are getting done. Evening represents death. The sun has gone to sleep, dandelions close into themselves at this point and things die. So the speaker says your shadow, which could also be an inner/more important self, stands with you in death. So you aren't completely lonely.
The next allusion is on line 30 with the handful of dust. It symbolizes the story in which a woman asks for eternal life but forgets to ask for eternal youth. She gets old and useless and is therefore stuck in life and her only escape is death. This supports the theme of death.
This speaker goes on and tells us a failed relationship. "I could not speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither living nor dead, and I knew nothing, looking into the heart of light, the silence." Then a quote translating to, "desolate and empty the sea." This quote puts the end note on the previous lines. Their relationship is the sea and it just so happens to be desolate and empty, neither alive or dead. It is stationary and silent. This relationship fails, but not too extremely.

Part I of The Waste Land supports death as a main theme. Death is found in the seasons, and in most relationships. Most of the time, death is the better option because it can set you free from the worst predicaments.

The Second Coming: Explication Son'!

Just a little on Spiritus Mundi...

-The other day I was out walking my dog, and a small Spiritus Mundi bopped this little kid in the head just because he was standing to close to his car.
-Spiritus Mundi secretly lusts after Salma Hayek
-Spiritus Mundi acts all smart and reasonable to gain admiration, but in his secret heart he's just as dumb as everybody else.
-Spiritus Mundi left the toilet seat down and peed all over it.
-Spiritus Mundi does not always completely finish his beer.
-Spiritus Mundi was on the grassy knoll.
-Spiritus Mundi farts are depleting the ozone lair.
-Spiritus Mundi uses up valuable natural resources to the detriment of the environment.
-I'm pretty sure Spiritus Mundi does not believe in the wealth effect.
-Spiritus Mundi is receiving compliments that would otherwise go to the needy.
-Spiritus Mundi deserves your flame.

While The Second Coming is full of symbolic images, the title itself is probably to most relevant. The "Second Coming" makes connection to Jesus/Anti-Christ, Order/Chaos, or Spiritus Mundi. Jesus parallells the Anti-Christ, just as Order does to Chaos. Spiritus Mundi connects with the title because it is believed that it is used to predict the second coming...of the world!

The "Second Coming" most obviously represents repetition. The first line (Turning and turning in the widening gyre) creates an image of a widening cylinder, or a tornado, or a funnel, where a tornado would mean chaos and a funnel (making the job easier) means order. The circle shape alone represents repetition, and even unity because a circle never breaks. The fact that it is widening shows that there is something off, maybe some chaos. This idea is backed up in line 2 (The falcon cannot hear the falconer;) This means that there is no order, or a rebellion. It could even mean the falcon is lost, and with line 3, (Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;) un-stability, or CHAOS!

Relating the title to Jesus and Anti-Christ figures, this poem symbolizes both. Jesus, representing order, while the Anti-Christ represents chaos. The lion-man alludes to both the sphinx in the desert guarding the pyramids (order) and the mythological idea of the sphinx (chaos). The Egyptian Sphinx was a representation of the Sun God and a guardian (order/Jesus), while the Greek Sphinx was a demon (chaos/Anti-Christ). The word Sphinx comes from a Greek word meaning strangle. The sphinx (or Phix) was a female monster with the body of a lion, the breast and head of a woman, eagle's wings and, according to some, a serpent-headed tail. She was sent by the gods to plague the town of Thebes as punishment for some ancient crime. There she preyed on the youths of the land, devouring all those who failed to solve her riddle.

Spiritus Mundi means literally, spirit of the world. Yeats believes that some people have the intellectual thought process to tap into this spirit and foresee the ideas of the world. Now, weather Spiritus Mundi exists or not is up for debate, but it definitely has people believing the world has a plan, and people who can tap into this spirit get a look at what the plan is like. Spiritus Mundi is how the world acts; it is karma, superstitions, and if you don't believe in it, it's all just physics. Spiritus Mundi was reached by the Mayans, Nostrodomas, and many greek philosophers like Socrates and Antisthenes.

So indeed The Second Coming raises questions that are maybe improvable, the title alone makes one clear symbol that carries through the whole poem; Order and Chaos are equal opposing factors, and neither one is weaker than the other.

Villanelle Explication

The House on the Hill

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They are all gone away, The house is shut and still, There is nothing more to say. Through broken walls and gray The winds blow bleak and shrill: They are all gone away. Nor is there one today To speak them good or ill: There is nothing more to say. Why is it then we stray Around the sunken sill? They are all gone away. And our poor fancy-play For them is wasted skill: There is nothing more to say. There is ruin and decay In the House on the Hill They are all gone away, There is nothing more to say. Edwin Arlington Robinson

Not, perhaps, a poem about depression, but certainly a depressing poem.
Arlington, here, doesn't attempt to overcome the intrinsic limitations of
the villanelle; rather, he uses the repetition and the choppiness to
reinforce the images of passing time, death and decay.

The theme is, in fact, very reminiscent of Hardy, if not handled with the
latter's skill. Arlington's keenly observant eye, very much in evidence in
his character-based poems, seems to have deserted him here; the images don't
quite ring true, or evoke the mood the poet is trying for.

Indeed, the main reason I like this poem is as an example of how clever
wordplay, meaning twists and grammatical tricks are not necessary in order
to write a villanelle, nor is any sort of self-reference, humour or allusion
to the form. 'The House on the Hill' is a straightforward use of the form -
the repeated lines are simply repeated, with no apology or workaround. And
if this isn't that good a poem, the fault is in the content, not the form.

Explication: Death, be not proud

Death Be Not Proud is among the most famous and most beloved poems in English literature. Its popularity lies in its message of hope couched in eloquent, quotable language. Donne’s theme tells the reader that death has no right to be proud, since human beings do not die but live eternally after “one short sleep.” Although some people depict death as mighty and powerful, it is really a lowly slave that depends on luck, accidents, decrees, murder, disease, and war to put men to sleep. But a simple poppy (whose seeds provide a juice to make a narcotic) and various charms (incantations, amulets, spells, etc.) can also induce sleep—and do it better than death can. After a human being’s soul leaves the body and enters eternity, it lives on; only death dies.

To convey his message, Donne relies primarily on personification, a type of metaphor, that extends through the entire poem. (Such an extended metaphor is often called a conceit.) Thus, death becomes a person whom Donne addresses, using the second-person singular (implied or stated as thou, thee, and thy). Donne also uses alliteration, as the following lines illustrate:

For THose whom THou THink'st THou dost overTHrow
Die not, poor Death, nor yet Canst thou Kill me
Much pleasure; THen from THee Much More Must flow
And Dost With poison, War, and sickness DWell
And better THan THy stroke; why swell'st THou THen
One short sleep past, We Wake eternally (Note: One begins with a w sound)
And Death SHall be no more; Death, thou SHalt Die

In the couplet, poet believes that death is like a short sleep afterwhich we wake up forever. So death is not dreadful. In fact death itself will die.

Death, be not proud Questions

1)
Death isn't proud and death is sleep

2)
Death isn't proud because it is a slave to fate, chance, kings and desperate men. And it works with poison, war, and sickness (ln 9-10). These are logical arguments. Why should death be proud of being a slave to these things? Poison, war and sickness is how death does it's work, and these things break apart families, countries and could even bring the end of the world.

3)
I say the speaker is a man of assured faith that death is not to be feared. I come to this from reading the last three lines:
"And better than thy stroke. Why swell'st thou then?
One short sleep passed, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die."
The speaker says we are in a sleep, and that sleep is death, but we can always wake up. We can always open our eyes and see that we are better than death. And then death would be no more.

4)
The rhyme scheme seems to be ABBA ABBA CDDC AE. This could be most related to the Italian Sonnet because there are octave rhymes. ABBA x2 CDDC start and end the same, and have the same sound in the middle. The volta AE is a good end and a good change because the A relates it back to the beginning and the E throws a new idea in all together (the change).
In this poem the turn is when he realizes death is nothing to fear because we're better than death.

Sonnets With Attitude

I. The Italian (or Petrarchan) Sonnet:

The Italian sonnet is divided into two sections by two different groups of rhyming sounds. The first 8 lines is called the octave and rhymes:

a b b a a b b a

The remaining 6 lines is called the sestet and can have either two or three rhyming sounds, arranged in a variety of ways:

c d c d c d
c d d c d c
c d e c d e
c d e c e d
c d c e d c

EXAMPLE:

"Missing the Meteors"

A hint of rain--a touch of lazy doubt--

Sent me to bedward on that prime of nights,

When the air met and burst the aerolites,

Making the men stare and the children shout:

Why did no beam from all that rout and rush

Of darting meteors, pierce my drowsed head?

Strike on the portals of my sleep? and flush

My spirit through mine eyelids, in the stead

Of that poor vapid dream? My soul was pained,

My very soul, to have slept while others woke,

While little children their delight outspoke,

And in their eyes' small chambers entertained

Far notions of the Kosmos! I mistook

The purpose of that night--it had not rained.

II. The Spenserian Sonnet:

The Spenserian sonnet, invented by Edmund Spenser as an outgrowth of the stanza pattern he used in The Faerie Queene (a b a b b c b c c), has the pattern:

a b a b b c b c c d c d e e

Sonnet 75 from the Amoretti

One day I wrote her name upon the strand,
But came the waves and washed it away:
Again I wrote it with a second hand,
But came the tide, and made my pains his prey.

Vain man, said she, that doest in vain assay
A mortal thing so to immortalize,
For I myself shall like to this decay,
And eek my name be wiped out likewise.

Not so (quoth I), let baser things devise
To die in dust, but you shall live by fame:
My verse your virtues rare shall eternize,
And in the heavens write your glorious name.

Where when as Death shall all the world subdue,
Out love shall live, and later life renew.

III. The English (or Shakespearian) Sonnet:

The English sonnet has the simplest and most flexible pattern of all sonnets, consisting of 3 quatrains of alternating rhyme and a couplet:

a b a b
c d c d
e f e f
g g

XXVII (27)

Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed, The dear repose for limbs with travel tired; But then begins a journey in my head To work my mind, when body's work's expired:

For then my thoughts--from far where I abide--
Intend a zealous pilgrimage to thee,
And keep my drooping eyelids open wide,
Looking on darkness which the blind do see:
Save that my soul's imaginary sight
Presents thy shadow to my sightless view,
Which, like a jewel hung in ghastly night,
Makes black night beauteous, and her old face new.
Lo! thus, by day my limbs, by night my mind,
For thee, and for myself, no quiet find.

IV. The Indefinables

There are, of course, some sonnets that don't fit any clear recognizable pattern but still certainly function as sonnets. Shelley's "Ozymandias" belongs to this category. It's rhyming pattern of:

a b a b a c d c e d e f e f

is unique; clearly, however, there is a volta in L9 exactly as in an Italian sonnet

"Ozymandias"

I met a traveller from an antique land

Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert . . . Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, (stamped on these lifeless things,)

The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:

And on the pedestal these words appear:

"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Farm Implements and such...

Definition of Sestina

Sestina: One of the most difficult and complex of the various French lyrical forms. The sestina is a poem consisting of six six-line STANZAS and a three-line ENVOY. It makes no use of the REFRAIN. This form is usually unrimed, the effect of RIME being taken over by a fixed pattern of end-words which demands that these end-words in each STANZA be the same, though arranged in a different sequence each time. If we take 1-2-3-4-5-6 to represent the end-words of the first STANZA, then the first line of the second STANZA must end with 6 (the last end-word used in the preceding STANZA), and the second with 1, the third with 5, the fourth with 2, the fifth with 4, the sixth with 3 – and so to the next STANZA. The order of the first three STANZAS, for instance, would be 1-2-3-4-5-6; 6-1-5-2-4-3; 3-6-4-1-2-5. The conclusion, or ENVOY, of three lines must use as end-words 5-3-1, these being the final end-words in the same sequence, of the sixth STANZA. But the poet must exercise even greater ingenuity than all this since buried in each line of the ENVOY must appear the other three end-words, 2-4-6. Thus so highly artificial a pattern affords a form which, for most poets, can never prove anything more than a poetic exercise. Yet it has been practiced with success in English by Swinburne, Kipling, and Auden.

And now, the theme of home in this poem. Home represents safety and relaxation. The sea hag is relaxing on the couch and Whimpy opens can after can of spinach. Normally, because these are cartoon characters, we might expect to see a chase, making lots of noise and breaking lots of objects. But they are in a home, not their home; the setting is Popye's house.

Popye now has some sort of god-like power. He is there, but he really isn't there. He is an overseer. Also there is reference to him being able to wield thunder. Popye, as everyone knows, eats spinach and gains unbeatable strength. He wields green thunder.

An Unfortunate Snort

Why do we rise if only to fall
Bitches be trippin', ain't no lie
Why we gotta die ain't no harm done
Haters gon' hate, snitches gon' snitch

Seriously, bitches be trippin'
It's never enough, I can never win
Cause haters Gon' hate, and snitches Gon' snitch
You had my heart, at least, for the most part

It's always enough! But I can never win
Yes I always loose, but there's nothing better to choose
You did have my heart, and you teared it the F*** apart
I ain't done here, loosing isn't quitting

I don't have to always loose, screw that
It's wave, oh, for the next life
Not even close to done, loosing isn't quitting
I don't know if I alone want you

It's wave, oh, for the next life
I'm sad to say it's not the last time
I don't know if I want you alone
I look into your body, fill you up with enemies

I'm glad to say it's not the last time
Why did we die, nobody told a lie
I look inside your body, fill you up with enemies?
Why do we rise if only to fall

5 Rhymes

1
Iambic - unstress, stress. unstress, stress
a metrical foot consisting of one unstressed syllable followed by one long or stressed syllable.

Example: i NEED to PEE

2
Trochee - stress, unstress. stress, unstress
a metrical foot consisting of one stressed syllable followed by one unstressed syllable.

Example: F*** the PO-lice

3
Anapest - unstress, unstress, stress. unstress, unstress, stress.
a metrical foot consisting of two unstressed syllables followed by one stressed syllable, twice.

Example:  da da DUM, da da DUM

4
Dactyl - stress, unstress, unstress. stress, unstress, unstress.
a metrical foot consisting of one stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables

Example: applesause, Tea Party, 'soldier side'

5
Spondee: stress, stress.
a metrical foot consisting of two stressed syllables.

Example: F U. Go Big. Suck it. Love Stinks...Yeah Yeah

Punk Pantoum

PUNK
is not a fashion statement
and it is not a commodity
every time you sanitize it
we will re-infect it
every time you clean it up
we will dirty it again
It is, essentially two words
the first word is "fuck"
and the second word is "you"
Not because we are not
capable of saying much more
but because you are not
capable of understanding
anything less

The Punk Revolution was born in the 1960's and was most popular through the 1970's. Punk was really a way of saying f-that. People were punk, not so much because they hated the world, but because they are bothered by the conformity of the world. Punks fight the power, The Man. The American Revolution was really an older form of punk. A bunch of rich, white, slave owning men didn't want to pay their taxes, so they fought against it. Thomas Jefferson said, "A little rebellion was good every once in a while...It keeps the government from having too much power."  Now punk isn't thriving, but it will never die because everyone has some punk in them...just some more than others...

In Punk Pantoum a man asks his lover to take her life as he takes his. If the speaker is 'the punk', then the aristocratic lifestyle in which he lives is 'the man'. We know he lives in a rich neighborhood, Eutaw Place was originally known as Gibson Street (a place for the wealthy) and we know what he thinks of them, "rats, a severed fetlock, muscle, bone and hooves".
The speaker feels since the man keeps putting him and his lover down they should run away. That would be something logical to do, you don't like something so you get away from it. But how can you run away from the entire world? The man will always find you, and he cannot die!...but you can.
Death can be a satisfication, relaxation or a new experience. "There's a new song out just for you and me" Nobody can tell you what death is like becuase nobody really knows. Death is whatever you want it to be. The speaker and his lover have the same belief in it. In death they really can love each other for all eternity, unbothered.

The first and last line of the pantoum are basically the same. In the Punk Pantoum the first line is
"Tonight I'll walk the razor along your throat"
and the last is
"Tonight, dragging the white-hot razor across our throats, and back..."

There is a definite shift in tone here. 'Walk' to 'dragging' indicates movement, painstaking work or even hardship. The last line describes the razor as 'white-hot'. From thefreedictionary.com white-hot means in a state of intense emotion. The first line has little or no emotion and the last is in a state of intensity because they are about to kill themselves. The transition from 'your throat' to 'our throats' symbolizes their connection. They will live forever in death, unbothered.
'And back...' means that they are not done here. There will be more that happens. In this particular poem it means that there is an afterlife. The '...' probably means etc. It means literally, 'and back, and back, and back, and back, and back...' forever because death is an eternity!