Moonrise Kingdom: the truth in its absurdity

Wes Anderson, the director of the cult classic, Moonrise Kingdom, makes use of camera shots, lighting, music, and the setting to set the mood and tone for this quirky movie. Set in an older era, the summer of 1965, the story is simplistic. It follows the forbidden love of a young girl and boy as the society around them tries to stop their eloping. While the story mimics Shakespeare’s well known tragedy, Romeo and Juliet, Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom is much more comical. The love between Romeo and Juliet is greatly romanticized and often sought out by popular culture because of the characters’ passion, impulsive, and tragic circumstances. It is not often seen as silly, trivial, or comical even though the story takes place within a time span of approximately four or five days. Moonrise Kingdom’s much younger protagonists, however, are harder to take seriously. To be quite honest, none of the characters can really be taken seriously. But that’s the point of movie. Wes Anderson takes the classic Shakespearean, romantic tragedy and reworks it with a twist. His “Romeo” and “Juliet” are two twelve year olds running away from home for the sake of love, but their youth makes the love between them seem silly and trivial. Their naivety and age makes it easy for the audience to dismiss the love between them as being “child’s play”. However, viewers will realize by the end of the movie that the love between these two twelve year olds cannot be more genuine. In fact, it might be the most genuine and earnest thing in the movie. The time period in which the movie is set, the summer of 1965, is characterized by bright pastel colors, the emerging American nuclear family, and plastic-like artificial perfection. Wes Anderson makes use of the time period and camera shots to flip our perception of what it earnest and what is superficial by illustrating the society around the two characters to be “fake” and “doll-like”. This is captured in the opening scenes of the movie. The shots of the room are taken at a distance so that the room is perfectly square and open to the audience like the room of a doll house. The furniture is impeccably neat as are the children and the clothes, to the point where everything seems slightly unnatural. The makeup of the grown women also reflects this artificial perfection. The doll-like makeup would have been “in style” during this particular period but it’s also purposeful. The sharp, black eyeliner, colorful eye shadow, and pink lipstick are as artificial as the “perfect” relationships that exist between the husbands and wives, parents and children, and teachers and students. The characters within this film have very little (if any) sense of humor and take matters very seriously, but that’s what makes this film a comedy. The unexpected truth and honesty behind this very young love reveals the superficiality of the society around them and evokes humor. It’s a contradiction to our expectation that romantic love belongs the “adult world” and is based on maturity; it’s a situation that is rarely seen in real life, and it’s madness. But there is truth in the oddity of this situation which gives the simplistic and comedic nature of the story depth.

Analyzing Catch Me If You Can

The movie, Catch Me If You Can is about a young sixteen year old boy named Frank Abegnale Jr. who runs away from home after his parents get divorced. He learns to forge checks, and impersonates an airline pilot, doctor, and lawyer to survive. What’s most notable throughout this movie is its use of music to convey Frank’s thought process and emotion. The character’s need to runaway and commit fraud to live the “ideal life” stems from his parents’ divorce in which his family lost everything. At one point in the movie, he tells his father, “Dad, I’m getting married in two weeks- I’m buying a sixty thousand dollar house, a new Cadillac. I’m getting it all back, everything they took from us. I want you and Mom to come to the wedding together.” The movie makes use of old Sinatra songs to convey his inner wishes. In the earlier scenes when his mother and father were still together, they would dance in the living room to the song, “Embraceable You”. Unfortunately, Frank, who is holding their red wine, spills some on the carpet. This spilling of the red wine foreshadows the darkening of his parents’ relationship. The color red, symbolizes the frustration, aggression, and criminal activity that would follow suit. As Frank gets ready to marry a nice Southern girl named Brenda, he is invited over to her house for dinner. And he watches in the shadows, peeking into the kitchen as Brenda’s parents wash the dishes together. They seem happy and very much in love. The same song that his parents danced to in the earlier scene plays, making the song “Embraceable You” sound bitter sweet this time around because of the way this scene parallels Frank’s past. Frank stands in the shadows because he knows that he can never be a part of that happy family. Standing in the glowing light of the kitchen, Brenda’s parents emanate warmth. They represent his inner desire for his parents to get back together again. The shadow that Frank is standing in, however, represents the reality. No matter how many times he changes his identity, runs away, or forges checks, he will always be just a sixteen year old kid with divorced parents. The shadow is also the looming possibility that he’ll get caught. Whenever the FBI are around, Frank is always seen hiding in the shadows: behind a curtain, behind a door, right around the corner… he’s always just one step away from being found out. Deep inside, Frank knows that he needs to stop. He even begs his own father, Frank Abegnale Sr. to tell him to stop, but it’s clear that he has come to far. Frank Abegnale Jr. is a boy that’s stuck in the in-between. He can’t live in the warm light of the American Dream because everything about himself is fake and made-up, but he’s not quite swallowed up in the darkness either. He’s a boy who has thrown his childhood away for a chance to chase the life he could have had, living in the shadows to avoid the consequences. In that sense, Frank is kind of tragic character, not quite fitting in anywhere.

To Earthward

To Earthward

By Robert Frost

Love at the lips was touch

As sweet as I could bear;

And once that seemed too much;

I lived on air

That crossed me from sweet things,

The flow of—was it musk

From hidden grapevine springs

Downhill at dusk?

I had the swirl and ache

From sprays of honeysuckle

That when they’re gathered shake

Dew on the knuckle.

I craved strong sweets, but those

Seemed strong when I was young;

The petal of the rose

It was that stung.

Now no joy but lacks salt,

That is not dashed with pain

And weariness and fault;

I crave the stain

Of tears, the aftermark

Of almost too much love,

The sweet of bitter bark

And burning clove

When stiff and sore and scarred

I take away my hand

From leaning on it hard

In grass and sand

The hurt is not enough:

I long for weight and strength

To feel the earth as rough

To all my length.

Robert Frost’s “To Earthward” focuses on the influential role time plays on the development of love and reveals that love can sometimes bring pain and bitterness but those struggles are what make love taste even sweeter. The first stanza of the poem illustrates the “honeymoon” period of a new love. The speaker is overjoyed and enamored. So much so that it “seemed too much” and he “lived on air”. Underneath the surface of this sweet love, however, there is a sense of foreboding. This is seen in the second stanza as the smell of musk is mentioned, “That crossed me from sweet things, /

The flow of—was it musk.” Musk is a strong, animalistic scent that is often used in the undertones of perfume. It is a scent that is also associated with sex because it is an aphrodisiac. Juxtaposed against the “sweet things” that suggest innocence, the scent of musk that the speaker smells is used to foreshadow the maturity and darkness of the relationship that is to come. The last line of the second stanza, “Downhill at dusk?” has a similar effect. “Downhill” paints a picture of uneven ground for this relationship. Flat, leveled ground would mean that the love will be smooth and easy, but by illustrating uneven ground, the speaker is foreshadowing difficulties that would soon to come. “Dusk” is the time of day when the sun is setting. While beautiful and colorful, dusk brings darkness as day turns to night. The transition from day to night symbolizes the transition of the love from shallow sweetness to a love with more maturity and difficulty. The speaker admits that while he was younger, he “craved strong sweets” such as “honeysuckle” and “the petal of the rose”. But he realizes now that “Now no joy but lacks salt, / That is not dashed with pain / And weariness and fault; / I crave the stain.” Salt, which is the opposite of sugar and sweetness, represents the difficulties that come with love and relationships. So the line, “Now no joy but lacks salt”, goes to convey that everything that brings joy is “dashed with pain and weariness and fault”. Still, the speaker craves “the stain”, which means that he loves because of these difficulties that come with a deeper relationship. He cherishes the bitterness and the tears, viewing those as “the aftermark / Of almost too much love,” evidence that their love is real. He compares these feelings in the next stanza to times when his hand is “stiff and sore and scarred” “From leaning on it hard / In grass and sand.” Grass and sand are pleasant parts of nature, but leaning on it hard can leave imprints and soreness. This comparison ties back into the line, “Now no joy lacks salt.” To bring his transformation from a boy who craved only the shallow sweetness of love to a man that learned to understand how the pain of love creates joy, the speaker concludes by saying that “The hurt is not enough: / I long for weight and strength / To feel the earth as rough / To all my length.”

"March Days Return With Their Covert Light"

‘March days return with their covert light’

March days return with their covert light,
and huge fish swim through the sky,
vague earthly vapours progress in secret,
things slip to silence one by one.
Through fortuity, at this crisis of errant skies,
you reunite the lives of the sea to that of fire,
grey lurchings of the ship of winter
to the form that love carved in the guitar.
O love, O rose soaked by mermaids and spume,
dancing flame that climbs the invisible stairway,
to waken the blood in insomnia’s labyrinth,
so that the waves can complete themselves in the sky,
the sea forget its cargoes and rages,
and the world fall into darkness’s nets.

Pablo Neruda

Pablo Neruda is in fact the penname of a famous Chilean diplomat by the name of Neftali Ricardo Reyes Basoalto. Winning a Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971, he is often known for his love poems, political manifestos, and prose autobiographies. In “March days return with their covert light”, Pablo Neruda contrasts light and dark to reveal that love is often reckless and does not succumb to control; it is passionate and unstable. This poem seems to take the form of a sonnet due to its 14 lines, but the meter, syllable count, and rhyme scheme does not fit the sonnet’s traditional form. The first line, “March days return with their covert light,” is only 9 syllables rather than the usually 10 syllables. The month of March is indicative of the start of spring, and spring is often used to represent the blooming of love. However, this love affair is not one that is yet public. Still in its early stages, the relationship is a quiet one. Such a conclusion can be reached from the word, “covert” which Neruda purposefully chooses to describe the light of spring. The light of spring which melts the coldness of winter, representative of a brief hiatus from love by the speaker, acts as a spotlight to illuminate the lovers and draw attention. But the word, “covert” indicates that this light is hidden. Perhaps this is because the speaker is not quite ready to go public with the love affair since he had recently suffered through a break up.

            The second line, “and huge fish swim through the sky,” continues the focus on the coming of spring. The huge fish are the white clouds against the blue sky. The white clouds that shift form and travel across the sky look strikingly similar to fish when put against a blue sky, which also mimics the color and nature of water. The clear sky and clouds provide contrast against the monochromatic, grey color scheme that winter often adopts. However, the nature of this poem is not as innocent as one may think. These images of spring point to a start of a love affair that is passionate and sexual. Spring is a season for mating. Signs of sexual arousal and pheromones appear in the third line, “vague earthly vapours progressive in secret”. Pheromones cannot be actively detected by most humans so that would explain the line of “progressing in secret”. The silence in line 4 is a hint to the sexual tension that builds. When sexual tension is in the air, both partners naturally feel the need to stop talking. Chattiness is a sign of a relaxed and comfortable environment; silence is a sign of tension.

            Lines 5 and 6, “Through fortuity, at this crisis of errant skies, / you reunite the lives of the sea to that of fire,” describes how this new lover has brought passion back into the broken hearted speaker’s life. The speaker sees the lover’s entrance into his life as an accidental, yet lucky occurrence. He expresses this through the word, “fortuity”, which carries the meaning of an instance of good fortune. We know that he is thankful for meeting her and that she has had a large impact in his life because he describes life before her appearance as “this crisis of errant skies”. “Errant” means to deviate off the normal course, so we can assume that after breaking up with his last lover, he lost his way. The imagery of fire and the sea provides a contrast. The sea represents a cool calm, even indifference, the life the speaker used to have. Fire is representative of passion. So by saying that she reunites “the lives of the sea to that of fire”, he is expressing that she has brought passion back into his life.

Why Depressing Male Characters Are the New Prince Charming

From Prince Hamlet to Mr. Darcy to popular culture’s Edward Cullen, depressing male characters have been charming heterosexual women and homosexual males for ages. There’s something about their sullen faces, pale skin, and “the world is hopeless” attitude that just draws us in. Readers have always loved their damsels in distresses; it’s time that we acknowledge that it’s just as easy to fall in love with a tragic prince. Quiet, misunderstood, and with a metaphorical rain cloud over their head, these male characters tend to do a lot of thinking. They contemplate societal responsibility, life and death, and aren’t buying the whole rosy-colored-glasses thing. Their deep thinking and quiet nature make them come across as philosophical; they observe the world as by-standers and point out the wrong being done. However, very few of them ever rise up to be “the macho hero”; they often take the place of the outcast or underdog. They don’t care for fame or money; instead, these characters thirst for a different passion whether it is romance or knowledge or societal acceptance. They don’t mind being invisible, and I think, as readers, we identify with their need for love and acceptance. At the same time, we feel a wave of pity and sympathy for these characters that have constant internal conflict. Depressing male characters with a deep, dark secret are the most alluring. Though not my favorite, Edward Cullen from the Twilight Series is a prime example. His “secret” is that he’s really not a normal seventeen year old; other than the fact that he’s filled with angst, he’s actually a vampire. This dark secret gives the character a more sinister, animalistic side. It makes him “beast-like”. The internal struggle of loving his damsel in distress counterpart, Bella Swan, and wanting to eat her, makes him seem “tragic”, “deep”, and quite frankly, “dreamy”. But this feature of deep inner turmoil is not unique to Edward Cullen; it’s actually a spin-off of the Beast from Beauty and the Beast. Prince Hamlet also “fights his inner beast”. Though this Shakespearean character is not cursed by physical disfigurement or supernatural abilities that set him apart from the rest of the human race, his passion and “madness” (whether the madness is real or staged is up for debate) is the “beast within”. He is torn inside, wanting to kill King Claudius to avenge his father (this is the beast-like quality) but at the same time wanting to keep his morality and rational (the human quality). His sorrowful soliloquies and philosophical questions regarding the universe make him seem untouchable, and therefore desirable.  In turn, his conflict with his own inner beast makes the reader want to “save” him. After all, every manic pixie dream girl needs a depressing male counterpart (you’d understand if you’ve read my previous blogs). Finally while these depressing characters lack vivaciousness and seem mostly lethargic, their choice to sit back quietly and think rather than to rally up the crowd to fight reveals something about ourselves. It is not easy to be courageous and heroic, most of us are cowards who see evil in the world but fail to change it, and we identify with their apprehension to take action. It does not mean that we do not care; it does not mean that we are heartless. It simply means that we are human. We fall in love with these sullen male characters simply because they are human. They accept that they are not fearless and that they make mistakes; this makes these characters seem genuine, and therefore, lovable.

Psychoanalyzing Hamlet

Can we diagnose Hamlet with a mental disorder? It’s hard to say. A mental illness is characterized by the instability of mood, thought, and behavior. The condition must be considered to be “distressing” to the patient and the behavior/way of thinking must be out of the norm. The condition must also be recognized by American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. It’s likely that Hamlet has a mood disorder. Mood disorders, particularly major depression (which also goes by the name of clinical depression or major unipolar depression) are extremely common. Major depression could possibly explain Hamlet’s dark, bleak outlook on life. This mood disorder is characterized by a sad or depressed mood, lack of interest in things that once made the person happy, fatigue/tiredness, guilt without logical reason, difficulty concentrating, and reoccurring thoughts about death. Depression can often be triggered by stressful events such as death. Considering Hamlet’s father died, his mother married his uncle not two months after King Hamlet’s death, and his uncle took the throne in place of himself, the chance that Hamlet has experienced a stressful enough situation to trigger a mood disorder is pretty high. As the reader, it’s also possible for us to reach the conclusion that Hamlet feels immense guilt over his father’s death without reason (after all, he wasn’t the one that killed King Hamlet). Guilt is often a feeling one feels after someone close to them has died. One can argue that King Hamlet’s ghost is a manifestation of Prince Hamlet’s guilt. Prince Hamlet must feel guilty for doing nothing because the ghost of King Hamlet calls him a “fat weed” and implies that he’s being a coward. Hamlet seems to be bothered by his cowardice, his indecisiveness, and passiveness. In one of the earlier soliloquies he tells us that he is not Hercules, that he is not a hero. Some psychologists believe that depression is simply self hatred turned inward towards the patient. If this perspective is true, Hamlet can be suffering from major depression because he hates his cowardice and desperately wants to please his father. From a Freudian, psychodynamic perspective, Hamlet’s abnormal relationship with both his mother and father can be to blame. Hamlet seems to worship his father. He compares him to a Greek God, specifically Hyperion. Hyperion was one of the Titans and the sun to Helios, the sun, Selene, the moon, and Eos, the dawn. It can be said that Hamlet views his father as the creator of this world, a god. He admires his father and puts him on a pedestal, something that is unusual for normal children to do. The relationship with his mother is also odd and questionable. One can say that he has a bit of an Oedipus complex. He is very concerned with his mother’s private sex life, to the point of obsession. At the end of Act III, he has a whole conversation about the morality of her relationship with his uncle. In their conversation, he finds it appropriate to tell her, “O, throw away the worser part of it, / And live the purer with the other half. / Good night: but go not to mine uncle’s bed;” For the majority of people, giving advice and taking control of one’s mother’s sex life is inappropriate and uncomfortable. But it’s possible that Hamlet feels the need to do this because he is in love with his mother. It’s possible that these repressed feelings of desire simply show up under the disguise of disgust and shame over his mother’s choices rather than his true feelings of jealousy.

Hamlet's Many Faces

Hamlet as the fool.

Hamlet takes on many different archetypes during the course of the play. He plays the moral judge, fool/jester, impulsive fighter, scholar, artist, philosopher, and coward. We see a different side of Hamlet every time he puts on a different mask. The scholar is witty. We see him play the scholar as he shows off his intellectual prowess. This is often seen in his exchanges with Polonius in which he makes Polonius seem ignorant and foolish. He keeps his cool and calm demeanor in these scenes. However, as the fool, Hamlet is at his most honest state (see what I did there?). He is able to speak his mind, though his sincerity is masked by his outlandish humor. It’s the only way he knows how to break out of his silence. In Act I, he speaks about his inability to express his emotions through a soliloquy, in which he says, “But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue.” So playing “the fool” is the only way Hamlet knows how to break free of walls that conceal his emotions. With humor, there is truth. By being absurd, rude, and comical, Hamlet is able to get away with saying some pretty sharp comments. In Act III, he insults both his mother, Queen Gertrude, and his exgirlfriend (depending on how you interpreted the scene before), Ophelia, in front of the entire court. He makes some very crude jokes, and even remarks, “That’s a fair thought to lie between maidens’ legs” for the pure purpose of provoking her. Ophelia has no choice but to keep her anger hidden because Hamlet is much higher in rank, since he is the prince of Denmark, and because she is a woman and the time period expected her to take the insults. He also treats his mother in a similar way by bringing up the death of his father, King Hamlet, her disloyalty, and the “incest” that is taking place between the sheets since Gertrude is Claudius’ sister in law (since King Hamlet was Claudius’ brother). Still conversing with Ophelia, he points out his mother, “O God, your only jig-maker. What should a man do / but be merry? For, look you, how cheerfully my / mother looks, and my father died within these two hours.” Though his mother waited two months rather than two hours to get married to Claudius, Hamlet purposefully says, “two hours” in order to be humorous and sharp tongued at the same time. Hamlet also takes on the part of “the fool” when he acts mad (or actually is mad, depending on the interpretation). We see this as he speaks with his childhood friends, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, after the play. He acts slightly crazy, demanding them to play the pipe. Guildenstern refuses to try and play the pipe despite Hamlet’s demands, and Hamlet turns the situation around by revealing that he knows about their spying. While they planned and plotted behind his back, convinced that he was crazy, Hamlet knew exactly what was going on. By pretending to be mad and playing the fool, Hamlet gives himself the upper hand because he is able to feign ignorance. 

On Rhymes

I generally like rhymes. They draw attention to work at hand, stress the importance of what the speaker is trying to convey, facilitate memory, provide entertainment and verbal wit, and marks the end of soliloquies (if you’re William Shakespeare). There are many different kinds of rhymes of course, perfect rhymes, eye-rhymes, imperfect rhymes, half rhymes, and head rhymes (better known as alliteration) just to name a few. But for this blog post, I would like to concentrate on the best known, most widely accepted types of rhymes. These are often identical rhymes, eye rhymes, and perfect rhymes. Perfect rhymes can be divided into three subcategories: masculine, feminine, and dactylic. Let’s start with the eye rhyme. The eye rhyme, unlike some of the more traditional rhymes that rely on the “sound” (or pronunciation) of the word, rely on the spelling of the word. For example, while “slaughter” and “laughter” don’t “sound” much alike but they rhyme because of their almost identical spelling. The perfect rhyme can be split up into three categories: masculine, feminine, and dactylic. The first subcategory, masculine rhymes, is characterized by the stress on the final syllable of the word. “Sublime” and “rhyme” are a good example. While “sublime” and “rhyme” are not spelled the same way, they do sound the same, at least the last syllable does. Unlike the eye rhyme, with perfect rhyme does not depend on the spelling of a word. Instead, it relies on pronunciation. The stress is placed on the last syllable, meaning the “-ime” part of the word in “sublime” and “rhyme”. Feminine rhymes are a tad bit trickier than masculine rhymes. Feminine rhymes, like masculine rhymes, still depend on pronunciation over spelling and still uphold the expectation that the last syllable must match in sound. However, in terms of the “stressing” of the words, feminine rhymes differ. Unlike the masculine rhyme that places the stress on the last syllable, the feminine rhyme places the stress somewhere in the middle, usually the second to last syllable. For example, “tricky” and “picky” are both perfect rhymes. However, they are not masculine, they are feminine In both words, the stress is placed on the second to last syllable of the word. That’s the strong “i” in “tricky” and “picky”. If it was a masculine rhyme, the stress would be placed on the “y”. In a dactylic rhyme, the stress is on the third to last syllable. The dactylic rhyme is much more uncommon in comparison to the masculine and feminine rhymes, and that’s because such long words are harder to come across. “Cacophonies” and “Aristophanes” are an example of a dactylic rhyme. The stress is placed on the “o” sound in both words rather than the “fa” sound or “ees” at the end. Identical rhymes are probably the most well-known. These are often the first rhymes we are exposed to as children. An example of an identical rhyme would be “gun” and “begun”. Homonyms or “punning rhymes” would also be considered identical rhymes, such as “bear” and “bare”.

Love Sonnet 18

Love Sonnet 18

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer's lease hath all too short a date:

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade

Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;

Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou growest:

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

So long lives this and this gives life to thee.

William Shakespeare’s Love Sonnet 18 compares the object of his affection to a summer’s day. Line 2, “Thou art more lovely and more temperate:” expresses how his lover is more mellow and beautiful than a summer day. The word temperate has more than one denotation, making this statement have more than one meaning. Temperate can mean moderate or self-restrained in opinion, not susceptible to extreme passion or emotion, or moderate in temperature or weather. So line 2 can be speaking to both his lover’s personality and temperament as well as their physical beauty, meaning that aesthetically, their features are not harsh. “Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May” speaks to the fragility of love and relationships. Rough winds signify the conflicts and difficulties that the couple may face, while the “darling buds of May” represent the romance. The month of May is in spring, and spring is connotated with renewal, rebirth, and love.

            “Summer’s lease” in line 4 is the amount of time that this pleasantness will last. “Lease” has the meaning of owning temporary possession. So “summer’s lease” is a way of saying summer’s pleasant weather and romance won’t last forever. It’s limited because the lease will end, which is summed up by “too short a date”.  Line 5’s “Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,” explains that sometimes the relationship will be scrutinized by everyone. The “eye of heaven” refers to the sun, and gives the image of a bright, hot spotlight on his lover. The sun, which is a great source of light, reveals small details and flaws in people, allowing scrutiny to occur. As a result, the speaker worries that, “often is his gold complexion dimm’d; / And every fair from fair sometime declines”.  “His gold complexion” can literally be referring to his lover’s skin, but “complexion” can also mean viewpoint or attitude. So while the sun can literally be damaging his lover’s complexion with its harsh rays, in a metaphysical sense, the scrutiny from the people around them is causing his lover to lose his bright attitude. “Fair” is used in a way so that its multiple meanings are being used in one sentence. “Fair” as a noun can mean “woman” or “lover”, free from bias and injustice, pale in color and untainted, straight (as in direction), or an exhibition. So in “And every fair from fair sometimes declines”, the first “fair” takes the meaning of “woman” or “lover” and the second “fair” takes up the meaning, free from injustice, bias, or dishonesty.

            While conflict can come between their love, the speaker goes onto say, “But thy eternal summer shall not fade.” While the season itself may pass, the pleasantness that comes with summer will remain eternal within his lover, making fading impossible. The speaker ends the sonnet by proclaiming his faith in his lover, “When in eternal lines to time thou growest:/ So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, / So long lives this gives life to thee.”

Harlem [Dream Deferred] 

Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore—
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over—
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

- Langston Hughes

Langston Hughes’ poem, “Dream Deferred” reveals that dreams that are deferred end up becoming toxic because of the permanent regret that remains from not fulfilling the dream. His message is made more prominent through his usage of rhetorical questions and vivid imagery.

            He first compares a dream deferred to a dried up raisin in the sun (lines 1-2). Raisins, while still considered “fruits” are a dried up, aged version of grapes. Wrinkled up, losing its vibrant color and juiciness, raisins can be considered less appealing than grapes. Like dreams, grapes are best when they are fresh. By making this comparison, Langston Hughes is advocating that dreams be fulfilled as quickly as possible and not be deferred. By waiting and putting the dream on the backburner, the fresh possibility of the dream fades and the regret takes over. A raisin, which is much like the shell of the grape, robbed of its moisture and freshness of the fruit is like the regret that is left over when the dream is deferred.

            In lines (3-4), the dreams that were put aside are compared to festering sores. “Sore” can refer to a wound or diseased part of one’s body part but it can also refer to “sore” as in causing great suffering, misery, or hardship (dictionary.com) One can also be “sore” as a result of suffering bodily pain from bruises or wounds. When one becomes “sore” it is usually after enduring slight pain over a great deal of time. Langston Hughes makes the argument that dreams work in the same way. If a dream is put aside for a long period of time, the pain and regret builds up, therefore making one “sore”. That regret, remains permanent until the dream is fulfilled.

            He asks the reader, “Does it stink like rotten meat?” in line (5). Like the festering sore in lines (3-4), “rotten” gives off the image of “decomposing” or “tainted” meat. If unattended and uncared for a long enough time, dreams too can decompose and turn rotten, corrupting a person from the inside just as festering sores and rotting meat does. It is through the neglect that the regret and harm arises.

            However, Langston Hughes does not end his views on deferred dreams by saying that they simply rot inside a person. Instead, he chooses to end his poem with a rhetorical question as his last line, “Or does it explode?” It’s as if the regret built itself up to a great pressure and burst out from within the once-dreamer. Dreams that are deferred do not merely sit within a person; instead, they burst out after years of being put aside. No matter what, they find a way out. It’s as if the whole process is necessary for cleansing. Like a festering sore, the infection or the rotting flesh must be terminated or amputated. Deferred dreams, because of how harmful they are, must find a way to escape the body. 

The Manic Pixie Dream Girl

The manic pixie dream girl is a female trope that frequently turns up in popular culture. Appearing in books such as  The Perks of Being a Wallflower, movies such as  500 Days of Summer (or anything Zooey Deshanel is in), and TV shows such as Skins, the manic pixie dream girl often serves as inspiration and an escape for the male lead character. She is characterized by her quirkiness, craziness, childishness, and her carefree attitude on life. Unfortunately despite all her “uniqueness” that sets her apart from the rest of the world, the manic pixie dream girl often falls flat as a character. Too often one dimensional, with no desires, dreams, or conflicts of her own, this trope enters the story in order to move the male lead along. This is most prevalent in romantic comedies/ romance movies where the female lead character meets the grumpy, closed-off male lead. She is childlike, quirky, and full of life, while he is cynical and sullen. The male lead reveals that he has been hurt once and that despite his hard exterior, he has a soft inside. The manic pixie dream girl eventually gets him to open up and love life again, giving the movie a happy ending. 27 Dresses features Jane, who is a more grounded version of the manic pixie dream girl. She is kind to everyone, including her self-centered and whiny younger sister, and has kept all 27 of her bridesmaid dresses. She eventually gets the male lead, a cynical writer who has had his heart stomped on, to open up after drunkenly singing a rendition of “Bennie and the Jets” with him in a bar. Similarly, Leslie (though too young to be a love interest) from Bridge to Terabithia is a manic pixie dream girl trope in the sense that she is solely there to inspire Jesse to live his life to the fullest. Her death, then, becomes far more tragic, and she becomes something of a hero and idol to Jesse.

            The problem with this trope is that once oversimplified, the character becomes flat, one dimensional, and somewhat of a Mary Sue. The manic pixie dream girl trope has been criticized by film critic, Nathan Rabin, as being "that bubbly, shallow cinematic creature that exists solely in the fevered imaginations of sensitive writer-directors to teach broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries and adventures". She often has little character development, acting as a Peter Pan-like character that never grows up, existing only to restore youth and happiness to surrounding characters. Thus, looking at this trope through a gender lens, this particular female character trope generally implies that a women’s sole purpose is to act as an angel and muse for men, providing comfort and vitality to those who see the harsher realities of the world. “Unique”, childish, and always aesthetically pleasing and pretty, the manic pixie dream girl is much like a doll. Although she can sometimes be stubborn (but always in a “cute” way that makes the man fall in love), for the most part, this character is passive, sweet, and holds few flaws. 

Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder

            Ellen Olenska is a captivating woman. Unlike May, she not afraid to speak her mind, and she frequently spends time with people that the high-class New York society might consider to be “less than desirable”. Newland Archer is intrigued by the way her mind works, and he is in love with the womanly courage she possesses. Instead of abiding the rules set for her, Countess Olenska chooses to make her own decisions, such as leaving her husband, the rich Count Olenski, even if it means facing social consequences. Her decision leads to coldness from her own family, whispering, and gossip on her “foreign” behavior. However, Ellen Olenska is not a “beautiful” or “pretty” woman in terms of the traditional standards of aesthetic beauty during that time period. When he is reintroduced to her at the opera after years and years of not seeing each other, Newland Archer views as a run-away wife that has become washed out and old in comparison to the young and vibrant May Welland. He finds her dress to be in bad taste, and the low-cut top to be scandalous. “He hated to think of May Welland's being exposed to the influence of a young women so careless of the dictates of Taste.” (Wharton) But as the story progresses and Archer increasingly gains affection toward this character, Ellen Olenska’s physical description changes. Rather than a critical analysis of her physical flaws, the narrator and Archer begin to concentrate more on her assets and her charm. That charm influences his overall view of her, and he falls in love with everything that she is and represents. Ellen represents everything that will become “new” New York society in the future, and this is reflected through the descriptions of her physical beauty which Archer might consider beautiful but does not abide to the traditional standards. In contrast, May Welland is representative of the “old” New York society. She abides to the invisible rules set for her by her parents and the older generation. She knows how to be sweet and the definition of a “perfect wife”. She is young, pretty, and vibrant. However, as Archer is exposed to Ellen Olenska’s way of looking at the high-class New York society and starts to dislike the conformity that is expected, he starts seeing the flaws in May Welland’s beauty as well. He notices that her eyes are blank, and he becomes increasingly impatient with her lack of curiosity and lack of desire for what he considers to be “freedom” for women. He also realizes that his marriage to May Welland will be nothing more than “a dull association of material and social interests" (Wharton). Therefore, Archer and the narrator’s view of her physical beauty changes as well. He describes her eyes as being "almost pale in their youthful limipidity" and her face as being “"the vacant serenity of a young marble

athlete"(Wharton). Wharton’s sudden yet subtle usage of words like “vacant” and “limpidity” goes far to describe May Welland as simply pretty and empty rather than beautiful like before. And these changing perceptions of beauty reflect Newland Archer’s changing perception of the high-class New York societies. 

The Love Song of Newland Archer

In these last chapters, Newland Archer makes his final decision to run away with Countess Olenska and live the life that he’s been meaning to live. His actions and words show increasingly more affection towards Ellen Olenska, even in front of his wife, May, and the other families. May has become much more aware of his feelings and has become somewhat frantic. For the first time, things seemed to have been going his way. Newland Archer is able to talk himself out of the so-called “business trip” that he had told May he was going on, even though he was really meaning to see Ellen. In addition, the grandmother’s health recovered enough for her to regain control and force the family to continue giving Ellen her allowance. Ellen is then able to separate from her husband, the Count Olenski, and return to Europe. Unfortunately for Archer, he is not able to join Ellen, nor is he able to give a final goodbye. He is forced to stay at home once May unveiled that she was in fact, pregnant with his child. With everyone in the family, including May, suspecting that he was having an affair with Ellen Olenska, Newland and May decide to throw their first large party as a send off for Ellen. There, Newland confirms his belief that everyone believes him to be unfaithful to May and he watches as the families all regain their warm reception of Ellen. They treat her with the utter most respect, and she is sent off with the blessing of the high-class New York society. With May being pregnant, that would have been Archer’s last chance to be with Ellen. However, he chooses to stay married to May until the day she dies. He has three children (2 boys and a girl), one of whom gets married to one of Beauford’s “bastard children”. However when his eldest son takes him to Europe and gives him the chance to meet with Ellen Olenska after all these years, Archer simply walks away from the opportunity, stating that he was “too old fashioned”.

            Newland Archer’s indecisiveness that continued until the last chapters of The Age of Innocence and his never ending thoughts of regret reminded me a lot of the poem, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T.S Eliot. Like the speaker of the poem, Newland Archer throws away an infinite amount of opportunities for him to see Countess Olenska and get out of his “pretend” marriage with May. Instead of acting upon his thoughts and desires, Archer often ponders and second-guesses his intentions until the opportunity has passed. He keeps questioning his own happiness and the shoes that the high-class New York society expects him to fill, much like the speaker in “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”, who keeps asking, “Is it worth it?”  The speaker also asks, “Do I dare disturb the universe?” which is similar to the hesitation that Newland Archer feels because of the society’s invisible rules that require a husband to stay with his wife, remain discreet, and above all else, to not create any disturbances. But society is not the only thing that holds Archer back. He is also afraid of the truth and possibility. At the very end of the book, Archer is given the chance to see Ellen Olenska; she had invited both him and his son, indicating that she has not forgotten them or that she still holds affection for him. However, Newland dismisses the opportunity and offer by telling his son that he is “old fashioned” and walking back to his hotel. He is afraid that Ellen Olenska might have changed, that he, himself might have changed, and that their love might have faded away. And so he tells himself, “It’s more real to me here, than if I went up”, signifying that he, like the speaker in “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”, would much rather dream and imagine the possibilities than to claim them and take charge of his own destiny.

"The Mental Traveler" vs. Grendel

Grendel by John Gardner and William Blake’s “Mental Traveler” both deal with the same loss of innocence and change that occurs when infants are exposed to experience. In the “Mental Traveler”, Blake states that “For there the Babe is born in joy”. The same can be said in Grendel’s case. Grendel starts off being quite content with his world; he considers himself a part of his mother, “She loved me, in some mysterious sense I understood without her speaking it. I was her creation. We were one thing, like the wall and the rock growing out from it.” (page 17, Gardner) Ignorant and without any of his own thoughts, ideas, or philosophies, Grendel in chapter 2 is virtually untouched by the world. All he knows is the pounding of his mother’s heart and the warmth of her loose skin. However, when he meets man, everything changes. The same can be said for the infant in Blake’s “Mental Traveler”. When the baby is first born, he is joyful and ignorant; he has no contact with the outside world. However, when he is given to a n old woman (aka exposed to a human), everything changes. She “nails him down upon a rock,” and “catches his shrieks in cups of gold.” It is not said explicitly whether the old woman was what caused the infant to shriek or if he was even shrieking before the encounter, but the fact that they mention this after he was passed to the old woman is significant, as if she was the cause of his sudden misery. In a sense, the old woman is much like the dragon that appears in John Gardner’s Grendel. She “Cuts his heart out at his side, / To make it feel both cold and heat”, which is somewhat equivalent to exposing the baby to the world. She is giving him the experience of cold and heat or good and evil. The dragon appears to become Grendel’s mentor for the same reasons that the woman is the one caring for the baby, to expose him to the world. Up until that point, Grendel has known two things: the shielded cave that he was born into with his mother and the idealistic, meaningful world that the Hrothgar’s tribe (human society) has created. The dragon gives him a chance to feel “cold” by exposing him to what the reader might consider “the truth”. However, like the “Mental Traveler” his transformation and maturity does not end there. Grendel constantly shifts back and forth between the dragon’s philosophies and the philosophies of the shaper just as the female and male in Blake’s poem are constantly growing old and becoming younger. It is a cycle that has no end. As Grendel dies at the end of the novel, another being will probably appear to take on his role of the “monster” in order to make the human society function, and then the dragon will probably reappear to explain the universe as he sees it, without meaning. 

The Helpless/MIA Mother Trope

I picked up on the lack of a mother figure in the teenage protagonists’ lives in the fifth grade. Disney Channel’s show, Hannah Montana was “the biggest thing” in my class back when Miley Cyrus could still be tamed. I suppose the show followed the typical Disney format: a girl and her best friend, a dorky father, a close guy friend (and potential romantic interest), and a MIA mother. When I picked up on the detail that Hannah Montana’s mother never showed up on set (they implied that she died), I started noticing it in other movies, TV shows, and books too. Snow White, Cinderella, Peter Pan, The Sound of Music, Harry Potter (both of Harry’s parents died, but Luna’s missing a mother too), The Golden Compass, To Kill A Mockingbird… the list is endless, but what’s most notable is this trope seems to appear most frequently in stories that are aimed toward teenagers. The mother is not always dead, sometimes she has simply disappeared without any explanation at all or she is present but hardly mentioned other than when she is being criticized. And this “helpless mother trope” is most notable in the two most talked about book series by teenage girls in the last couple years: The Hunger Games Trilogy by Suzanne Collins and the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer. While the mothers are somewhat present within the story, appearing every so once in a while, the only thing the protagonists, Bella Swan and Katniss Everdeen, have to offer their mothers is pity. It is clear that the female protagonists in the two series feel that they are more mature, dignified, and stronger than their mothers. In fact, the role of parent and child reverses within the story so that the protagonists are constantly taking care of/looking out for their mothers. Their attitudes toward their mothers are not subtle in any way at all; in fact, the pity mixed in with a good dose of teenage arrogance appears within the first chapter of both series. Within The Hunger Games it appears on the first page, “In sleep, my mother looks younger, still worn but not so beaten-down. Prim’s face is as fresh as a raindrop, as lovely as the primrose for which she was named. My mother was very beautiful once, too. Or so they tell me.” (Collins) While Katniss’s commentary on her mother’s beauty might not seem like much, but historically, beauty has been a key aspect in a female’s worth. While The Hunger Games is a more contemporary piece of work, in this quote, Katniss’s commentary on beauty is about more than aesthetics. She is subtly showing disapproval and disappointment in her mother’s lack of vitality and pity in her growing age and helplessness. Her attitude towards her mother is far harsher than her attitude towards Prim, and this is confirmed a few pages later. Her mother is helpless and clueless, dependent upon her children as shown on page 11, “They’re not our kids, of course. But they might as well be. Ale’s two little brothers and a sister. Prim. And you may as well throw in our mothers, too, because how would they live without us? Who would fill those mouths that are always asking for more?” (Collins) In Twilight, Bella views her mother in a more positive light. She doesn't hold any past grudges or much criticism in her parenting in comparison to Katniss, but she treats her mother like a child. She is concerned for her well being, and it is implied that the mother cannot take-care of herself, “How could I leave my loving, erratic, hair-brained mother to fend for herself? Of course she had Phil now, so the bills would probably get paid, there would be food in the refrigerator, gas in her car, and someone to call when she got lost, but still...” (Meyer). This helpless/MIA mother trope that is used over and over again within teen series has one important job, and that is to force the protagonists to act beyond their age and be portrayed as being much more heroic, responsible, and caring than they actually are. Despite their intentions and actions within the present, the trope gives the reader a kind of assurance that “Yes, the protagonist is a good person. She is a hero”. But the truth is, if the writer spent more time developing the protagonist and less time assuring that the reader that the character is likable, we might end up with mothers that are substantial characters and more than skimpy placeholders held up by a trope.  And this is one of the many reasons why I can’t approve the usage of this particular trope wholeheartedly; it seems that the majority of the time when it is being used, the author is simply getting lazy in their character development. 

How Do I Love Thee?

How Do I Love Thee?

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. 
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height 
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight 
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace. 
I love thee to the level of every day's 
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight. 
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right; 
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise. 
I love with a passion put to use 
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith. 
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose 
With my lost saints, -- I love thee with the breath, 
Smiles, tears, of all my life! -- and, if God choose, 
I shall but love thee better after death. 

-Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s “How Do I Love Thee?” illustrates an undying love that lasts for the ages. Formatted in a Petrarchan Iambic Pentameter form, the poem follows the traditional expectations of a Petrarchan sonnet. Made famous by the Italian poet, Petrarch, the Petrarchan sonnet which gained immense popularity in the Romanicism period often deals with the subject of love. Like the classic Petrarchan sonnet, Browning reveals that her love for her husband is equally timeless. Thus, she ends the sonnet with the line, “I shall but love thee better after death” reiterating the point that this love is not just a passing feeling but one that will last for eternity, even after death. Browning attempts to do the impossible: counting exactly how many different ways she loves her husband. She uses many comparisons to do this, particularly emphasizing how her love reflects the nature of man. “I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;/ I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise” in lines 7-8 focuses on the nature of man and his existence throughout the ages. By doing so, Browning is making a statement that her love is instinctual, ever-lasting, and predestined as man’s existence has been. She loves “with a passion put to use/ in my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.” (lines 9-10) which is a reference to the innocence and unhindered passion that only exists in childhood. She trusts her lover with blind faith-“my childhood’s faith” (line 10). A child’s faith is undying just as her loyalty to her lover is. Line 11, in which Browning states, “I love thee with a love I seemed to lose” conveys that this love is untainted by her past experiences. Like the childhood faith, the experience that comes with growing older often leads to disappointments and let downs. Browning hints that she too has been disappointed, betrayed, and hurt by others that she has loved in the past by including this line. However, she is not bitter about the experience. Instead she seems to have turned around those unpleasant experiences, putting them to good use as a way to compare how she feels about her lover now. So instead of using malicious language or cool indifference to reference the others that have caused her to lose her love in the first place, she calls them “lost saints”. These “lost saints” can be an allusion to Milton’s Paradise Lost or the biblical story of how Adam and Eve were banished from the Garden of Eden. Like Adam and Eve before their fall, the ones that she had loved seemed to be harmless and possibly “saint-like”. However, after the experience that opened up her eyes to betrayal, hurt, and disappointment, their saint-like image was lost. So although they are the same people, with the acquirement of this new knowledge and experience with love that leads to Browning’s lost love, these “saints” are metaphorically banned from Browning’s own Garden of Eden. Finally, as a bold conclusion, Browning ends her sonnet by pledging to give her life for this love if God so chooses because her lover is “smiles, tears, of all” her life (line13). 

The Ever Changing Cinderella

The first “Cinderella story” that I had been told came from my mother. It was a big fat lie, at least in the eye of my preschool-aged self who found a great many differences in the story I had been told and the “real” story that everyone else had known. For one thing, my Cinderella was a doctor. She never married the prince, never sought help from a fairy godmother, nor did she ever seek out wealth through romance. In contrast, Disney’s Cinderella (the one everyone but I was familiar with) kept kindness and beauty close to her heart. She was graceful and seemed to have the magical ability to talk to animals. Everyone loved her, except for her evil stepmother and stepsisters who were simply jealous of her lack of personality. Looking back, I should have found my mother’s retelling of Cinderella much more appealing. The girl saved her village from an infectious disease by building a hospital and becoming a doctor; she single-handedly convinced the prince to give funding to the hospital by winning her over with her charms, wit, and intelligence. She stood out from the other girls because she was more than a pretty face. In contrast, the Disney’s Cinderella seeks romance and a night of fun at most, and her prince falls in love with her beauty, completely disregarding everything else about her. But the classic Cinderella story has evolved over time, reflecting our society’s view of women. In the third grade, Disney’s shallow, objectified, helpless, and simply-a-princess-out-of-sheer-luck Cinderella redeemed herself in the book, Ella Enchanted. She kept all the magical elements of the original story and all of the more historical “kingdom” elements. However, compared to the Perrault version, published in 1697, and the Brothers’ Grimm version, there is a drastic change in the expectations and values in women. Ella in Ella Enchanted may have a fairy godmother and an evil stepmother but she wins over the prince with her sense of wit, humor, and bravery in addition to her natural beauty. Her main focus in this story is not to marry the prince, but to gain her independence. She refuses his marriage proposal by saying, “No, I won't marry you. I won't do it. No one can force me.” (Levine) as an act of disobedience. At the same time, Ella is not untouched by the traditional gender roles imposed upon her. When the prince chooses to dance with her out of all the other ladies at the ball, she feels honored. Although she seeks her own freedom, her desire for marriage, romance, and status is undeniable, as shown by this passage, “‘would you favor me with a dance?’ Over all the others I was his choice! I curtsied, and he took my hand. Our hands knew each other. Char looked at me, startled. ‘Have we met before, Lady?’” (Levine) As society itself changes the perception of women and their values, the classic story of Cinderella is retold to reflect those changes. The more modern retellings add wit, humor, and intelligence to the list of characteristics that Cinderella is known for rather than sticking to the original “kindness of heart” and beauty only. 

[i carry your heart with me(i carry it in]

BY E. E. CUMMINGS

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in

my heart)i am never without it(anywhere

i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done

by only me is your doing,my darling)

                                                      i fear

no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want

no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)

and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant

and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows

higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

           

I have never understood the use of parentheses in poetry. Frequently they can be used “wrong”. One might assume that since it’s poetry, anything goes, but that is not the case. Poetry, while often shorter and harder to decipher than prose does have rules to a certain extent. Throwing around parentheses within the lines of your poetry might give the poem an air of sophistically, a look that is “edgy” and modern. But a “good” poem (which is of course relative to the reader) concerns itself not only with its appearance but with the meaning being conveyed. And what makes a poem successful is its ability to convey the meaning effectively. For years, I had thought e.e. cummings merely threw around grammatical mistakes and strange formatting to “defy the system”, but I was wrong. There is a clear purpose to his unusual style if only one would take the time to look just a bit deeper. His poem, “[i carry your heart with me(I carry it in]” reads as two poems.  

Here is the poem excluding the section in parentheses:

i carry your heart with me

i am never without it

                       

                        I fear

no fate I want

no world

and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant

and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart

Here is the poem exclusively with the section in parentheses:

(i carry it in

My heart)  (anywhere

i go you go my dear;and whatever is done

by only me is your doing my darling)

(for you are my fate,my sweet)

(for beautiful you are my world,my true)

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

And the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows

Higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)

(I carry it in my heart)

The phrase “i carry it in my heart” repeats a few times within the course of the poem. But every single time it appears, it appears within a set of parentheses e.e. cummings plays with his formatting, giving it a visual element as well. The parentheses represents the cavity of his heart, and by doing so (and keeping it consistent throughout the poem ) e.e. cummings paints a picture in his reader’s mind not only through his words but through formatting. He’s able to convey two messages, one being an intimate confession of love and the other being about the life he carries in his heart. 

shaper vs. dragon

In John Gardner’s novel, Grendel, the universe is split into two: good and evil. In general, the shaper is perceived to be “good”. In the human societies, he gives men purpose. He defines “good” and “bad”, and records histories. Grendel, our narrator, is conflicted with the shaper. He is moved by the shaper’s song and the meaning that he reveals in this universe, but at the same time he sees through the lies that the shaper creates. The shaper rewrites history to glorify humans and their wars. The Danes believe his lies easily, but Grendel is not that naïve. He was present for the events and remembered them differently. However, there is a part of him that wants to believe in the shaper. He asks his mother in the earlier chapters about their existence and purpose in the world, but she simply conveyed to him through her body language, “don’t ask.” In the shaper’s version of the truth, Grendel is a monster born from the fight between two brothers, Caine and Abel. His miserable life is explained by the fact that Grendel was on the losing side and had God’s wrath brought down upon him. And while the story of Caine and Abel does not change any aspect of his life, it does establish a role for him to fulfill. The dragon on the other hand, offers no explanation for Grendel. There is only one truth: we all are born and we will all die. Life is a pointless accident. It starts and ends quite suddenly. In the long run, his actions will not matter. Fate is already set, and as time passes everything would be forgotten. The dragon has the ability to see the past, present, and future, but he does nothing to change the future. He tells Grendel, “  My knowledge of the future does not  cause the future. It merely sees it, exactly as creatures at your low level recall things past.” (page 63)The actions that will be remembered will be misinterpreted as “good” or “evil”, regardless of intentions. While the shaper seems to be a vital part of the human society, giving them  reason to live, it is Grendel himself that motivates the humans. Like the dragon whose desire and purpose in life is to seek out gold and sit on it,  the humans are driven by their desire to defeat Grendel. So in the end, it is not the shaper that drives the humans, but Grendel himself. However, it is unclear whether fate is driving Grendel to make certain decisions.  The real question is what is driving Grendel to be the monster he is. The dragon would interpret his actions as being Grendel’s free will. However, according to the shaper, his actions would be due to the forces of “good” and “evil”. In the end, after the 5^th chapter, Grendel seems to have chosen the dragon’s side. He is set free to go on a rampage after basically told that he should “do as he likes”. This unfortunately will have dire consequences on the Danes. 

A Valentine

 A Valentine

For her this rhyme is penned, whose luminous eyes,
Brightly expressive as the twins of Leda,
Shall find her own sweet name, that nestling lies
Upon the page, enwrapped from every reader.
Search narrowly the lines!- they hold a treasure
Divine- a talisman- an amulet
That must be worn at heart. Search well the measure-
The words- the syllables! Do not forget
The trivialest point, or you may lose your labor
And yet there is in this no Gordian knot
Which one might not undo without a sabre,
If one could merely comprehend the plot.
Enwritten upon the leaf where now are peering
Eyes scintillating soul, there lie perdus
Three eloquent words oft uttered in the hearing
Of poets, by poets- as the name is a poet's, too,
Its letters, although naturally lying
Like the knight Pinto- Mendez Ferdinando-
Still form a synonym for Truth- Cease trying!
You will not read the riddle, though you do the best you can do. 

- Edgar Allan Poe

Throughout his poem, “A Valentine”, Edgar Allan Poe conveys his advice to his lover about life and its hidden meanings by comparing it to poetry and writing. In the third line he tells her that she “shall find her own sweet name”, or her own meaning and purpose in life. Names are not only used for simple identification and to minimize confusion; they also represent a being and their actual identity. It comes to be “who they are” and defines their physical and mental being. So he words the line carefully to place more than one meaning. The second reason for that particular line about her “own sweet name” might also be hiding a clue because he goes on to say that it “lies / Upon the page, enwrapped from every reader.” Edgar Allan Poe may have hidden his lover’s name within the lines of this poem, hiding it from the rest of the readers. The word “page” also carries a second meaning. He might be using the pages of a book as a metaphor for the blank canvas of her life that she will fill with her own meaning. Her true purpose would then be “enwrapped from every reader”, because it is impossible for a person to truly understand the intentions of the writer. “Search well the measure- / the words- the syllables!” refer not only to the structure of his poem, but to the small clues that life leaves as well. He tells her that there is “no Gordian knot/ which one might not undo without a saber, /if one could merely comprehend the plot.” He alludes to the era of Alexander the Great when he speaks of the Gordian knot. The Gordian knot is often a metaphor for a unsolvable problem. Again, he compares life to a work of writing, explaining to “his valentine” that there is no problem that cannot be solved if only you can understand the plot. The plot, of course, refers to the “greater plan” or fate. However the poem takes a sudden twist of darkness in line 13, “Eyes scintillating soul, there lie perdus” Perdus can refer to several things. Originally a French term, “perdu” is a soldier assigned to an extremely hazardous duty (merrium-webster.com). The second meaning is hidden, concealed, or obscured. (freeonlinedictionary.com) In this context, Poe is probably using the first definition. “the leaf” in line 12 can be  an allusion to the Tree of Knowledge. We seek out the meaning of life but cannot comprehend what is written on the leaf.  The “three eloquent words oft uttered in the hearing” can be referencing the words, “I love you” since poets are frequently known as hopeless romantics. As for “as the name is a poet’s, too,” Poe is telling her that he cares for her so much that his name, which consequently is 3 “words” long, has become “I love you”. But “I love you”, like “the knight Pinto-Mendez Ferdinando” or Fernando Mendez Pinto, who was a Portuguese explorer and writer known to have recorded his adventures with many lies in between that no one is sure how truthful his tales are, the phrase is naturally used for lying. However his feelings are genuine, they “form a synonym for Truth”, his truth.