The Apple Tree by Katherine Mansfield: An Analysis

The Apple Tree is a short story of the British author Katherine Mansfield who was best known for her short stories. Her stories display sensitivity to emotion by giving attention to the inner conflicts of the characters. Hence, the short story, The Apple Tree, also project these subtle characteristics.

The story begins with the description of the setting. The setting was on a house where two orchards grow. The first orchard was describe by the narrator as “One, that we called the “wild” orchard, lay beyond the vegetable garden; it was planted with bitter cherries and damsons and transparent yellow plums. For some reason, it lay under a cloud; we never play there, or did not even trouble to pick up the fallen fruit.” The other is described as “But the other orchard, far away and hidden from the house, lay at the foot of a little hill and stretched right over to the edge of the paddocks – to the clumps of wattles bobbing yellow in the bright sun and the blue gums with their streaming sickle-shaped leaves.” Though two orchards were mentioned, the story focused on one orchard.

The story continues with the rising action when the narrator’s father found the forbidden tree during an after-dinner prowl one Sunday afternoon. Henceforth, the father was described by the narrator. According to the narrator, his father doesn’t know about the names of fruit trees – “He knew nothing whatever about the names of fruit trees.” The narrator also says that her “Father was a self-made man, and the price he had to pay for everything was so huge and so painful that nothing rang so sweet to him as to hear his purchased praised. He was young and sensitive still. He still wondered whether in the deepest sense he got his money’s worth.” – this means that his father was a hardworking, rich and extremely reflective especially on money matters. The father is also firm, strong and strict as reflected on these lines “Don’t touch that tree! Do you hear me, children!” said he, bland and firm; and when the guest had gone, with quite another voice and manner.’’ And “If I catch either of you touching those apple you shall not only go to bed – you shall each have a good sound whipping!”

The rising action started on the blooming of the apples. When ripened, father, Bogey (narrator’s brother) and the narrator went to it to taste the fruit.

The climax occurred when the children took a bite on the apple, “I kept my eyes on Bogey. Together we took a bite. Our mouth was full of a floury stuff, a hard, faintly bitter skin – a horrible taste of something dry.” This was followed by the denouement. The two stared each other, chewing and swallowing while deciding on what to say to their determined father. “Bogey and I stared at each other, chewing desperately. In that moment of chewing and swallowing a long silent conversation passed between us – and a strange meaning smile. We edged near Father, just touching him.” This resulted to the conclusion that both lied, ““Perfect!” we lied. “Perfect – Father. Simply lovely!”” but their lying was no use for their father already tasted the apple and spat it out of his mouth; decided to never went back to the apple tree again.

For the characterization of Bogey and the narrator, whose name is not mentioned, are good kids to their father. They enjoyed childhood and feared their father as introspected in the story.

The point of view is first person. A narrator is telling his past experiences about an apple tree which anonymously grew inside their property.

The diction of the story is informal. The author used simple, compound and compound-complex sentences: simple – “There were two orchards belonging to the old house.”; compound – “Father spat his out and never went near the apple tree again.”; compound-complex – “And now we played up to him, Bogey and I, Bogey with his scratched kneed pressed together, his hands behind his back, too, and a round cap on his head with the H. M. S. Thunderbolt printed across it.”

Figures of speech were also used by the author. Allusion and metaphor – “The apple tree – like the Virgin Mary – seemed to have been miraculously warned of its high honour, standing apart from its fellows, bending a little under its rich clusters, fluttering its polished leaves, important and exquisite before Father’s awful eye.” The apple tree was compared to the Virgin Mary and the characteristic of her is explained after. Verbal Irony – ““If I catch either of you touching those apple you shall not only go to bed – you shall each have a good sound whipping!” Which merely added to its magnificence.” The narrator is talking about his father warning them not to go to the precious apple tree and he added in the end of the statement that it is magnificent. This contradicts what the father has said. Hence it’s a verbal irony. Hyperbole – “It looked as though the apple had been dipped in wine.” The author exaggerated the description of the apple imagining that is dipped in wine. Repetition – “I knew it, while I took mine humbly and humbly Bogey took his.” The word humbly is repeated twice. Thus, it is repetition.

Imageries cannot be absent in a story. The short story stimulates the visual, gustatory, kinaesthetic and olfactory. Visual – “The apples turned from pale green to yellow, then they have deep pink stripes painted on them, and the pink melted all over the yellow, reddened and spread into a fine clear crimson.” Gustatory – “Our mouth was full of a floury stuff, a hard, faintly bitter skin – a horrible taste of something dry.” Kinaesthetic – “He laid one apple down, opened the pearl pen-knife and neatly and beautifully cut the other to half.” Olfactory – “He put it to his nose and pronounced an unfamiliar word. “Bouquet! What a bouquet!” And then he handed to Bogey one half, to me the other.”

The narrative devices used in the story is flashback. That narrator recalls an experience of his life.

The conflict of the story is ignorance vs. reality. The father considered the apple tree as it is but it is not when they figured out the taste of the fruit is not of an apple. The illusion of considering the fruit an apple contradicts reality of what it really is. This is due to the ignorance of the father to the names and images of the fruit trees.

The tone of the story is humorous. The effect of a child narrating an experience has a great impact to a reader. The author used ironies to create a humorous tone perceived.

Values are important to a story. The values present on the story are obedience, honesty and hard-work. Obedience is reflected on the characters of Bogey and the narrator. They present to us obedient children to their parents. Being obedient to parents are important because parents know the best for their children. Hard-work is also conveyed in the story. This value is reflected to the father. The father is hard-working which resulted to a stable life his family lingers.

The theme of the story is ignorance can blind you from the reality. A man’s unawareness of the reality can lead to misfortune. Hence, man must be aware of the reality in order for him to be informed.

Gathering Leaves: A Brief Study

Robert Frost’s poems mainly reflect life in rural New England, and the language he used was the uncomplicated speech of that region. Although Frost concentrates on ordinary subject matter, he evokes a wide range of emotions, and his poems often shift dramatically from humorous tones to tragic ones. Much of his poetry is concerned with how people interact with their environment, and though he saw the beauty of nature, he also saw its potential dangers.

The poem literally means the chore of gathering fallen leaves in the autumn season. People enjoy the excitement it gives as they rake and clean their porch or yard. Effort and perseverance are needed for this work to be done, but leaves don’t stop to fall. Every time people clean it, there are surely another to replace it. However, people knowing that the chore is useless, don’t get tired of raking it for they know that it needs to be done. If they don’t do it, unpleasant occurrences will happen in their premises. It may be flooded by fallen, rotten leaves and wild animals start to live there.

Symbolically, the poem is related to the lives people are cherishing. People know that at the right time, their time on earth will end, but they still enjoy life to the fullest. Like the gathering of leaves, people do things in order to continue living. If they don’t continue living and doing something for the welfare and progress of their lives, like the fallen leaves that are left untouched in a porch, life will be like rotten, awful and unhappy.

Theme Analysis of Three African Tribes’ Poems: The God of War - Yoruba Tribe ,The Sorrow of Kodio – Baule Tribe, Death – Kuba Tribe (Africa)

The God of War

Yoruba Tribe

He kills on the right and destroy on the left.

He kills on the left and destroys on the right.

He kills suddenly in the house and suddenly in the field.

He kills the child with the iron with which it plays.

He kills in silence.

He kills the thief and the owner of the stolen goods.

He kills the owner of the slave – and the slave runs away.

He kills the owner of the house – and paints the hearth of his blood.

He is the needle that pricks at both ends.

He has water but he washes with blood.

The Sorrow of Kodio

Baule Tribe

We were three women

Three men

And myself, Kodio Ango.

We were on our way to work in the city

And I lost my wife Nanama on the way.

I alone have lost my wife

To me alone such misery has happened,

To me alone, Kodio, the most handsome of the three men,

Such misery has happened.

In vain I call for my wife,

She died on the way like a chicken running.

How shall I tell her mother?

How shall I tell to her, I Kodio,

When it is so hard to hold back my own pain.

Death

Kuba Tribe

There is no needle without piercing point.

There is no razor without trenchant blade.

Death comes to us in many forms.

With our feet we walk the goat’s earth.

With our hands we touch God’s sky.

Some future day in the heat of noon,

I shall be carried shoulder high

Through the village of the dead.

When I die, don’t bury me under the forest trees,

I fear their thorns.

When I die, don’t bury me under forest trees.

I fear the dripping water.

Bury me under the great shade trees in the market,

I want to hear drums beating

I want to feel the dancer’s feet.

Introduction

Ideas about what constitutes death vary with different cultures and in different epochs. In Western societies, death has traditionally been seen as the departure of the soul from the body. In this tradition, the essence of being human is independent of physical properties. Because the soul has no corporeal manifestation, its departure cannot be seen or otherwise objectively determined; hence, in this tradition, the cessation of breathing has been taken as the sign of death (Frederick, 2009). In tribal Africa, death is neither the end of life nor the gateway to immortality. It is rather a stepping stone between generations, a link with one’s ancestors and one’s descendants (Nolen, 1972). The living and the dead are in continuous contact and a large part of the religious life of the African is devoted to establishing a harmonious contact with dead (Bier, 1988). Death and dying has always been an interesting issue to understand and interpret. Each person has his or her own view of death and attitude towards it. However, the society as the main influencer has a huge impact on people’s perception of death. The attitudes of the society towards death have been changing over the time. Fear has always been one of the most common attitudes towards death. However, today’s society has developed many other attitudes.

Discussion of the Theme

The images of death in Africa bring sorrow and pain as Africans struggle in turbulence.

In the three poems, The God of War – Yoruba Tribe, The Sorrow of Kodio – Baule Tribe and Death – Kuba Tribe, are conveying images death as theme. The three tells about the how Africans die; what is the impact of death to the people; and how they determine their situation when they are dead.

The first poem, The God of War, is a poem written by an anonymous author of the Yoruba Tribe - numbering over 12 million, are the largest nation in Africa with an art-producing tradition. The poem discusses the war as a prime agent that causes death to many Africans as seen in this citation, He kills on the right and destroy on the left. He kills on the left and destroys on the right. There are many wars that happened in Africa that cause severe damage and dreadful death to its people. One of these war is the Boer War[1], conflict in southern Africa between Britain and the allied, Afrikaner-populated Transvaal[2] and Orange Free State, in what is now South Africa; also known as the South African War (Encarta, 2008). Africa’s wars in the 1990s were all very different in their specifics. But they shared a number of important characteristics. First, one of the main underlying causes of these wars was the weakness, the corruption, the high level of militarization, and in some cases the complete collapse, of the states involved. Secondly, they all involved multiple belligerents fighting for a multiplicity of often shifting economic and political motivations. Thirdly, they all had serious regional dimensions and regional implications. And fourthly they were all remarkable for the brutality of the tactics (ranging from mass murder and ethnic cleansing, to amputation, starvation, forced labour, rape and cannibalism) used by belligerents to secure their strategic objectives (Porteous, 2004). War has been one of the reasons of turmoil and chaos on a land as observed in these citation, He is the needle that pricks at both ends. He has water but he washes with blood. Death comes to the people wherein a war happens like in Africa. In the poem, it is specifically said that there is a god of war. War, in the poem, was personified as a man who can ruin and give extreme devastation to his fellow man and country.

The second poem is The Sorrow of Kodio. It is written by anonymous tribesman belonging to the Baule clan - is one of the largest ethnic group in the Côte d'Ivoire[3]. Readers can particularly say that the setting of this poem is, perhaps, in the duration of a war. The persona evokes the feeling of sorrow as he is travelling with his wife and other tribesmen when an unfortunate event happened – his wife was being killed on the way to their destination as it is cited on this line, We were on our way to work in the city. And I lost my wife Nanama on the way. Thus, persona is grieving to her dead wife - Such misery has happened. In vain I call for my wife, She died on the way like a chicken running. Same as the first poem, this poem depicts an image of death cause by riots and unrest in Africa. The poem also conveys grievances of the mourners.

In the third poem, Death by an anonymous Kuba tribesman is about the image of death of someone who is waiting for death to come. Kuba tribesmen live in the area of central DRC[4] bordered by the Sankuru, Kasai, and Lulua rivers. As noticed in this citation, With our feet we walk the goat’s earth. With our hands we touch God’s sky. Some future day in the heat of noon, I shall be carried shoulder high Through the village of the dead, the persona unleashes the idea of people living in earth, praising God and in the end will die and be dead. This comes to a conclusion that the persona is waiting for the time of his death. He also stated how he wants his burial to be here in this citation, When I die, don’t bury me under the forest trees, I fear their thorns. When I die, don’t bury me under forest trees. I fear the dripping water. Bury me under the great shade trees in the market, I want to hear drums beating I want to feel the dancer’s feet. The persona indicates specifications of his burial like he wants to be buried under the great shade trees in the market, to hear beating drums and to feel the dancer’s feet. In short, even he has a life full of misery on earth, he wants to die happily. At least in heaven the persona can feel tranquillity and happiness.

Conclusion

To wrap up, the three poems convey the different images of death in Africa. The images of death in Africa are practically haphazard and harsh due to the poverty-stricken lives of Africans, misleading issues of politics that all leads to war and chaos and the illnesses such as AIDS[5]. The people in Africa believe that death, although a dreaded event, is perceived as the beginning of a person's deeper relationship with all of creation, the complementing of life and the beginning of the communication between the visible and the invisible worlds. The goal of life is to become an ancestor after death (Mbiti, 1969). These beliefs somehow counterparts all the hardships the Africans who have died felt when they were still living. Hence, the images of death in Africa are all crucial and it is their ticket to a happy and contented soul.

Works Cited

Bier, U. (1988). Black Orpheus. African Poetry: Death .

Encarta, M. (2008). Boer War. Redwood, WA, USA.

Frederick, C. J. (2009). Death and Dying. Redwood, WA: Microsoft Encarta.

Mbiti, J. S. (1969). African Religions and Philosophy. London: Heinemann.

Nolen, B. (1972). Africa is Thunder and Wonder. New York: Scribner.

Porteous, T. (2004, October). Resolving African Conflicts. Wars in Africa: The Magazine .

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[1]This happened on 1899-1902.

[2] South African Republic

[3] Ivory Coast

[4] Democratic Republic of Congo

[5] Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome – a disease of the immune system caused by infection with the retrovirus HIV, which destroys some types of white blood cells and is transmitted through blood and or bodily secretion such as semen.

Theme Analysis of Li Bai’s Poems: Thoughts on a Still Night, Dialogue in a Mountain, Sitting Alone in Mount Jingting (China)

Thoughts on a Still Night
Before my bed, the moon is shining bright,
I think that it is frost upon the ground.
I raise my head and look at the bright moon,
I lower my head and think of home.


Dialogue in a Mountain
You ask me why I live among the hills green,
I smile without reply, my heart serene.
Peach blossoms flow away with running streams.
It’s a world other than the earth of men.


Sitting Alone on Mount Jingting
All the birds have flown up and gone;
A lonely cloud floats leisurely by.
We never tire of looking at each other -
Only the mountain and I.


Introduction
China has a written history that is over 2,500 years old. During this extensive period of human history, the Chinese developed many forms of art and philosophy. Poetry was an extremely important art form in Chinese history. The Period of Division is the time in between a new Dynasty. The Period of Division began at the end of the Han Dynasty and lasted roughly close to eight hundred years until Tang dynasty and also still nowadays.
During this time, many people wanted to retreat from the world and live among nature. They were tired of the turmoil, wars, and government jobs. Many individuals wanted to return to the land were their families lived and live out their lives in peace and seclusion.
Li Bai was one of China’s most famous poets. He lived nearly 2,000 years ago, during the Tang Dynasty . He grew up near Chengdu ,in Sichuan Province, which is adjacent to Yunnan Province in the western part of China. Li Bai was known for writing about nature. One form of poetry that he used is called Jue Ju (Heifer International).
Taoism is one of the most influencing religions way back more than two millennia and until now it still gives inspiration and impact among Chinese people and foreigners. Taoist beliefs include teachings based on revelations from various sources. Therefore, different branches of Taoism often have differing beliefs, especially concerning nature. Nevertheless, there are certain core beliefs that nearly all the sects share (Robinet, 1997). Li Bai was influenced by Taoism which emphasizes the link between people and nature and aligning the human character with nature; much of his poetry depicted nature and human interaction with it and this kind of poetry was called Jue Ju Poetry - Jue Ju style is about the relationship between humans and nature.
Discussion of the Theme
Man is one with nature.
The main theme of the poems is intertwined with Taoism. Since that it is inspired in the Taoist belief that man has an intuitive connection to nature, vice versa, the poems of Li Bai has a central theme of relationship of man to nature.
In the first poem, Thoughts On a Still Night, depicts a man separated to his family. The persona is away from home as cited on this line, I lower my head and think of home. The persona must be a recluse or a hermit who chooses to be away from home and be with nature. He sees the beauty of life in nature and in the poem it states that he is tranquil as he is gazing at the celestial beings such as the stars and moon in the night sky, here is the citation, Before my bed, the moon is shining bright, I think that it is frost upon the ground. I raise my head and look at the bright moon. The persona’s love for nature is inevitable as he is a Taoist believing that man is in accordance to nature, vice versa.
The second poem is Dialogue in the Mountain. In this poem it is obviously stated that the persona is a hermit or a recluse, this is the cited line, You ask me why I live among the hills green. Someone – this might be a friend or a visitor - asks the persona why he lives in such a remote area and a response, the persona only smiled which is a symbol of solitude he found in nature, I smile without reply, my heart serene. The persona implies a feeling of peace amidst the nature. Contentment is also perceived in this last two lines, Peach blossoms flow away with running streams. It’s a world other than the earth of men. He also suggests that the place where he lives in is like heaven on earth.
In the third poem, Sitting Alone on Mount Jingting , evokes an action of observing nature at its best, citation as follows, All the birds have flown up and gone; A lonely cloud floats leisurely by. The persona watches and remarks the sceneries like the clouds and birds do their stuff. He eventually falls in love with these things as perceived in these lines, We never tire of looking at each other - Only the mountain and I. This line also contributes the fact that the persona is a hermit. A hermit or a recluse leaves on a remote area to be isolated from the other beings rather than nature.


Conclusion
The three poems which are all written by Li Bai pertains to its readers the life of a recluse in an isolated area. One with nature, a man who is secluded from other people is considered as a man who believes in Taoism. The central theme of these poems is the tranquillity and contentment of the isolated life of the recluse. Moreover, the mood is evoked to the readers as serious, calm and contented. These moods contributed to the main theme of the poems. In addition, The Three Jewels, or Three Treasures, are basic virtues in Taoism. The Three Jewels are compassion, moderation, and humility. They are also translated as kindness, simplicity , and modesty. It is also the three rules that formed the practical, political side of the author's teaching. It is correlated to the Three Treasures with "abstention from aggressive war and capital punishment", "absolute simplicity of living", and "refusal to assert active authority" (Waley, 1958). This is the reason why Taoist are on the secluded places like mountains to live. Hence, the poems are purely Jue Je poetry - a variety of Chinese poetry which suggests the religion of Taoism. These poems combine the ideas of nature, peace, and a person's will to follow his or her heart and live away from civilization. These poems also focus on the feelings of individuals and try to explain why they have left their past lives to now live alone or with very few friends and family.


Works Cited
Heifer International. (n.d.). Retrieved March 10, 2011, from HeiferInternational.org: http://www.heiferinternational.org
Robinet, I. (1997). Taoist Meditation: The Mao-shan Tradition of Great Purity . Albany: Suny Press.
Waley, A. (1958). The Way and Its Power: A Study of the Tao Te Ching and Its Place in Chinese Thought . Grove Press.

Theme Analysis of Kobo Abe’s Novel Woman in the Dunes (Japan)

Introduction

Kobo Abe's novel The Woman in the Dunes appeared in 1962, to spontaneous acclaim, was translated into 20 languages and adapted for a Cannes festival award-winning film directed by Hiroshi Teshigahara and scored by Toru Takemitsu. Suna no onna[1] is one of Abe Kobo's masterpieces.

Kōbō Abe, pseudonym of Kimifusa Abe was a Japanese writer, playwright, photographer and inventor. Abe has been often compared to Franz Kafka and Alberto Moravia for his surreal, often nightmarish explorations of individuals in contemporary society and his modernist sensibilities (Iles, 2000). Among the honors bestowed on him was the Akutagawa Prize in 1951 for The Crime of S. Karuma, the Yomiuri Prize in 1962 for Woman in the Dunes, and the Tanizaki Prize in 1967 for the play Friends. Kenzaburō Ōe stated that Abe deserved the Nobel Prize in Literature, which he himself had won (www.MediaWiki.com). Abe was born in Kita, Tokyo and grew up in Mukden[2] in Manchuria. His father was a physician who taught at a local medical college. Abe returned to Japan in 1941 and began studies at Tokyo Imperial University in 1943. He graduated in 1948 with a medical degree, on the condition that he would not practice. He was first published as a poet in 1947 with Mumei shishu[3] and as a novelist the following year with Owarishi michi no shirube ni[4], which established his reputation. Though he did much work as an avant-garde novelist and playwright, it was not until the publication of The Woman in the Dunes in 1962 that he won widespread international acclaim.

In this novel, the protagonist, Niki Jumpei, visits a village while out collecting insects and is tricked by villagers, who take him to a house situated in a deep hole in the dunes. Being unwilling to stay there, he struggles to escape. He refuses to help and even attempts to escape from the hole on five occasions. His first attempt involves repeatedly scooping out sand from underneath the cliff that surrounds the hole on the assumption that the ground level under his feet will gradually rise and he will ultimately reach the level of the top of the hole. His second attempt is to restrain the woman and threaten the villagers. The third attempt is to escape from the hole while the woman is asleep by using a rope that he has made himself. His fourth attempt involves attempting to capture a crow and use it as a carrier pigeon. The fifth attempt is to try to negotiate with the villagers to allow him to climb up the cliff and momentarily look out over the sea. This story may appear to be portraying a surreal world (Kato, 1999). Within the story, there veiled a number of themes which readers can obviously perceived upon reading such as love, solitude and the mystery of life. But the most vivid is the isolation of man from the society that in later part man is eased in the turbulence he experiences not missing his left friends whosoever did not look for Niki Jumpei too. The story depicts an unusual scenario of life as man is subjected to an unwanted isolation.

Discussion of the Theme

Man can be eased with a certain situation, crucial or not, if there are reasons to stay.

The novel pits the man's will to escape this sun-fried nightmare against the villagers' will to keep him where he is, and it is never less than compulsive (Mitchell, 2006). Jumpei had spent part of the afternoon musing in a rather clinical way about sand and in a slightly more animated way beetles. His ambition in life is maybe to find a new type of beetle that will be named after him. He is a man of modest ambition, which makes the situation he is now in even more terrible (Mackey, 2011). As Jumpei is eager to escape, he plotted many ideas to get out of the barren area and go back to his own place wherein he cannot be a captive of some ridiculous and frustrated villagers of an intriguing community. Things fail to go as planned, and the woman reveals a more chilling face. She tells the man how the village union sells sand illegally to a concrete manufacturer. The man fulminates that this would endanger the lives of those entire dependent on dams not bursting and bridges not collapsing (Mitchell, 2006). The woman replies, accusingly, "Why should we worry what happens to other people?" All of his plans failed, this leads to the acceptance of his isolation from his real world. Eventually, he learns to live with the sand and also the woman living to gather the sand out.

The Woman in the Dunes reads much like a fable. Its characters are eccentric and somewhat grotesque. The landscape is beautifully rendered, but extraordinary, and its architecture calls to mind the intricate designs of the insect kingdom Niki Junpei so lovingly studies (Bailat-Jones, 2009). The Woman in the Dunes also revolves around Niki’s developing relationship with the village woman. She needs him to help her survive in the harsh atmosphere of the dunes. This is his only purpose and each day the two must work together to fight back the encroaching sand. But their constant interaction and the near-complete solitude of the setting bring these two strangers into an unusual affair (Bailat-Jones, 2009). Months go by, and the man and woman evolve a working accommodation that one might find in an unsatisfactory but indissoluble marriage. They obtain piece-work to save money and buy a radio (Mitchell, 2006). As a result of their love affair, the woman in the dunes got pregnant. This event also added up to the reasons why Niki Jumpei does not have to escape from his isolation. The man's reaction to the reappearance of the rope ladder in the final scene is as bleak as the conclusion: an individual's will to freedom have been crushed, and with it, his soul. The woman's extra-uterine pregnancy is a symbol of sterility and desolation (Iles, 2000). Hence, this adds to the theme formulated as man can be eased with a certain situation, crucial or not, if there are reasons to stay.

Abe is an accomplished stylist. He was apt to frame his novels in "found" notebooks or other written artefacts, and The Woman in the Dunes closes with the missing persons report mentioned on its first page. It includes a page or two of its protagonist's jottings to himself; a dream, a hallucinatory flashback here and there, but the structure is simple and linear (Mitchell, 2006). This is present in the book of Kobo Abe, Woman in the Dunes copyrighted 1964 by Alfred A. Knoft, Inc.

Conclusion

The theme of the story has been unveiled in the main subject of isolation and freedom. In detailed, man can be eased with a certain situation, crucial or not, if there are reasons to stay. Man will learn as Niki Jumpei learned to cope up with his new environment. Man will stay if there are reasons to stay but man will not stay if there is much reason to leave – man thinks. It is part of being a logical, rational and critical man. Right decision making is important as much as time. Remember that decisions are made in the ticktock of the clock.

Abe’s modern fairytale examines the structure and functioning of contemporary society, asks difficult questions about our role in that society and yet accomplishes this from within an engaging and complex human story. This is classic Japanese literature at its best (Bailat-Jones, 2009). The Woman in the Dunes is not an easy read. Pondering and reading between the lines is needed. Thought diving is also undeniably crucial.

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[1] Woman in the Dunes in Japanese.

[2] Now called Shen-yang.

[3]“Poems of an Unknown Poet”

[4]“The Road Sign at the end of the Street”

Works Cited

o Abe, Kobo (1964). Woman in the Dunes. United States of America: Vintage Books Edition.

o Bailat-Jones, M. (2009, April 19). Review of The Woman in the Dunes by Kobo Abe. Retrieved March 14, 2011, from Suite101: http://www.suite101.com

o Iles, T. (2000). Abe Kobo: an Exploration of his Prose, Drama, and Theatre . EPAP.

o Kato, S. (1999). Nihon bungakushi josetsu. Tokyo, Japan: Chikuma shobo.

o Mackey, M. (2011, January 13). The Woman in the Dunes, by Kobo Abe. Retrieved March 14, 2011, from Suite101: http://www.suite.com

o Mitchell, D. (2006, October 7). No Escape. Retrieved March 14, 2011, from Guardian News and Media Limited 2011: http://www.guardian.co.uk

o www.MediaWiki.com. (n.d.). Retrieved March 13, 2011, from www.wikipedia.com: http://www.wikipedia.com/kobo_abe

Good Poetry and Great: An Identification

Good Poetry and Great

The first essay tackled about good and bad poetry. In this essay, the analysis is centered on the identification of good and great. Many critics justify and conclude that if there are good poems, there should be a great poem among those good ones. In this sense, this paper is on evaluating and analyzing two poems, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot and Death of the Hired Man by Robert Frost. These poems exhibit man’s unfulfilled tasks because of inhibitions. At the end of this essay, final results of which of those two poems exemplify greatness can be inferred.

The qualified readers can determine a great poem by multiplying its measurements on two scales, perfection and significance. If a poem measures well on both scales, it is identified great.

Death of a Hired Man: Analysis

The poem, Death of the Hired Man written by Robert Frost, is about an old man who wants to fulfil his left duties before he dies but unfortunately, at the end of the poem, he dies without completing his tasks.

This poem exemplifies a narrative of an old man named Silas returning to his former work place which is a farm owned by Warren and Mary. He also calls the farm his home. On his return, Mary pleads to Warren to accept the old man as she is convinced that the man is ill and waiting for his death.

“”He has come home to die,” Mary said”

“He’s worn out. He’s asleep beside the stove.

When I came up from Rowe’s I found him here,

Huddled against the barn-door fast asleep,

A miserable sight, and frightening, too –”

But Warren has a hard time in accepting the old man again who often disappoints him by the results of his work and the contracts Silas broke that made Warren furious.

“When was I ever anything nut kind to him?

But I’ll not have the fellow back,” he said.

“I told him so last haying, didn’t I?”

If he left then, I said, that ended it.”

However, in the end with the continuous urging of Mary, Warren agrees to have Silas again but when he sees Silas, he is already dead.

“Warren returned – too soon, it seemed to her,

Slipped to her side, caught up her hand and waited.

“”Warren?” she questioned.

“Dead”, was all he answered.”

Warren has not seen Silas’ condition in the first place, but if in the event that Warren saw him earlier, the ending, perhaps, is in the other way around. Warren must have been more compassionate.

Robert Frost, the poet behind this poem, is known for his blank verse and keen understanding of people. It is a fact that he goes beyond a person’s physical through psychological aspect. The poem is in dialogue form which provides the readers a clear understanding of the topic. It is a good example of a blank verse.

It is vivid in the poem that there is a well character development. The poem ends with the three characters well developed, mostly through dialogue but also through minimum actions.

Frost used some figures of speech that help him in describing vividly the events in the poem. The figures of speech involved in the poem are as follows with examples:

“Those days trouble Silas like a dream.” – Simile

“He takes it out in bunches like big birds’ nests.” – Simile

“Part of the moon was falling down to west,

Dragging the whole sky with it to the hills.” – Personification

“Among the harp-like morning-glory strings,” – Personification

“Smooth sailing cloud will hit or miss the moon.” – Personification

Imageries that comprise the poem are as follows with examples:

“Mary sat musing on the lamp-flame at the table” – Visual

“Waiting for Warren. When she heard his step,” – Auditory

“She ran on tip-toe down the darkened passage” – Kinaesthetic

“-you know how they fought all through July under the blazing sun.” – Thermal

The tone of the poem is sympathetic, practical, compassionate and bleak. For the part of Mary, she is sympathetic and compassionate with Silas and his condition. If Warren had seen Silas beforehand, he won’t be practical in saying he doesn’t want him in the farm again. Warren turned bleak on the end of the poem when he said “dead”.

The theme of the poem is “Home is not only where man’s relatives live but where he can find acceptance and belongingness”. Silas found home in the farm owned by Mary and Warren. Though they were not the real family of him, there he found acceptance and belongingness. In the end of the poem, Silas did not hesitate to go to the farm; even he had broken contracts with Warren. He knew that he would be accepted there and thus the end, he died there with the home he knew as his family.

This is a poem highly invigorates the emotions of its readers. A reader may feel sorry or sympathetic with the hired man who is very old, thus it is sentimental. This treatment of the poem can move anyone who reads it intriguingly. Its substance is more moving but not timeless. It can be introspected that it is also didactic.

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock: Analysis

The poem, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot, is about its persona’s life of kept feelings and actions as he thinks of man’s disapproval and narrow-mindedness of his thoughts and acts. The persona fears failure that inhibits him in taking risk and action for a progressive life. His acts fall to an abyss of pessimism that is not required for a man’s genuine acquisition of life. What he got now is what he will get in the future and what he was on the past is as is to the future. This acts shows that it is a narrative and a dramatic monologue.

The poem initiates with a quotation in Italian from Dante’s Inferno. Speaking to a visitor in hell, one of the damned says that he will describe his torment only because the visitor cannot return alive to the world to repeat it. This quotation has something to do with the poem. This will be further explained on the following paragraphs.

After the Italian quotation, the J. Alfred Prufrock invites his listener to walk with him into the streets on an evening similar to a patient lying on a table being etherized or anesthetized. This listener is a not vivid on its identity as presented on the poem but it is considered to be Prufrock’s inner self since it is a dramatic monologue. They will walk on the half-deserted streets, when the business on that certain area ended thus sawdust are left to the streets to absorb spilled beverages and foods.

The second stanza consisting two lines,

“In the room the women come and go

Talking of Michelangelo.”

These lines repeated two times in the poem, on the second and fourth. The women here are the ones who he wants to talk with but hindered by his own thought. Eliot mentions Michelangelo for the reason that it creates an irony for the character of Prufrock. Michelangelo continually sought challenge, whether physical, artistic, or intellectual. This fact contributes to the irony.

The third stanza evokes to us the continuation of their roaming.

“The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,

The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes,”

This time, Prufrock saw a cat. The yellow fog and the yellow smoke represent a cat. This is a striking image that renders a heavy meaning. The images in the poem, including this cat, are associated with Prufrock himself and reveal his fears, his self-consciousness, and his sustaining dreams – these are the problems of Prufrock that he exposes on the said stanza.

In the fifth stanza, he, indeed, believes that there is a right time for him to “shine” but he repeatedly asks himself, “Do I dare?” He made a conscious look on himself,

“With a bald spot in the middle of my hair-

(They will say: “How hair is growing thin!)

My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to my chin,

My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin-

(They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”)”

Moreover, Prufrock seems to grow increasingly insecure. He can be observed that he wants to do something extraordinary at the party.

Stanza number six elaborates that Prufrock knows all the people in the party since but he doesn’t know how to presume or to socialize: “So how should I presume?”

The seventh stanza explains that Prufrock was being scrutinized by other women in other parties he attended. In parties, he talks to women but eventually forgets what to say:

“Is it a perfume from a dress

That makes me so disgress?”

He wants to say something but he doesn’t know how. This is the sad part when a person is on socialization and doesn’t know how to start or prolong a conversation.

Eighth and ninth stanzas expound that Prufrock compares himself to a lobster or a crab. It is introspected that Prufrock’s self-esteem is inhibited. The Footman he refers on the ninth stanza is the angel of death.

The tenth and eleventh stanzas elaborate Prufrock rationalizing his failure to ask the overwhelming question. This question may be his kept query for the woman he loves but he loses the chance of asking in the fact that he compared himself to Lazarus, the man who lay dead in his tomb for four days before Jesus brought him back to life. Prufrock compares himself to Lazarus because he thinks of another chance to say to the woman what he really means: “Should say: “That is not what I meant at all. That is not it at all.”” In the eleventh stanza, there is a magic lantern mentioned. In this image, the “nerves” may be Prufrock’s inner self exposed for all to see.

On the twelfth stanza, Prufrock resigns himself to play a supporting role rather than a starring one. According to him, he doesn’t want to be Prince Hamlet which is a starring role on a Shakespearean story. He chooses to be an attendant lord, a job easier than being a prince. This shows his frail attitude towards work. He does not want more responsibilities. He is kind of lazy.

On the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth stanzas, the mermaids were mentioned. In mythology, mermaids attract mortal men allowing them to live with them in the sea. To Prufrock, the mermaids may represent women who go after him. This time, the scenario alters. He dreams of a woman to go after him and not him after her but he doesn’t think that the mermaids will go after him. There is still a touch of pessimism but he continues to dream about it.

The last stanza infers that Prufrock and his love will be together and the setting is by the chamber in the sea. He dreams about it and if human voices wake them to reality, they will drown. In other words, their relationship only lives in a dream because Prufrock is stagnant and inable to take risk because of low self esteem and pessimism. Just like what happened to a character in Dante’s Inferno, he hopes that he and the reader will never get back from hell so that no one can repeat his story, a story of failure and paralysis.

Figures of speech have a great help in describing the events and objects in the poem. The figures of speech that are used by Eliot are as follows:

“When the evening s spread out against the sky

Like a patient etherized upon a table;” - Simile

“Streets that follow like a tedious argument

Of insidious intent” – Simile

“The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,

The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes,” – Personification

“I should have been a pair of ragged claws

Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.” – Metaphor

“Though I have seen my head brought in upon a platter.” – Allusion

“To say: “I am Lazarus, come back from dead,

Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”-” - Allusion

“Disturb the universe.” – Synecdoche

“To have squeezed the universe into a ball

To roll it toward some overwhelming question” – Hyperbole and Metaphor

“Before the talking of a toast and tea” - Alliteration

Imagery consists of words and phrases that appeal to any of the five senses and that help the reader imagine precisely what the writer is describing. Eliot uses powerful images to convey complex ideas and emotions. Here are some examples of imageries that can be inferred from the poem:

“In the room the women come and go

Talking of Michelangelo” – Auditory

“Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys

Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap” – Kinaesthetic

“Time to turn back and descend from the stair,

With a bald spot in the middle of my hair”- Visual

“Is it perfume from a dress

That makes me so digress?” – Olfactory

“Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,” – Gustatory

The tone of the poem is serious and somber. The poem offers to its readers a delicate insight of what a particular man feels that’s why it’s serious. Its tone is also somber because it exemplifies a gloomy life of the unprogressive.

The theme of this poem, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, is man’s inability to take progress remains on his choice. Man is stagnant if there is no innovation for his life, just like Prufrock. Man must be equipped with tremendous vigor and enthusiasm to incorporate it in a conversation. This fact about life is the central purpose of the poem.

The Great Poetry

The great poetry is determined to be The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. The words were appropriate to convey the central purpose of the poem. As a reader you need to dig deeper in this kind of poem. It uses allusions that create a different bite and way in conveying its theme. This poetry is excellent and its significance is universal and timeless. This poem engages the whole person – senses, imagination, emotion, intellect; it does not touch us merely to entertain us but to bring us – along with pure pleasure – fresh insights, or renewed insights, and important insights, into the nature of human experience. In short, it has topped on its significance and perfection.

Sources:

Applebee, Arthur. et. al. ed.”The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.” The Language of Literature. McDougal Littell. Houghton Leifflin Company. Evanstor, Illinios. 1941. Pp. 846-852

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