Wild Nights -- Wild Nights!

If one has ever experienced complete and utter infatuation, this poem, by Emily Dickinson is relatable indeed. Her form of expressing herself through metaphors is extraordinary. Through the metaphors in the poem, we can gather that the underlying theme is that once this special person is discovered, there is nothing more satisfying than being with them.

                “Wild Nights – Wild Nights!/Were I with thee/Wild Nights should be/Our luxury! (Dickinson, lines 1-4). This first group of lines introduces a love affair between two people. We assume the speaker is Emily Dickinson; however, the identity of her love interest is unknown. From these lines we can gather two things: First that Dickinson clearly has a desire to make love to this person, second, that it is impossible to do so because they are not together in the same place. In other words, these lines mean, “If you were only here, our nights together would be amazing”. She wants nothing else but to spend time with this person.

                “Futile – the Winds --/To a Heart in port --/Done with the Compass --/Done with the Chart!” (Dickinson, lines 5-8). There is so much meaning packed into these four lines. It is one continuous metaphor. Note that she replaces the word “ship” with “heart”. This is referred to as “metonymy”, which is a type of metaphor. She says, “Futile the winds to a heart in port”. If we break this down, we realize that she is saying that a storm will not sink a ship in port. She, in other words, is sturdy in her love for this person; her love is secure, and cannot be shaken. “Done with the compass, done with the chart” has symbolic significance as well. Where would one need a compass and a chart? They would need it if they were voyaging out at sea. We can translate this to mean that Dickinson is happy in this port, or with this person, and she does not need to go “out to sea” and look for anyone else. She is perfectly content and happy with this person, and she is determined that nothing can change that, not even distance.

                “Rowing in Eden --/Ah, the Sea!/Might I but moor – Tonight --/In Thee” (Dickinson, lines 9-12). Another metaphor, this group of lines represents the beginning of a relationship. When she refers to it as “Eden”, which we know, biblically, was the perfect place, we notice that she is referring to the beginning of a relationship; how it is all butterflies, and flowers, and perfect. She can see nothing wrong with this person. Most likely, according to her, they are perfect for each other in every way. She probably wouldn’t change a thing about them. But they have not experienced conflict yet. The last part of the stanza seems to suggest, again, sexual desires. But, the significant fact to remember is that this can never take place because distance separates them.

                This poem is very descriptive of what, I believe, a lot of young people have felt. And that is Infatuation. When we are infatuated with someone, nothing is better than being with that person. I believe she “hits the nail on the head” when she describes her feelings for this person. She feels that they are perfect, and that there is no one else that has ever, or can ever, make her feel this way. Unfortunately, this beginning stage fades, and couples have to deal with conflict and disagreement. If they stay together through these hard times and still find favor with the other person, then they can truly call it love.

Those Winter Sundays

I think it’s safe to say that children do not always appreciate their parents. I, for one, am certain I took mine for granted, sometimes, as a child. Ungratefulness is a condition that none of us are immune to. This is the primary focus of “Those Winter Sundays”, by Robert Hayden. “Those Winter Sundays” tells a story of a regretful son, while incorporating vivid imagery to capture the attention of the reader.

                There are many clues that unveil the regretful and somber tone of this poem. For example the poem is in past tense, so we know that the speaker is reminiscing about something in the past. The word choice drops some hints to the nature of the poem as well. The first sentence, for example, states “Sundays too my father got up early and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold” (Hayden, lines 1-2). “Sundays too” implies that the father got up early every day, and was probably absent most of the time; “blueblack cold” gives off a sense of seriousness. The sentence stating, “No one ever thanked him” (Hayden, line 5) reveals a feeling of regret as well, because the speaker knows that his father should have been thanked for his efforts.

                In lines 10-12, the speaker tells of “Speaking indifferently to him,/who had driven out the cold/and polished my good shoes as well” (Hayden 10-12). Why would the child speak to his father with indifference? Most likely the child was un-appreciative and felt as if that was what the father was supposed to do; it was expected. We can tell that the speaker feels differently now, and knows that he was wrong to speak in that way because he addresses the good things his father did for him (i.e., making the house warm, and polishing his shoes), proving that he sees a new significance in these actions that he had previously overlooked.

                This observation is further solidified with the following lines, which state, “What did I know, what did I know/of love’s austere and lonely offices?” (Hayden, lines 13-14). This sentence contains a lot of meaning. It sums up the theme of the entire poem, which is that the speaker was un-grateful as a child, and didn’t understand that different people show love, or affection, in different ways. From this sentence, we gain the understanding that the speaker must have felt un-loved as a child because he did not receive his idea of affection, but he now realizes that by making sure the house was warm when he got up, and polishing his shoes, his father was displaying a love for his child.

                Aside from simply telling a story, “Those Winter Sundays” contains multiple examples of imagery, which capture the attention of the reader. Imagery is the language of the five senses, in other words, language that describes either, sight, hearing, taste, touch, or smell. Some examples of imagery in the poem are “blueblack cold”, “…fires blaze”, “I’d…hear the cold splintering, breaking” etc. (Hayden 255). These examples incorporate some of our senses such as sight, hearing, and touch, and serve to draw the reader further into the poem so that they are not only reading the words, but feeling them too.

Song No. 3

“Can’t nobody tell me any different/I’m ugly and you know it too” (Sanchez, lines 1-2). The sad subject matter of the poem is introduced in the very beginning. The sadness lies in the fact that this young girl has such low self-esteem and such negative things to say about herself. But the question is why does she feel this way? Did she simply wake up one morning and come to this conclusion? No. I think it stems from her economic status, her location, and what behaviors she has observed from other people.

                Sanchez was born in Alabama, but was moved, at the young age of three, to New York City where the book mentions she attended public school. We can tell from the descriptions in the poem that she was not well off as a child economically speaking. For example, “…my clothes have holes that run right through to you” (Sanchez, line 7). Apparently, her family did not have enough money for nice, or even decent, clothes. This could easily make an impression on any child that they are somehow less important, or less valuable, because they don’t look like the other kids do.

                These feelings of inadequacy were most likely only magnified by the fact that this girl, assuming that Sanchez is the speaker, probably went to an integrated school where it was mostly white and she was a minority. The book mentions that “One feature of stereotypes is that the dominant group often becomes the norm and minorities are seen as other, as less than” (Making Literature Matter 975). I think that is exactly the case in this poem. If I could put myself in this girl’s shoes, if I was put into a position where I was the minority, and I was looked down on for being different by everyone around me, I think it would take a severe toll on my self-esteem as well, and probably be very lonely. She writes that she “sits alone all day by herself”. This is not because there is nobody around. She obviously sees people passing by because she mentions that they “smile to make her feel better”, but it doesn’t sound like anyone talks to her.

                 The speaker’s observations of other people, and her experiences with her district, have taught her that the reason why people don’t want to talk to her, or associate with her, is that she is black. So, as a result, it gives her the impression that black is ugly, and undesirable. However, the tone of the poem is not one laced with self-pity, or complaint, but rather, acceptance and an innocent want of a friend. I say that it has a tone of acceptance because the speaker makes no effort to change who she is, or to try to blend in. She even writes words to match exactly how she would say them; for example, she uses the words “fo it wuz ‘posed to” and “knowing I cain’t fall”. By doing this she is accepting who she is. And yet, it does not cancel out the need for someone else to accept her too, “…one day I hope somebody will stop me and say/looka here, a pretty little black girl lookin’ just like me” (Sanchez, lines 15-16).

Today Was a Bad Day Like TB

It is important to understand that the poem “Today Was a Bad Day Like TB” was written from a Native American perspective. The author, Chrystos, had a Lithuanian/Alsace-Lorraine mother, and a Native American father of the Menominee tribe. The authors roots account for the bitter tone of the poem, which we pick up on through not only the wording, but also through the grammar; or rather, lack thereof.  

                For a small poem, “Today Was a Bad Day…” is packed with meaning. Chrystos tells a story about seeing white people clap during one of their sacred dances, and mentions a white boy with a red stone pipe, and how this angered her. She also mentions a bookstore that has taken the sacred design of an Indian tribe and is selling merchandise with the symbol on it for profit, and a medicine bundle with a card next to it that says the name of a white family claiming to “own it”. “Own it” she does put in quotation marks to signify that the white people do not really own it; that it is a piece of a history that is not theirs.

All of these situations give way to Chrystos’s angry and bitter tone in the poem. She is angry that white people are clapping to a sacred Indian dance, and infuriated with the boy with the red stone pipe, and the store, and the white family with the medicine bag, because they are invading in a culture that doesn’t belong to them. The white people that she mentions don’t give much consideration to the fact that their ancestors are the ones who took land that wasn’t theirs and forced the Indians to assimilate into the American culture, and that the Indians have kept these traditions alive despite much hatred and prejudice towards them. So, according to Chrystos, who are these people to be enjoying a tradition and a culture they have only sought to destroy? And how do they have the nerve to take something Native American and call it their own, when they did not share in the struggle to preserve it? She makes a comment about the “hippie boy” with the red stone pipe, and how he was “…friendly & liberal as only/those with no pain can be” (Chrystos, lines 7-8), to show that he did not share her pain, and should not be sharing her culture.

We can see that Chrystos is angry with white people not only from her words, but also from the fact that she ignores the rules of English grammar. The explanation is not that she is too ignorant to know these rules. In truth, she chooses to ignore them in order to further distance herself from the American culture and distinguish the fact that she is different. She does this by using indentations, italics, and symbols, in place of words and punctuation. For example, instead of the word “and”, she uses the symbol “&”, and instead of using quotes, she italicizes.

The wording of the poem, which states her opinions about white people, and her defiance against using proper English grammar, display Chrystos’s bitterness, or even hatred, toward white people who try to participate in Indian culture. After studying the poem, her title seams very fitting; comparing that day, for her, to tuberculosis, the number one killer of Native Americans. “Today was a day like TB/you cough & cough trying to get it out/all that comes/is blood & spit” (Chrystos, lines 23-26).

Trifles

                Susan Glaspell lived from 1876 to 1948. In this time she wrote many plays and other works, but she is most recognized for her play called “Trifles”. “Trifles” is a play that is based on a murder in which a wife has killed her husband, and the men in the play are in search of evidence against her. Although much of the play is about this woman, she remains offstage; which provokes the argument that Glaspell is not simply telling a story, but rather has other intentions that go much deeper. Through the irony and the character’s words and actions in the play, Glaspell speaks out against a patriarchal society.

                Much of the irony in “Trifles” can be related back to the title itself. In the play, a famer by the name of Hale made a comment, “Well. Women are used to worrying over trifles” (Glaspell 915): Thus introducing the meaning of the title, and the irony, into the play. The great irony in the play is the fact that what these men call “trifles” turn out to be most important. While the men were upstairs looking at the crime scene itself, the women were downstairs in the kitchen “where they belonged”, and although the men saw them as useless, unintelligent, and incapable, they were anything but. The women found and took into consideration things such as the broken bird cage, and the helter-skelter stitching of the quilt, and the dead bird they found in a pretty box. And from these pieces of information, they deduced the motive for the murder. Therefore, the irony in the play was that “trifles” were not really “trifles” at all.

                Along with the presentation of irony, Glaspell also uses the characters words and actions to point out the differences in the worlds of men and women in this kind of patriarchal society. We can gather from what the characters say and do/what they say about other characters, that the society was male dominated. Henderson’s comments about the towels being dirty and that Mrs. Wright must not be much of a homemaker are proof to back up that men and women had specific and different duties. The men were the major laborers, who did chores such as tend to the cattle and larger animals and fences and such. Meanwhile, the women took on the role of “homemaker”. Their job was to keep a clean house and preoccupy themselves with mundane activities such as quilting, or things that didn’t require much intelligence.

                The fact that Glaspell made the women out to be the more intelligent of the characters implies that she, most likely, disapproved of the patriarchal social structure, and thought that women were equal, if not surpassing in intelligence to men. Today, she might be called a Feminist. She also, through the actions of the women in the play, seems to encourage other women to bond together and support each other. For example, Mrs. Hale expresses her guilt in the poem when she states, “I could’ve come. I stayed away because it weren’t cheerful – and that’s why I ought to have come” (Glaspell 919). This statement seems to be Glaspell’s way of sending a message to women that it was their duty to be there for each other and stick together in a time when their gender was portrayed as second to men.