Power Struggle
Reason versus religion; from Galileo’s time to the modern age, the notion that God and science are mutually exclusive entities has created conflicts and commanded the thoughts of historians, writers, and philosophers alike. Poet John Donne is no exception. Likely inspired by the tension between skepticism and faith illustrated in his own life, Donne crafted a group of religious poems referred to as the “Holy Sonnets.” In one such sonnet entitled “Batter my heart, three-personed God,” Donne utilizes the tone of an intimate religious plea, employing strong metaphors, thought-provoking paradoxes, coarse language, and surprising motifs to express the speaker’s desperate desire to overcome his struggle with faith and devote himself to God.
In the first quatrain of the sonnet, Donne introduces the fundamental theme of the poem through the use of metaphors, puns, and paradoxical language. Throughout the first four lines, the speaker asks a “three-personed God” to paradoxically “o’erthrow,” “break,” and “burn” him in order to “make [him] new” (1,3,4). In doing so, the speaker reveals his desire for God to conquer his heart so he can become a man of faith. The address to the three-personed God, however, does more than just outline the meaning of the quatrain. The reference alludes to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit of the Christian holy trinity, and the words and parallel sentence structure that Donne uses in lines two and four further clarify the metaphor. The second verbs found in lines two and four, “breathe” and “blow” respectively, when translated into Latin become spirar; when understood as an etymological pun, it becomes evident that with these words, Donne is referencing the Holy Spirit whose name seems to share the Latin root (2,4). Similarly, the third verbs found in lines two and four function as another pun and further aid in the unraveling of the metaphor. Because the sun both shines and burns, it is likely that these verbs refer to the Son of the holy trinity.
Just as Donne makes critical comparisons in the first lines of the poem, in the second quatrain he again applies a strong metaphor to convey the speaker’s grappling with faith. Saying, “I, like an usurped town, to another due, / Labor to admit you,” the speaker expresses his struggle to allow God into his heart (5,6). Donne then extends the metaphor to encompass the role of reason in the speaker’s life. Comparing reason to a viceroy that rules on behalf of God, the speaker admits that although logic and skepticism generally oppose and dismiss religion, reason not only “proves weak or untrue” and does not defend him from God, but also is often provided by faith (8). In other words, the second quatrain uses complex comparisons to illustrate the power struggle between the speaker’s desire to permit God into his life and his inclination towards reason and skepticism.
Donne utilizes the ensuing sestet to expand upon this idea and fully develop the theme and meaning of the work as a whole. Armed with a unique motif and a paradox enriched by violating language and dually-denoted words, Donne expresses the speaker’s passionate desire to love God and his prior skeptical outlook that hinders him from doing so. Introducing a marriage motif, the speaker refers to reason as a spouse and enemy of God, saying, “But am betrothed unto your enemy; / Divorce me, untie or break that knot again” (10,11). In this way, the speaker explains that he is bound to his previous beliefs and wants God to sever the ties so that he can become a man of faith. He continues to express this desire through an interesting paradox. Donne writes, “Take me to you, imprison me, for I, / Except you enthrall me, never shall be free, / Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me” (13-14). The paradox of becoming free by being enthralled and becoming chaste as a result of being ravished is enhanced by the multiple denotations of the words enthrall and ravish. Because enthrall can mean to both capture the attention of and to imprison, it is possible that Donne is referring to both mental and physical freedom in these final lines. Similarly, ravish implies both being filled with intense delight and being raped, and as a result, the paradox can be resolved as a graphic expression of the speaker’s desire to know God.
A study of Donne’s life reveals that a shift from reason to faith in God and the inherent accompanying struggle is a subject that he knows well. Early in his life, Donne himself held an early belief in skepticism. After a burdensome time in his life during which he suffered from numerous illnesses, financial strain, and the loss of loved ones, however, Donne’s early logical beliefs gave way to a firm faith in God and in the Bible. Throughout the work, Donne calls upon raw diction, complex paradoxes, extended metaphors, and effective motifs to express the significance of each portion of the sonnet and ultimately the meaning of the poem as a whole.
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
"Unknown Citizen"
Explication of “The Unknown Citizen”
Was he really free? Was he really happy? Those are the questions the readers of W.H. Auden’s “The Unknown Citizen” ask themselves at the conclusion of the poem. The rather simple-looking title alludes to the “Tomb of the Unknown Soldier,” which many war veterans are buried after being found unidentified. Although this poem is not necessarily about that particular tomb, title sets the tone for a variety of unknowns, in which the clueless outside world looks into the complicated mystery of a seemingly not-so-complicated man, only knowing what “he was found by the Bureau of Statistics to be.” This speaker of the poem is analyzing this mystery, but the premise of the speaker and the ambiguity of the ending imply the existence of faults that lie within the public’s dependence of government agencies to make assumptions of someone’s life. Written after World War I, the poem is a satire that blames the growing prowess of state governments for causing innocent citizens to seem like numbers instead of souls.
Although “Producers Research,” “High-Grade Living,” and “Greater Community” are all fictional, they are easily recognizable as distinct government agencies in “The Unknown Citizen.” Also, “The Press” easily stands for the collective that is composed of the entire media. The reports and statistics that these agencies come up with are consistent with the “Modern Man”, a stereotype that represents the average American man, replaceable with any particular name. All of these reports cite that this unknown citizen was a war veteran who never did anything wrong because “had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard.” An overstatement exists when this man’s typicality makes him “in the modern sense…a saint,” but when in reality the indistinctness of his life makes him far from one. What we collect from the references to state agencies is that the facts show that he should have been happy, but inherently the public cannot make such assumptions off of facts, as numbers and statistics only skim the surface when it comes to explaining the character and predicament of someone’s life.
The innocence that surrounds this unknown man is what makes him “unknown” in the first place. In a modern society, in which the media persuades the public to concentrate on those who are always up to no good, those “against whom there [is] no official complaint” blend into the vast majority that go through the motions of their daily lives, as opposed to the minority that becomes the center of attention through their unlawful acts. “When there was peace, he was for peace; when there was war, he went,” the speaker states. The unknown man, regardless of whatever hardships he may have encountered as a result of his time at war, went with the flow of the crowd, and when that is the case, why would the government suspect anything to be wrong with him?
The quantitative findings of this man’s life from the outside world fail to take into account what happens behind closed doors. Sure, he “worked in the factory and never got fired” and “was popular with his mates,” but that is not enough to declare him free and happy. Trauma and anger often exist with war veterans as they try to acclimate themselves back to the civilian atmosphere, and it is entirely possible for the unknown citizen to have these feelings locked up inside of him, as the civilian world after the War pressured veterans into acting like the gruesome combat and bloodshed was not as bad as it was. Also, the attention of the speaker may have been commanded because of the possible mysterious death or disappearance of the unknown citizen. He had an average job, an average family, an average life, but statistics could never classify someone’s soul as average, which is where the satire comes into play.
The unknown citizen, plainly known as codename JS/07/M/378, is obviously more than just an unknown citizen, but in a society used to basing conclusions off of cold, hard facts, the speaker represents the outside world’s cluelessness that results from such dependence. This satire brings to light the predicament that many war veterans face, the lack of recognition that results from either their placement in the Tomb of the Unknown or a life as an unknown.
Was he really free? Was he really happy? Those are the questions the readers of W.H. Auden’s “The Unknown Citizen” ask themselves at the conclusion of the poem. The rather simple-looking title alludes to the “Tomb of the Unknown Soldier,” which many war veterans are buried after being found unidentified. Although this poem is not necessarily about that particular tomb, title sets the tone for a variety of unknowns, in which the clueless outside world looks into the complicated mystery of a seemingly not-so-complicated man, only knowing what “he was found by the Bureau of Statistics to be.” This speaker of the poem is analyzing this mystery, but the premise of the speaker and the ambiguity of the ending imply the existence of faults that lie within the public’s dependence of government agencies to make assumptions of someone’s life. Written after World War I, the poem is a satire that blames the growing prowess of state governments for causing innocent citizens to seem like numbers instead of souls.
Although “Producers Research,” “High-Grade Living,” and “Greater Community” are all fictional, they are easily recognizable as distinct government agencies in “The Unknown Citizen.” Also, “The Press” easily stands for the collective that is composed of the entire media. The reports and statistics that these agencies come up with are consistent with the “Modern Man”, a stereotype that represents the average American man, replaceable with any particular name. All of these reports cite that this unknown citizen was a war veteran who never did anything wrong because “had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard.” An overstatement exists when this man’s typicality makes him “in the modern sense…a saint,” but when in reality the indistinctness of his life makes him far from one. What we collect from the references to state agencies is that the facts show that he should have been happy, but inherently the public cannot make such assumptions off of facts, as numbers and statistics only skim the surface when it comes to explaining the character and predicament of someone’s life.
The innocence that surrounds this unknown man is what makes him “unknown” in the first place. In a modern society, in which the media persuades the public to concentrate on those who are always up to no good, those “against whom there [is] no official complaint” blend into the vast majority that go through the motions of their daily lives, as opposed to the minority that becomes the center of attention through their unlawful acts. “When there was peace, he was for peace; when there was war, he went,” the speaker states. The unknown man, regardless of whatever hardships he may have encountered as a result of his time at war, went with the flow of the crowd, and when that is the case, why would the government suspect anything to be wrong with him?
The quantitative findings of this man’s life from the outside world fail to take into account what happens behind closed doors. Sure, he “worked in the factory and never got fired” and “was popular with his mates,” but that is not enough to declare him free and happy. Trauma and anger often exist with war veterans as they try to acclimate themselves back to the civilian atmosphere, and it is entirely possible for the unknown citizen to have these feelings locked up inside of him, as the civilian world after the War pressured veterans into acting like the gruesome combat and bloodshed was not as bad as it was. Also, the attention of the speaker may have been commanded because of the possible mysterious death or disappearance of the unknown citizen. He had an average job, an average family, an average life, but statistics could never classify someone’s soul as average, which is where the satire comes into play.
The unknown citizen, plainly known as codename JS/07/M/378, is obviously more than just an unknown citizen, but in a society used to basing conclusions off of cold, hard facts, the speaker represents the outside world’s cluelessness that results from such dependence. This satire brings to light the predicament that many war veterans face, the lack of recognition that results from either their placement in the Tomb of the Unknown or a life as an unknown.
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Monday, November 1, 2010
AP Open Ended Topics for Mayor of Casterbridge
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Wednesday, October 27, 2010
As Fate would have it...
We know that Fate/Chance/Destiny is a theme of this novel, but what of it? Ultimately what is Hardy saying about these closely connected universalities through the evolution of his story? Use examples to support your answers, but I challenge you as a class to avoid redundancy (so limit yourself somewhat so as to save room for others.)
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