Roethke, "My Papa's Waltz," 623
Hayden, "Those Winter Sundays," 623
Heaney, "Digging," 625
Carver, "Photograph of My Father in His Twenty-Second Year," 626
Yamada, "The Night Before Goodbye," 626
Coleman, "Dear Mama"
Sexton, "Cinderella"
Gluck, "Gretel in Darkness," 428
Mirikitani, "Suicide Note," 434
Dorfman, "Hope," 449
Randall, "Ballad of Birmingham," 453
Rich, "Living in Sin," 464
Sagel, "Baca Grande," 472
Brooke, "The Soldier," 643
Owen, "Dulce Et Decorum Est," 642
Plath, "Daddy," 517
Ginsberg, "A Supermarket in California," 533
Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," 674
Directions: You are required to answer one of the main questions, which will appear in bold. This question is due no later than Thursday, December 1. Following the bold questions will be other questions which you should read and think about--they may help you answer the main question. However, you are not required to answer these questions in writing.
Please answer the question as thoughtfully as possible, after reading the lecture. Then post your answer to the English 102 Message Board by the deadline.
Your responses to other students' answers are due by midnight on Sunday, December 4. In order to get the full 20 points, you MUST respond thoughtfully to at least 3 other people's postings.
We will be using the Canvas Discussion Board for this class. Click on the link below to get to the Canvas portal, sign in, and then click on the tab for this class. You will find the "Discussions" link on the left side of the screen:
Remember: This discussion question is worth a possible 20 points. Late answers will receive 0 points. Points will be assigned according to the thoughtfulness of your answer, not by whether it is "right" or not, since sometimes there is no "right" answer. Just be sure your ideas are supported by the material in the story (see Lecture 1).
What is your interpretation of the events in this poem? What lines support your reading?
- Some readers believe this poem is about child abuse. What lines or details support this interpretation?
- Some readers believe this poem is about a warm, close moment between and son and a father. What lines or details support this interpretation?
- Some readers believe the waltz in the poem is a metaphor for the relationship between the father and the son. What lines or details support this interpretation?
Carver, "Photograph of My Father in His Twenty-Second Year"
What are the speaker's feelings about his father? What lines reveal his feelings?
- Why is the month specified?
- What details are shown in the photograph?
- How is this poem as much about the speaker as it is about his father?
Yamada, "The Night Before Goodbye"
What is the irony of the last 6 lines of the poem?
- What specific facts do you know about the family's situation?
- Where does the first part of the poem (lines 1-12) take place? Where does the second part (lines 13-22) take place?
- What information is contained in each line? How does the information in each line contribute to the story and emotions in the poem?
What emotions does the narrator have about her mother? What specific words and phrases tell you this?
- Why did the poet choose not to use punctuation or capitalization?
- Look at where each line breaks, and look at what information is contained on each line. See if you can figure out what is being emphasized on each line.
Hayden, "Those Winter Sundays"
What does the speaker realize about his father now that he didn't realize as a child? What lines reveal this knowledge?
- Why does the poem begin with the phrase "Sundays too"?
- What kind of work did his father do?
- What was the relationship between the father and the son like?
- Was this a happy family?
What has the speaker "inherited" from his father and his grandfather? What lines and/or details support your answer?
- In line 2, Heaney compares his pen to a gun: "snug as a gun." Is this poem violent? Why use this image?
- What kind of work did the speaker's father do? What kind of work did his grandfather do? How did each man feel about his work?<.li>
- How is the image of digging used to unify the parts of the poem?
- The speaker says he will "dig" with his pen; what does he mean?
In this poem, how do the ideas of "being protected" and "being trapped" interrelate?
- This poem refers to the fairytale, "Hansel and Gretel," and assumes the reader knows the story. If you don't, look it up or ask someone to tell it to you.
- What do you know about Gretel? That is, where is she? About how old is she? What is her physical and mental condition?
- What are Gretel's feelings towards Hansel? Why does she feel this way? Is Hansel right, or is Gretel?
- In line 8, Gretel asks, "Why do I not forget?" Why do you think she can't forget? Why can Hansel forget? After all, he was the one whose life was in danger; Gretel was the one who saved him, so shouldn't it be easier for her to forget?
Sexton, "Cinderella"
How does Anne Sexton use "voice" in this poem to help convey a comment about the validity of fairy tales and the role they play in men's and women's lives?
Note: This version of the Cinderella story is much closer to the original medieval tale than the versions most contemporary readers are familiar with. If you have any interest in reading the original versions and seeing how they have changed, check out Bruno Bettelheim's book, Uses of Enchantment, a very entertaining Freudian analysis of fairy tales.
- How is the tone of this poem different from the tone of "Gretel in Darkness"?
- Why begin the poem with four stories which have nothing to do with the Cinderella story?
- This poem is also based on a fairy tale; be sure you know the story. How is the story Anne Sexton tells in this poem different from the story most of us were told as children?
- The fairy tale, "Cinderella," is a romantic love story; in Sexton's version, is the story about romance and love?
- In this poem, how do the stepsisters try to fool the prince? Why do you think Sexton chose to change these details?
- Go over the last stanza of the poem; what is its tone? Does it make "happily ever after" sound like a good thing?
Mirikitani, "Suicide Note"
Many readers express anger toward the speaker's parents; does she feel any anger toward them? Explain.
- Who is the speaker in this poem? Is the introductory explanation about who she is necessary? What does it add to the poem? What would the poem lose if it weren't included?
- The speaker repeats herself over and over; what impact does this repetition have on the poem?
- The speaker compares herself to a bird; how does this imagery help convey her feelings about herself?
- Readers disagree about the tone of the last stanza; some see it as hopeless; others see it as hopeful; others see it as expressing a wish for redemption. How do you interpret it?
How is the title of this poem ironic?
- Who is the speaker of the poem? Why do you think the author made it impossible to tell if it is the son's mother or his father?
- Line 2 consists of one word: "missing." Why is this word all by itself on a line?
- In stanza two, why does the speaker repeat the fact, but put it into different words? The speaker does this again in lines 19-23. Why?
- Why repeat "they say"?
- Why, on lines 36 and 38, is the word "joy" alone on a line? Why is "torturing" alone on a line in line 42? Why is "hope" alone on line 48?
- Why, in line 53, does the speaker say, "and he may might could"; don't all of those words mean the same thing?
Randall, "Ballad of Birmingham"
Note: This poem was written in response to the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, a bombing that killed four African-American children. During demonstrations in Birmingham, nonviolent Civil Rights demonstrators, including children, had been brutally attacked by police, who had turned firehoses on them and allowed police dogs to maul them. In response to this, a prayer meeting had been organized at the church, where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was planning to speak.
How does the ballad form--that is, the use of singsong rhythm and rhyming lines--affect the impact of this poem on the reader?
- Why do you think Randall chooses to begin the poem with the conversation between the mother and the daughter?
- What images does Randall use to emphasize the innocence of the child?
- How is this poem ironic?
- At the end of the poem, the mother, clawing through the rubble, finds her child's shoe. Why do you think Randall chose to show the mother finding a shoe, rather than the body of her child?
How is the reality of love different from the speaker's romantic expectations?
- What housework did the speaker not imagine herself doing when she decided to move in with her lover?
- How is her lover different the "morning after"?
- How is the speaker different the "morning after"?
- What does the milkman represent, symbolically?
What image has James Baca cultivated? How does it conflict with his real character?
- What phrases give you a hint that James Baca's image might be deceptive?
- Does he mean what he says in his speech about success?
- Why refer to Joey Martinez, by name?
- How does the style of speech change in the last stanza? Why?
What emotions are expressed by the narrator? How does the narrator's word choice help express these emotions?
- How does the rhythm of the poem help the narrator excpress his emotions?
- Why is the title "The Soldier"? How does that help alter your perception of the poem? Would your feelings about the narrator be different if the poem were called "The Tourist" or "The Travelling Salesman"?
What is Wilfred Owen's message about war? Is it different from Rupert Brooke's message? Explain.
- What specific images does Owen give to emphasize his point?
- Why does he use phrases like "drunk with fatigue" and an ecstasy of fumbling"?
- Why end the poem with Latin words? Why not just use English?
Note: This poem uses a technique called "hyperbole": intentional exaggeration. "Daddy" is autobiographical. Plath's relationship with her father was always a source of pain to her; he was a college professor who was extremely critical and domineering; he died when she was a girl. Plath had phenomenal literary talent: she won the Mademoiselle short story contest (a prestigious award at that time) at the age of 16, and began college the following year. Her first (and only) novel was The Bell Jar, a heavily autobiographical account of her childhood and adolescence, including her two suicide attempts. She published several volumes of poetry as well; this poem appears in her last, Ariel. Shortly after it was written, she committed suicide; the poem was published after her death.
At the end of the poem, in line 80, the speaker says, "Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I'm through." Do you believe she is really liberated from her father now?
- What similes and metaphors does Plath use in this poem to help her describe her feelings about her father?
- Why is the first phrase, "You do not do," repeated?
- When the speaker says, "Daddy, I have had to kill you," she is not speaking literally; what does she mean?
- In line 14, she says, "I used to pray to recover you." If she hates him so much, why would she want him back?
- Plath's father was not literally a Nazi; why does she use Nazi and concentration camp imagery, then?
- What is the tone of lines 48-50 ("Every woman adores a Fascist, / The boot in the face, the brute / Brute heart of a brute like you")?
- In line 58, the speaker says, "At twenty I tried to die..." What does she mean?
- In lines 64-67, the speaker says, "I made a model of you, / A man in black with a Meinkampf look / And a love of the rack and the screw. / And I said I do, I do." What did she do?
- In line 71, when she says, "If I've killed one man, I've killed two," what does she mean?
- By the end of the poem, how does she feel about her father?
Ginsberg, "A Supermarket in California"
Note: Allen Ginsberg was one of a group known as the Beat Poets, along with others such as Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Jack Kerouac. He was in rebellion against the complacency and materialism of the postwar U.S. He was strongly influenced by the poetry of Walt Whitman. Whitman was one of the most important American poets of the 19th century; he helped create and express the literary and cultural voice of the United States. Whitman wrote of America at a time when the Western part of the country was just being explored and opened up; when the resources of the New World seemed endless, and so did its potential. He saw America as a democracy that could recognize each individual's worth, regardless of economic or social standing, and at the same time bind all those individuals into a unity that was strong and spiritually nourishing. In Whitman's view, we were just beginning, and everything was possible.
But by the time Ginsberg wrote, the world looked like a different place; Ginsberg is as disillusioned as Whitman was optimistic.
Ginsberg chose to have his speaker encounter Walt Whitman in a supermarket in California; in choosing this setting, what comment do you think he is making about the "American Dream"?
- What is the speaker's attitude toward Whitman?
- The speaker enumerates the foods that are available in the supermarket; what is his purpose in doing this?
- What images does the speaker give us of the American family?
- Does the speaker ever speak to Whitman? What does the speaker seem to be saying about Whitman's concept of a country of "unified individuals"?
Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"
Note: This is one of the more difficult poems written in English, which is why I've left it for last. If you read it and couldn't figure it out, don't despair. You just have to know the background, and then take it line by line.
T.S. Eliot is one of the most important and influential poets of the 20th century; that's why, even though he's difficult, he's worth looking at. This poem, along with his masterpiece, The Wasteland, have provided American literature with some of its most important ideas and images.
Eliot, like Hemingway and Williams, was one of those who was disillusioned after World War I, and questioned the meaning of everything. The world he saw was full of mechanical and technological "progress," but devoid of any spiritual or emotional meaning. This attitude is apparent in "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," but comes to full expression in The Wasteland, in which he pictures the industrialized world as one full of meaningless chatter and grey ghosts masquerading as human beings. A few search for meaning, but all they can hope to find is comfort, and even that is illusory and fleeting.
"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" can be interpreted in dozens of ways and on several symbolic levels. But the best way to begin is to figure out its literal meaning (i.e., who the speaker is and what is actually happening), and then worry about the symbolism afterwards.
The epigraph is from Dante's Inferno. The Inferno is part of Dante's Divine Comedy, in which the main character of the poem, also named Dante, is given a tour of the afterlife. He is taken first through Hell (the Inferno), then through Purgatory, then through Heaven. God allows him to do this in order that he may return to the world and tell everyone what awaits them after death, so that they will be inspired to live more moral lives.
The key part of this is that Dante gets to return to the world of the living; God makes an exception for him. Guido da Montefelto, in the epigraph, is willing to speak to Dante, and honestly confess his crimes, because he knows that, once in Hell, no one ever leaves it, and he is sure that Dante is now dead and in Hell, and will never be able to repeat his story to anyone else.
So when the poem begins, "Let us go then, you and I," we can be pretty sure we are going on a similar journey. Eliot is hinting that we are being guided through Hell--but we are now in the 20th century, and we don't have to leave the world to get there.
Dante's guide through Hell was Virgil, author of The Aeneid, the ancient Roman masterpiece; likewise, our guide is a poet: J. Alfred Prufrock. But Prufrock doesn't see himself as brilliant (see line 83: "I am no great prophet"); and unlike Virgil, he has to go to teas given by genteelly educated women and humiliate himself by "singing for his supper."
The comparisons to Dante need to be drawn throughout the poem: Dante's journey through the afterlife was epic, and his purpose was noble--he was to discover the Truth and bring it back to the world. Prufrock, on the other hand, is going across town to an afternoon tea, at which he will be expected to recite his poetry and make polite conversation with the women. Eliot is clearly implying that we are already in Hell, and that the time for epic journeys and accomplishments is over, because there is no "Truth" to bring back--and if there were, no one would want to hear it.
What images, similes, and metaphors does Eliot use to give the impression that the world is a hellish place?
- In lines 2-3, Eliot describes the sunset; what simile does he use? What effect does this have on the tone of the poem?
- What sort of neighborhood does Prufrock live in? What details reveal this?
- In line 10, Prufrock mentions an "overwhelming question"; do we ever get to know what the question is?
- In lines 15 through 22, what metaphor is Eliot using? One would expect this to create a cozy feeling, but it doesn't; why?
- When Prufrock says in lines 26-27,"...there will be time / To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet," what does he mean?
- What does he mean in line 28 when he says, "There will be time to murder and create," and in lines 32-34 when he says, "And time yet for a hundred indecisions, / And for a hundred visions and revisions, / Before the taking of a toast and tea"?
- What is Prufrock thinking when he says, in lines 37-39, "And indeed there will be time / To wonder, 'Do I dare?' and 'Do I dare?' / Time to turn back and descend the stair..."?
- In this stanza, what does Prufrock imagine the women saying about him as he comes in?
- What is Prufrock telling you in lines 49-53 about how he has spent his time?
- In line 54, Prufrock says, "So how should I presume?" Again in lines 61 and 68 he asks the same question. Does the word "presume" have the same meaning in each case?
- Prufrock, in lines 55-58, imagines the eyes; what are the eyes doing to him? How is Prufrock imagining himself in this section?
- Does Prufrock have valuable wisdom to dispense to these ladies? (See lines 59-61.)
- How does the mood change in lines 62-69? What is Prufrock imagining now? How does his daydream turn out? (See lines 70-74.)
- In lines 83-86, Prufrock again denies his greatness; why does he feel he's ordinary?
- Prufrock imagines for a moment that he really does have the Truth these women say they seek, and that he gathers his courage to tell it to the woman he is trying to impress (see lines 87-98). What reaction does he imagine her to have?
- In line 111, Prufrock says, "No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be." What is he, then? Why does he capitalize the word "Fool," in line 119? Note: In Shakespeare's plays, the Fool is often a clown or someone who is mentally unbalanced, who is regarded by the more important characters as entertainment; he frequently knows and tells the truth, but no one listens to him because he is the Fool.
- In lines 120-121, Prufrock says, "I grow old...I grow old... / I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled." Why will he need to roll up his trousers?
- Read line 122; why would he need to part his hair behind, or worry about eating a peach?
- He says he has heard the mermaids singing to each other, but "I do not think they will sing to me." In The Odyssey, the mermaids were sirens, who sat on sharp rocks and sang to the sailors on passing ships. No man could resist their voices, and so the ships would be lured onto the rocks and wrecked. So what is Prufrock implying by saying that the mermaids won't sing to him?
- In The Inferno, Dante got to leave the Afterlife and go back to his home; do we get to return home after our odyssey? (See lines 129-131.)
- What is Eliot saying about human communication in this poem?
- What is Eliot saying about Truth and Wisdom in this poem?