reading closely (revisited)

The last lecture emphasiszed that the way to make sense of a poem (if at all) first requires close reading. There are very easy poems that do not require much attention (the works of Dr. Seuss come to mind--they are delightful, but they are seldom challenging or ambiguous).

Some poems really seem straightforward, but when they are looked at closely, they offer up more to the reader.

I remember being singled out (not for the first time) in high school for my stupid interpretation of a Robert Frost poem, "The Road Not Taken." The English teacher was exasperated at my silly refusal to see what was obvious: this is a poem about someone (anyone) making a significant life choice (any significant life choice) that impacted that life hugely. The choice was the rebel/outsider/bohemian's choice; here was Frost, well before the Sumemr of Love (you can look it up), preaching anti-establishment action. Keep in mind I was in high school just around the Summer of Love, so my hippie teachers were enforcing their own brand of "establishment." Crazy :)

Admittedly, I was a bit of a wise guy, and I was a physics major; this poetry stuff was not my thing, but I still thought the teacher had got it wrong; he was not reading closely enough. Even then I knew that looking closely at things (in physics, math, art, whatever) was necessary to fully understand them.

Here is where the teacher's and my paths "diverged":

TEACHER: Look at the ending of the poem: "two roads diverged in the wood, and I -- / I took the one less traveled by, / And that has made all the difference (ll 18-20).

He had a pretty good case. Even to a physics major, this was obvious/easy symbolism. The narrator reached a forking path and had to make a choice. He picked the less-traveled one (the one fewer people walked on, the non-mainstream one), and he later announces that his choice had a profound effect on him ("has made all the difference"). Had his dad told him to be an accountant and he, instead, went off to try to become a rock star?

ME: But you are not looking at the whole poem. Early on the speaker looked at his choices and decided to take one that he claims had "perhaps the better claim / Because it was grassy and wanted wear" (ll 7-8). The fact that there was more grass on it meant it was not the path most-often walked on, not the path most-often chosen. However, look at the next two lines: "Though as for that, the passing there / Had worn them really about the same" (ll 9-10). He just contradicted himself. He imagines they are completely different paths, but he then admits they are just "about the same." His choice was not between becoming an accountant and a rock star; it was between becoming an accountant and a banker or insurance salesman.

I stand by my "stupid" interpretation. You can't just ignore lines, especially in such a short poem. COULD a reader take away the meaning my teacher said was the right interpretation? Sure. But is that the only reasonable interpretation? Not if you consider the whole poem.

OK, so let's just imagine Teen-Corbally was right; after all, the lines do say what they say. The paths/choice were/was not all that different. How does the ending make sense?

And that is a terrific question. I asked you to look at all the lines, and you are forcing me to look at all the lines. Touche! My teacher asked me the same question, by the way.

ME: That makes sense if you look at these two lines--"I shall be telling this with a sigh / Somewhere ages and ages hence" (ll 16-17). He has ended up "somewhere," and he is much older ("ages and ages hence"). He is also sighing as he thinks back to that moment in the woods. There is almost a sense of a life that was not lived to the fullest, that was not exciting (*sigh*). Who would he be telling this too? His dead friends? His few remaining living friends? How about a grandson on a front porch (I made that part up, but that's how I visualize it). Why would an old geezer be re-telling tales of his life to a grandson and saying he made wild and crazy choices that had a profound effect when he really did not make wild and crazy choices? Old people sometimes look back, find their lives lacking, try to rationalize, justify, exaggerate. Young people do the same, but they do not fit the "ages and ages" hence phrase.

So we disagreed.

He still thought I was wrong (and a wise guy), but he acknowledged I backed up my interpretation with detailed examples. It required looking at the poem very closely. Looking at phrases, not huge chunks. Looking at patterns and contradictions and trying to apply them to the real world.

Read closely!

Since your second paper is going to be comparison/contrast

It seemed like a good idea to get a bit of practice first. This section of the lecture has some comparison/contrast.

NOTE:

comparing and contrasting

Comparing and contrasting not only gives you more material to write about, but it often dictates how you will focus your analysis (your paper's thesis) and what parts of the work you will look at or not. For Paper 2 you will be comparing/contrasting three poems. Here we are going to look at the poem "Cinderella" and the folk tale on which it was based--"Aschenpeuttal" (the Brothers Grimm version of "Cinderella").

BE SURE YOU READ BOTH (they are on Canvas in the Files section). DO NOT think of the syrupy Disney version (based on Charles Perrault's "Cinderella") as you go through this part of the lecture. It is the wrong version; it will not make sense. Also, be sure you look up any words/phrases/references you do not know (by the way "blackjacks" is not a reference to a card game here).

Have you read both? Have you looked things up?

Sexton's modern poem is a re-telling of the classic tale collected by the Brother's Grimm. She retains the basic plot (absent father, wicked stepmother, prince inviting her to the ball, the gold, not glass, slipper, etc.), the supernatural element (the dead mother who looks after her from heaven and who calls on the birds, who do not sing, to pick up the lentils), and all of the violence (the partially-amputated feet and the eyes being pecked out by birds).

However, Sexton's poem has many differences as well. First, the language is modern and wise-cracky (satirical). She uses phrases like "gussying up" (l 45) and she keeps reminding the reader that they already know "that story" (ll 5, 10, 21, 109), and some of the references are odd and modern, such as the two stepsisters having "hearts like blackjacks" (l 29) and the ball being "a marriage market" (l 42). One reason is she is writing to a more-modern audience, and she has updated the language to meet the needs of current readers. There are other differences, though.

The first four stanzas of the poem are not in the original story at all. The examples of someone winning a lottery and making a fortune, the servant who marries a wealthy husband, the investor who is lucky enough to make a fortune, and the accident victim who calls up Larry H. Parker and collects millions of dollars in damages--these are all modern-day Cinderella stories, rags-to-riches stories. Other modern examples are seen in movies such as Pretty Woman.

All of these examples are real. Some people actually do make millions of dollars when they buy the winning Power Ball ticket, and their lives often change dramatically. This seems to reinforce the happily-ever-after ending often associated with various Cinderella stories, such as "Aschenpeuttel," where the poor girl is taken from her slavery and is made the beloved princess of the land, married to a dashing prince.

The examples, though, all happen fairly rarely. Millions play Lotto, but few win. Very few housekeepers or nannies actually marry their ultra-rich employers. Some invest and make fortunes, but the bursting of the real estate bubble and the tech stock crashes saw millions losing homes and life-savings. As often as not vicitms of extreme accidents are saddled with impossible bills, or they die. These added stanzas suggest that rags-to-riches is possible, but it is not likely.

Sexton also adds on a long section at the end of the poem. The narrator does not acknowledge the two are happy; she suggests it is just a rumor--they "lived, they say, happily ever after" (l 101). The manner in which they lived is described with an impossible list:

like two dolls in a museum case
never bothered by diapers or dust,
never arguing over the timing of an egg,
never telling the same story twice,
never getting a middle-aged spread,
their darling smiles pasted on for eternity.
Regular Bobbsey Twins. (ll 102-108)

Houses have dust; babies produce dirty diapers; real people sometimes disagree and sometimes repeat themselves; real peoples' bodies change; people do not always smile (nor do they live for eternity). In the end they are being compared to ideal characters in a children's story, and that is what they are--characters in a story, not real.

Certainly readers know that "Cinderella" (in its various forms) is a tale, not reality. However, Sexton is attempting to make readers see, that living a life expecting to win the lottery or expecting a handsome man (or woman) to come along and "save" them is unrealistic. Most people's problems do not magically go away. They need to work on them; they need to save themselves.

a final admission: you may have noticed...

My comparison/contrast here is not quite a full comparison/contrast. Yes, I do mention similarities to the story, but a fully-developed paper would also have drawn some documented/quoted examples from the story. Instead, I gave a very quick comparison so that I could get the the part of the analysis I thought the class would learn most from. I can only type so much, and you will only read/absorb so much. There is plenty here to give you the idea :)