The Company of Wolves...

I felt today we had a great discussion over the story by Angela Carter. I can understand why some people don't understand, or enjoy her works compared to the Little Red Cap, and Little Red Riding Hood. Personality, I believed that her was evocative, and a step beyond most fairy tales. Plus when i think of typical fairy tales I see it as a narrative that is most likely read to children or young people; Angela Carter's modern variation of this story isn't the case. She molds her stories to a more mature audience which I believe is also important toward the understand of her style of narratives.

Now into the story. At the beginning it seems to take a different step from the other versions of the story from Grimm Brothers, and Charles Perrault. Those two versions start off like Once Upon a time; one style I am not a huge fan of. I just see that as too easy of a way to begin a story, I enjoy more creative starts. It feels much like and Mike hit his alarm clock to start the day off right. That is way too easy, and over done. But the idea behind once upon a time is that it is directed toward a young, child like audience; so i guess overall it makes some sense.

But into the common text that Carter creates; first, you need to feel the power images she places in the story. Instead of beginning with Little Red Riding Hood, she starts with the wolf. And molds him into the villain position immediately. She plays with colors, and dark motifs to move the story forward. Then at the same time she makes the young girl in the piece is coming of age, and the red hood symbols the period a woman goes through. I felt that was important, and stated toward the beginning. Carter makes the wolves seem so dark, and bad; while at the same exact time making the girl seem so innocent.

Like we talked about in class i felt that this story is story about young women not trusting strangers, and huge roles of seduction at the end. It almost empowers the woman, but the man or wolf seems to be in complete control. Maybe Carter wanted women to understand that they can be in control even if the other person doesn't believe this to be the case. I don't really know. Regardless, Carter wanted to drive home the fact that you need to stay on the path to overcome, and to become successful.

Then to what i felt was the most important parts of the story, the ending phrase. The wolf eats the grand mom just like the past stories, but then the wolf seducts the little girl. He makes the girl feel as if she is the animal with the lines<> He belittles the girl into the role of animals, she is below him in the chain of command. But as you think she is doing what she doesn't really want to do, the story shifts with the line<> It is going against itself. She gave freely something she owed, or had to give him. That kiss made all the other wolves howl, and lower themselves toward the other wolf.

Then she laughed because she knew she was nobodys meat. Maybe that was why she did what she did. She was looking at it big picture, either give the kiss and live or not and die. If you can understand the social roles, then it makes some sense.

Another important part of the story was the last two paragraphs that began like:
Midnight:and the clock strikes. It is Christmas Day, the werewolves' birthday, the door of the solstice stands wide open; let them all sink through.
See! sweet and sound she sleeps in granny's bed, between the paws of the tender wolf.

There is some strange love affair going on. And of all days it is on Christmas, the day of powering, and holy. Maybe this is a sign of change and that goodness will overcome I am not really sure. But when you look that all the wolf sink through; I feel that they are taking advance of the innocent young girl. She is now dirty from all the wolves having sex with her, and making her now not a virgin. Then at the same time she makes the wolf tender, he has a soft spot in his empty heart for this girl. Love is a powerful thing.

Something i forgot to say earlier is that wolves sometimes hid in sheep clothing, as another important point Carter was trying to push on the readers. The wolf was original a hunter if I am correct, and no sign that he was dangerous or a wolf. He was a man not an animal. But is this a coming of the age story or a wake up call for young women I don't really know. Angela Carter is an amazing writer in my eyes, even though she is dark, and twisted.

Touching The Waste Land.. Part 5

First, I would like to share that I covered all the needed topics in four earlier posts. But what I would like to move from is the images and narrative of the long poem to help discover why exactly T.S. Eliot used what he did in the poem.

When I was looking back over the Wasteland again I seemed to gather a few different thoughts from the thoughts I had earlier. I looked over two books I got from the library for extra reading. The two books were Modern Critical Interpretations: T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land, and Broken Images a Study of The Waste Land. I believed to have received more information from the Broken Images book. What I liked about this book was that instead of just saying the logic behind the different stages of the poem, it explained the emotions Eliot was putting the reader through. One particular piece from the book that I felt was important was the few paragraphs that said as follows:

"Even when the superficial or narrative character of an incident in the poem can be clearly discerned, usually the feelings that is evokes are neither simple nor easily categorized. Eliot was by and large not interested in depicting simple emotions. He was most fascinated with those depths of feelings into which one cannot peer. More precisely, he concerned himself with clusters of feelings or with extraordinary emotions."

This paragraph helps open up the mind of the poet who writes with strong images. For me I use a lot of strong images in my poetry because I believe it creates tension, feeling, emotion, textures, layers, and different voices with just the painting of opposing images. To me without images the poem would be dry, and bland. Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot have never been concerned bland or typical. Plus like I said in past post, he was one of the first modernist poets. He basically created the genre in my eyes.

More and more I see that The Waste Land is a huge extension from the life of Eliot. He undoubtedly placed the scenes and events in a particular order that created a decaying, or somber feel to the entire poem. Events from his life fueled the fire of the making of this poem, possibly parts that entailed his wife, and the looming foreseen death of their marriage. I feel this is true by the religious vibes, and the recovering images including women.

Again from the book, Broken images some complex emotions from the text would be "fear in a handful of dust, the awe of "looking into the heart of light, the silence", and the tarot cards. The tarot cards seemed really important; they give the feeling of reading the future and possibly changing it. But one of Eliot's key insights were emotions are rarely, if ever, simple. Then straight from the book on page 45<: If analyzed, they spread out through the mind, and their ramifications become lost in the darkness of the unconscious. The search for motives behind emotions can never be complete.> He was trying to capture some of the most difficult moments in the life of an individual and place them in the poem; that isn’t an easy task.

The Waste Land is an extension from Eliot's unconscious mind. He just let it go and continued to write through the layering of different images, and meanings. Eliot helps complete this layering by referencing different stories, and common knowledge of the time. I liked what the writer, Robert L. Schwarz, of Broken Images said on page 48<>

T.S. Eliot never expected this poem to be easy on the reader. I think he put a lock on the door, instead of keeping it open. He wanted to see how bad you wanted to kick the door in, and when the door started to crack he opens it; he opens it to an empty room. The journey of the poem is important not any particular destination along the way. Then again back to "A Game of Chess" this part shows the alienation within the bond of marriage. This again supports the earlier idea I had about the death of the marriage he experienced. The duchess is a form of Vivien Eliot. Plus I believe that this poem is more or less a collage of memories from the eyes of Eliot that he possibly repressed or just signs of regret, and fear that he experienced along his life.

Batte Royal...

Everybody was assigned "close reading" toward one paragraph of "Battle Royal." I was picked for the seventh paragraph that begun with the line "We were rushed up to the front of the ballroom, where it smelled even more strongly of tobacco, and whiskey."

This paragraph was strongly molded with images. Two of the most important images or things that were involved in the story were the blonde white woman that was naked, and the ring that the black men had to fight in.

To me racism and sexism was highlighting the entire chapter. The woman seemed to have been thrown into this situation by the white men that watched ringside at the black men who fought. The woman served a few different purposes. First, the woman served as entertainment for the white gentlemen who smoked and drunk alcohol. The other purpose for her was to get the black men to look at her so the white men could have an excuse to beat them.

The narrator was one of the black men who was suppose to give a speech and got roped into this before he could do it. He didn't understand why this had happened to him. And I really didn't know exactly why the white men would give him the scholarship, and let him give the speech later.

Anyways, I believed that this own paragraph had a rhyme or beat to it, similar to the way fighters have a particular walk or step to them in a fight. But I believe this area of the story was used to build tension, and suspense.

Back to the way the fighters in the ring must have felt about the naked white woman. They must have been attracted toward her, and at the same time trying to look at her. Some I am sure were staring, while others, like the narrator, thought about covering her up. It is almost funny how both the whites and the blacks wanted to protect her, but neither did because they wanted to get a particular reaction from the other race.

So racism is the driver. The narrator said he wanted "to caress her and destroy her, to love her and murder her, to hide from her, and yet to stroke where below the small American flag tattooed upon her belly her thighs formed a capital V."<1473> He wanted to protect her and care for her because he kind of knew how she felt; both of them were being used by these upper class white men.

If the narrator looked or stared at her naked body he would have been "blinded" by the white men. Basically, they would have beat him for looking at her. This symbolizes the way the white upper class men wanted the women, and the blacks in their society to feel misplaced. And not knowing what to do or how to react toward things in their lives. They wanted them to feel like their was no positive side in their life.

The great images in this paragraph was poetic, especially when the narrator was describing the naked blonde woman.

The Waste Land Part 4.

Then after more extended reading over "The Waste Land" I learned a possible reason for the poem being so tough to read, and understand. When I was looking up a online journal I found one called Dada Da Da: Sounding the Jew in Modernism.

The author of this article was Daniel T. McGee. At the beginning he explained that nobody should be able to read it easy, just like Ian Hamilton, who said "Eliot wanted the poem to be difficult and no doubt conceived its difficulty as an important aspect of it's total meaning. Where the New Critics had admired such high-modernist obscurity, Hamilton criticized the difficulty of the poem's wealth of cultural allusion for its aristocratic aloofness, a determination to keep up the barriers of class."

But as you keep going through the text you realize that the poem isn't just a difference between class, but also of racial issues. If you look back at the time when the poem was written many of today's laws, and culture are not the same. There was a big differences in the way African American people were treated, and the way European Americans or whites were treated.

And a possible reason for using all the different languages could be because T.S. Eliot wanted us to see the cultural differences very easily. McGee explained the purpose when he said "The poem produces foreign languages in order to dramatize their collapse into one, universal language, thereby replacing cultural differences between languages with the metaphysical difference between language and its absence."

Lines 347 through 359 seemed to be important. McGee highlighted this section of the poem out because he said this was the part where Eliot announces his own failure, and inability to make water or the sound of water. This helps explain the way Eliot revolts against traditional styles, and the way it splits away from everything else around it.

Religion and music seemed to be laced throughout the understanding of his article. Some of those places when confusing, but was important to understand the entire poem. But this poem shows places where senses such as depression, and waste took control of the movement. The society was post World War I time period, where most cultures, and societies were rebuilding. A society that destroys its own self, and one that lies in its own waste.

The poem could possibly have been split off into five different sections to show the separation of other voices, or it could have been a way to create a sense of decaying of the cultures. But even with all the negative and dark images the ending still has a uplifting and hope. The words at the end help with that, and the words are Datta, Dayadhvam, Damyata, and the last word repeated three times Shantih.

McGee, Daniel T. "Dada Da Da: Sounding the Jew in Modernism. English Literary History. 68.2 (Summer 2001): 501-527. Project MUSE 2 March 2009

The Waste Land Part 3...

When continued research into The Waste Land I learned that Greek Mythology was one of the key driving forces behind the poem. I was thinking maybe that these stories were doors that extended the poem more into forbidden love tragedies. In class today we were told about the story of the blinding of Tiresias. We learned that he became woman, then transformed back into a man, and later received power to know the future to help ease the blinding. Maybe the key that Eliot wanted us to get from this story is the art of transformation in society. The modern culture and how he viewed it seemed to increasingly become important as I researched the poem. In culture there are different social classes and Ancient Greece during the sixth century BC had a hand in the formation of the different classes. Early in the sixth century struggle for power between the aristocrats and the people resulted in the appointment of a citizen called Solon. He was a politician and poet that acted as chief magistrate with powers to settle the differences. This person helped show the importance of wealth from birth. This ideal person in Eliot's eyes could have been the cause of the so called waste land. Wealth shouldn't be the main driving element in a person's life it should be knowledge, kindness, and understanding.

But I view another important part into the understanding of this poem is what it did for the culture of poetry. This was one of the first steps into modernism. A revolt against all the poetics of its time, and everything before it; a step into a new world of poetry that would speak to the coming generations.

Modernism was defined from Dictionary of Poetic Terms as a period commonly thought to begin with World War I (1914), offering a dazzling array of invention in both English and American literature and criticism. It is said that it began with Ezra Pound, funny we see his name here because he was the mentor and editor of this piece of literature. By stepping away from traditional writing styles of this time T.S. Eliot approached areas of poetry undiscovered. He did however seemed to show he was from this time by adding a lot of history, and elements of this time within the scope of his poem. One part of the poem that stands out to me is The Fire Sermon, which was a sermon given from Buddha and encourages his followers to give up earthly possessions. He wanted them to seek freedom from traditional items of this time. He spoke of counting your breath, and being one with nature maybe this is represented in the poem. The worldly things are given up, and forbidden love is matured. Today we also learned that all the women in this poem are one woman and all the men are one man. Maybe these ties back in Greek Mythology I am not sure.

Also around the second section of the poem the tarot cards are used to represent the character's identity, but the identity into what? Society? To me this would reflect back into the modern culture and the way Eliot believed that modern culture is in a downward spiral from the past. Everything goes into the person's worldly possessions and not the soul of the individual. Whatever the case maybe the timeline including World War I is important to understanding this pieces, as well as the stories of Tiresias since it is included throughout the entire poem. More to come later.

The Waste Land Continued..

After continued research into The Waste Land I realized that our class isn't alone--many people don't completely get what Eliot was going for either. With our discussion over this poem we have pointed out more than once the recurrence of images of lovers that can't be with each other. For example, one of the essays I had to read from the back of the book on page 51, "That Shakespearean Rag." In this reading it came on the page as a song with music. I was curious of the reasoning of our book having a song it in to help the reader understand the poem by T.S. Eliot. Then I remember a few things from the poem itself; it had parts of different songs from the times within itself. So this could reflect the rhyme of different parts of it or maybe the jingle that he was going for, I don't know. Examples of this was London bridge is falling down, falling down.
Also in class we pointed out the way religion, and sex carry an important role in the way we understand the poem. These I believe are the keys to understanding it completely I just haven't reached that position quite yet. I do see however images laced with references toward Christ. Especially at the end of the first section with the line "The Hanged Man. Fear death by water." I mentioned in class how I thought it was a way for some villages near the ocean to place hung men to scare away pirates or people in the community that was looked down on. But either way I see it could be a sign of God or a sign of townsmen placing fear in the hearts of criminals.

I believe the footnotes are extensions from the poem that are necessity for the reader to understand and maybe see what he was trying to show. But what we have to realize is that Ezra Pound, and T.S. Eliot both reflected their style within the poem, and they both cut a lot of the poem out that maybe could have helped the understand of it a little more. You have to understand though that both of those famous poets mainly imaged based, so why wouldn't they cut all the narrative style pieces from it. In class some people believed that parts of the poem could be looked upon with queer criticism and to show that he had gay intentions. Personality I get sick and tired of people jumping to those conclusions. I think that the voices of the poem changing to much for anyone to know exactly who is saying what. Also this brings up the point that The Waste Land wasn't the original title it was said that T.S.Eliot picked another title first and then changed his mind. The first title was said to have been "He do the Police in Different Voices" but later changed it.
I am still searching for more on The Shakespearian Rag and will post more about it soon.

The Waste Land.

Just the reading of this poem is enough to amaze you. The way T.S. Eliot uses sensual devices, different languages, and imagery to propel the reader through the poem is amazing. When we read it in class I noticed that some knew how to speak Latin, but Latin wasn't the only language in the poem; there was different languages other than English and Latin, I believe there was also German and French. The stanza would shift from one language to the other with no middle ground. Some people didn't know how to approach it, while some would trip up others passed it over and read the footnotes. Not reading the footnotes was a hard thing for me not to do mainly because I wanted to know what the hell i was reading. Plus the used book I own was marked up with stupid comments from somebody who didn't understand it either, and pointed out things that were very easy to pick up. That person didn't need to mark that stuff so i had to travel through the fields of their mess too.
Anyways I believe one person said the wrong word when he was reading, he used the word "person" instead of the correct word "prison." What is so interesting is not that he said the wrong word but why exactly did he say the incorrect version. Perhaps he unconsciously saw that word, I don't know but I do feel it was important. I am sure somebody else did the same thing but that is one that i noticed.
The imagery Eliot uses just makes you feel it. He puts you on a blank canvas and as your breathing he paints around you; he is amazing. I enjoy reading lyrical poems, it is the same style I write, or so I am told. It is like you see an image and you par it with something else so different and create this world of imagination that some get and some don't. He used repetition in the poem, along with rhyme. What i found interesting was the changes in form throughout, I don't know exactly why he did it but i thought it seemed important. He used images, and ideas from historical cultures, for example the Greek culture when he said "Tiresias." Most of the poets of that time did the same thing, so that just kept along with the style and timeline.
I wonder if he was speaking toward an audience or is this some kind of journal entry. The usage of footnotes would say otherwise, because he would know what he was saying, but it speaks about his life it seems. With parts of it depressing and others having a jingle to it. Either way I want to say that it carries the reader to different locations, possibly different atmospheres of understanding the life and death of a person. Was this a way for him to understand his own personal death and life?