- Emily Dickinson ‘Because I could not stop for Death’ analysis

| A brief analysis | Emily Dickinson | Because I could not stop for Death |

Emily Dickinson is an American poet of the nineteenth-century New England. She is now regarded as one of the greatest American poets of all time. It was only in the 1930s when scholars and critics began to read her poetry as literary texts. Her poetry had been debated curiously about her extremely introverted character and the exceptionally eventless life. Readers tried to find out relations between the contents of her poems and her factual life, since she was regarded as a discreet poetess, who wrote confessional poems not intending to publish them during her life.

‘Because I could not stop for death’ is one of many poems related to the death theme. The central theme of this poem is the interpretation of mortal experience from the standpoint of immortality. The poet uses these abstractions – mortality, immortality, and eternity. As it can be demonstrated through the lines analyzed from the poem below.

                                    Because I could or stop for Death –

-       The speaker gives some sort of explanation: ‘because […]’;

-       Explanation for an argument or question;

-       This line shows that the speaker did not have a choice, that it is not up to us to have one;

-       ‘Death’ as a gentleman, a suitor.

-        

                                    He kindly stopped for me –

-       As a calm acceptance of death.

                                    The Carriage held but just Ourselves – an Immortality

-       Emphasizes the words ‘Carriage’, ‘Ourselves’ and ‘Immortality’ by the usage of capital letters;

-       ‘Carriage’ as the speaker death transportation;

-       ‘Ourselves’: her and Death;

-       Death as not the end but as the step on the way to ‘Immortality’ – eternal life.

                                    We slowly drove – he knew no haste

-       They were not in a hurry;

-       Death did not speed or hurry;

-       Notion of suspense: What will happen next?

                                    And I put away

                                    My labor and my leisure too,

                                    For his civility –

-       She gave up: work and free time;

-     She feels some sort of ‘happiness’ as she is impressed by Death manners.

                                    We passed the school, where children strove

                                    At recess – in the ring –

-       They are riding by the scenario (her life?);

-       Ordinary part of life.

                                    We passed the field of gazing grain –

                                    We passed the setting sun

-       The end of the day, the end of life;

-       The carriage keeps moving forward.

                                    Or rather – he passed us –

-       The sun falls below the horizon;

-       As the warmth, the light leaving her.

                                    The Dews drew quivering and chill

                                    For only Gossamer, my gown

                                    My Tippet – only Tulle –

-         Gossamer: very thin, delicate fabric;

-         Tippet: shoulder cape;

-   She is feeling chilly because she was not dressed appropriately; 

-       Under-dressed as under prepared

                                    We paused before a House that seemed

                                    A swelling of the Ground –

-       The burial place;

-       The second home;

-       ‘House’ as her final resting place.

                                    The Roof was scarcely visible –

                                    The Cornice – in the Ground

-       Cornice as pointed part of the roof.

                                    Since then – ‘tis Centuries – and yet

                                    Feels shorter than the Day

-       Events happened a really time ago;

-       She is already dead;

-       It feels like ‘just yesterday’;

-       Like a vivid memory.

                                    I first surmised the Horse’s heads

                                    Were toward Eternity –

-       Horses as her journey to the afterlife;

-       Death as not the end but just one step closer to ‘Eternity’.

Reference

JOHNSON, H. Thomas.  The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson.  Toronto: Little Brown, 1960.

- Orwell’s ideas about language in Politics and the English Language essay related to his allegorical novel Animal Farm

| A short reading | George Orwell | Politics and the English Language and Animal farm |

Animal Farm is still nowadays considered to be a successful mixture of political satire and animal fable. It is considered one of Orwell's most lasting achievements. The book was completed in 1944 and remained unpublished for more than a year, although, later the short novel became a critical and popular triumph. In the subsequent years, Animal Farm has been interpreted from feminist, Marxist, political, and psychological perspectives, and it is perceived as an important and relevant book in the post-World War II literary canon. The short story is more purposely an analysis of all political revolutions, where the revolutionary ideals of justice, equality, and fraternity shatter in the event.

Animal farm book is also related to Orwell’s essay “Politics and the English Language” in a sense in which we can explore how language can control thought and behavior. The novel exposes how language can be used to control minds. Orwell tells the story from the animals’ point of view so that human beings are not characterized fully. He uses a simple language to reflect the naive perception of the “poor” animals. Although the reader is made to observe the way the animals are deceived, we are never allowed to infiltrate the minds of the characters. In all of his works, George Orwell made it a point to show how politicians used language. Squealer, one of the characters from the story, limits debate by complicating it, and he confuses and disorients, making claims that the pigs need the extra luxury they are taking in order to function properly, for example.

- Conrad's Heart of Darkness

| A simplified reading | Joseph Conrad | Heart of Darkness | 

• Characters Marlow and Kurtz and their importance in the novel

Charlie Marlow is a thirty-two years old man who has "followed the sea." Marlow is in many ways a traditional hero. He is tough, honest, an independent thinker and a capable man. Marlow's story of his voyage up the Congo River constitutes almost Conrad’s entire novel. He is the pilot of the steamboat sent to set Kurtz free. At the same time Marlow is shocked by what he sees concerning what the European traders have done to the natives.

Kurtz is an ivory trader for the Company. Kurtz works out of the Inner Station and he is remarkably effective at acquiring ivory. A well-educated European, he is described as a "universal genius" and begins his works in the Congo as part of a virtuous mission. However, while in the jungle, he sets himself up as a god to the natives. By the time Marlow reaches him, he is emaciated and dying.

• Narrator peculiarities 

Heart of Darkness begins on board of a small ship on the Thames River, in London, called the Nellie. After describing the river and its slow-flow traffic, the unnamed narrator offers short descriptions of London's history to his companions, the Director of Companies (their Captain), a lawyer, an accountant, and the novel's protagonist Marlow. As the sun sets, the four men become contemplative; eventually, Marlow breaks the silence by beginning his tale about his voyage to the Congo. The other men remain silent while Marlow collects his ideas, after which he begins the story properly.

The remainder of the novel becomes, with a few exceptions, the narrator's report of what Marlow tells him and the others on board of the Nellie. Conrad's novel is therefore a frame story or a story-within-a-story, fact that makes it peculiar. 

• Africa and Africans in the novel

As Marlow makes known the story of his travels up the Congo River, in that manner, making the setting - the Congo - and more generally, Africa, he describes his African crew as “big powerful men, with not much capacity to weigh the consequences”, (p. 105).

In Heart of Darkness, Marlow consistently portrays females as weak, deluded, or threatening, in the case, the statuesque African woman. Africans, in general, were seen as primitive, savage and primordial. Savagery and primitiveness are obvious enough images in the novel. To cite Marlow: “black natives, black people, black men”

(p. 11); “neither enemies nor criminals but black shadows of disease and sadness, bunches of bones under black skin” (p. 13).

‘We entered deeper and deeper into the heart of darkness’ up to ‘the noise and activities of these wild creatures’ (p. 30)

• Kurtz last words: “The horror! The horror!” (Penguin edition, p.100)

Kurtz, as an example of the European colonialism, his words “The horror! The horror!” may reflect the real picture of the Europeans in Africa. Although, he ‘admitted’ that the real darkness was in the whites' minds. At the end of the story maybe he realized this contradiction knowing that something very bad was waiting for him after his natural life. Maybe he was having a glimpse of hell.

- Shakespeare's Sonnet 147

| A brief reading | Shakespeare | Sonnet 147 | 

SONNET 147

My love is as a fever longing still,
For that which longer nurseth the disease;
Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,
The uncertain sickly appetite to please.
My reason, the physician to my love,
Angry that his prescriptions are not kept,
Hath left me, and I desperate now approve
Desire is death, which physic did except.
Past cure I am, now Reason is past care,
And frantic-mad with evermore unrest;
My thoughts and my discourse as madmen's are,
At random from the truth vainly expressed;
For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright,
Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.

In Shakespeare’s Sonnet 147, love is presented as some kind of disease that is feeding itself on the speaker’s desires. The theme represents love as an illness, the lover as the source that "nurseth the disease" and reason as a doctor (physician) to this illness. Love and reason are personified as two opposing forces creating a contrast between passion and judgment.

In the sonnet, love is illustrated as self-destructive. A fever that longs still for the source that caused it, “feeding” on it to fill its "appetite to please." The sonnet goes on to say that reason, which leads people away from the disarray of love, it is like a doctor prescribing medicine for the love fever, but it has abandoned the speaker because it has been ignored. As a consequence, death, pain and heartbreak are now inevitable. Love has eaten away slowly his sanity and he is past the point of caring: “Past cure I am, now reason is past care”. 

Interpreting the sonnet, inwardly, it can be said that the speaker has fallen in love with someone and this certain someone is “sucking” the life out of him but he can't get away from it because he loves him/her. 

- Reading "authority” and “experience" in Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Wife of Bath

| A brief explanation | Prologue and Tale |

According to the beginning of the prologue, as the Wife of Bath starts to share some information about her life, she announces that she has always followed the rule of experience rather than authority. She considers herself to be an expert in marriages and assures that saying that she had experienced enough to guaranty this affirmation as by marrying five times.

As it concerns tale, The Wife of Bath uses the prologue to introduce the point that she exposes in her tale, that what women most desire is the complete control over their husbands. Being marriage five times and having five husbands, the Wife of Bath, feels that she can speak with authority from this experience and in the prologue she tells how she took advantage of each one of them.