Hi everyone,
Below is an essay in response to how masculinity is presented in Williams’ ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’. It scored 21/25 and though it could have been improved through discussion of foils, specifically Mitch and Stanley, it was noted that it had an ‘interesting thesis, well linked to context’ and ‘very detailed analysis of the play’.
This is an example essay from half term. I got a 25/30 on it. To improve it, I would produce a stronger conclusion and discuss more on meter and structure to get to the top of level five.
I hope you find this useful.
Read ‘Cooking with Blood’ by Linda France and re-read ‘Eat Me’ by Patience Agbabi. Compare the methods both poets use to explore human desire.
Keywords: sensuous, gendered pronouns in both create a sense of familiarity and specificity while maintaining a layer of ambiguity, meaning a concrete meaning stays elusive. Anthimeria in ‘cooking with blood’. Written from binary opposite perspectives. In eat me, half rhyme is used to unify each stanza. Ten tercets. Enjambment in both poems. Delia smith is a cook. En papillote- is an Italian method of cooking in which the food is put into a folded pouch or parcel and then cooked. In cooking with blood.
Sub-argument 2: The graphology of Cooking with Blood appears to be overwhelming as it isn’t split off into stanzas, contrasting the more uniformed Eat me which is separated into ten tercets. This could perhaps represent accumulation and how human desire is overwhelming. Alternatively, the content could counter this. Dishes mentioned like ‘En papillote’- an Italian method of cooking in which food is put in a folded pouch or parcel and then cooked as well as ‘pate’, explores human desire with a level of sophistication severely lacking in Agbabi’s ‘Eat me’. As the reader delves deeper into the poem human desire is continued to be explored through the subjected speaker and the ‘he’, representing the collective of men socialized in a patriarchal society and the feeder in the twisted relationship. The idea of food as a means of control is an extended metaphor and a modern example of metaphysical conceit. Unlike Cooking with Blood where human desire is explored with the hedonistic pleasure that arises with consumption, Eat Me examines how human desire, if misused, natural corollary, is dehumanisation. In Stanza 3, this is exemplified where the gruesome nature of the man’s and us, as complicit readers behaviour emerges more strongly. ‘he asked me to get up and walk’ is horrifyingly embarrassing as it presents human desire as perverse. ‘broad belly’ is an example of alliteration and is objectifying to the speaker. This being an uncomfortable read and sexual display could be intentional, making us go sympathy and finally empathise with this women being exposed for the gratification for this man’s human desire and hopefully make us reconsider the ways in which man’s desire commodifies female sexuality. Furthermore, the assonantly rhymed ‘judder like a juggernaut’ and alliteration in ‘bed’ ‘broad’ and ‘belly’ creates unity but also an unsettling dark humour, leading readers to consider which identities truly experience the full scope of human desire.
Real Answer
Both Eat Me and Cooking With blood are extremely sensuous and sensual poems that explore human desire through the metaphysical conceit of food, presenting desire through a binary system of consumer and consumed. In Eat Me, the speaker is passive and subjected to a man that celebrates the ambiguous milestone of hitting ‘thirty’ while Cooking with blood, which is coloured with evocative anthimeria, is delivered from the perspective of the consumer, exploring human desire from the vantage point of the pleasured, juxtaposing Agbabi’s dramatic monologue.
In Eat Me, human desire is explored as an unequal power imbalance between the masculine and feminine. Human desire is used as a catalyst for the exploration of themes like revenge, control and abuse. ‘When I hit thirty, he brought me a cake’ creates a withdrawn and submissive tone, forming a passive speaker with little autonomy over her body, thus presenting human desire, through a modern feminist lens, as yet another tool of the patriarchy, appealing, appeasing and accommodating men and oppressing women. ‘He’ being utilised throughout the poem further emphasises this point, creating a dominant masculine motif over this unquestionably feminine work. It is simultaneously specific and ambiguous. Specific as it demonstrates how too often human desire is male focused but ambiguous because it doesn’t name any individual men. This may lead some readers to believe this demonstrates the inequality of human desire in a human partnership, however some may understand this as being a microcosm to a wider societal issue of how human desire uses but never prioritizes marginalized women. In Cooking With Blood, human desire’s exploration is told from the perspective of the consumer, whereas Eat me is delivered from the oppressed perspective of the consumed. The lexical field of food preparation perhaps supports the idea that human desire is innate like ‘smoked’, ‘simmering’. Furthermore, the sibilant alliteration is particularly evocative immersing the reader into hedonistic human desire.
The graphology of Cooking with Blood appears to be overwhelming as it isn’t divided into stanzas, contrasting the more uniformed Eat me which is separated into ten tercets. This could perhaps represent how human desire accumulates. The references to ‘brith’, ‘nine herb’ and ‘giblet stock’ adds to the aforementioned lexical field, exploring human desire as insatiable and hedonistic. That is reflected in the unnamed ‘he’ in Eat Me who fetishizes and dehumanises this specific speaker and women generally with the term ‘forbidden fruit’ which has religious connotations and can be interpreted by audiences with a background in theology as an allusion to Adam & Eve. Alternatively, the content could counter this. Dishes mentioned like ‘En papillote’- an Italian method of cooking in which food is put in a folded pouch or parcel and then cooked as well as ‘pate’, explores human desire with a level of sophistication severely lacking in Agbabi’s ‘Eat me’. As the reader delves deeper into the poem human desire continues to be explored through the subjected speaker and the ‘he’, representing the collective of men socialized in a patriarchal society and the feeder in the twisted relationship. The idea of food as a means of control is an extended metaphor and a modern example of metaphysical conceit. Unlike Cooking with Blood where human desire is explored with the hedonistic pleasure that arises with consumption, Eat Me examines how human desire, if misused, natural corollary, is dehumanisation. In Stanza 3, this is exemplified where the gruesome nature of the man’s and our, as complicit readers behaviour emerges more strongly. ‘he asked me to get up and walk’ is horrifyingly embarrassing as it presents human desire as perverse. ‘broad belly’ is an example of alliteration and is objectifying to the speaker. This being an uncomfortable read and sexual display could be intentional, making us go sympathy and finally empathise with this women being exposed for the gratification for this man’s human desire and hopefully make us reconsider the ways in which man’s desire commodifies female sexuality. Furthermore, the assonantly rhymed ‘judder like a juggernaut’ and the plosive alliteration in ‘bed’ ‘broad’ and ‘belly’ creates unity but also an unsettling dark humor, leading readers to consider which identities truly experience the full scope of human desire
Human desire in ‘Eat me’ is shown as stifling and as we transition the gritty intricacies of human desire are liberated from the confines of this specific interpersonal relationship. ‘big girls, soft girls I can burrow inside with multiple chins, masses of cellulite’ stresses and unabashedly spotlights the objectification laced throughout the poem. She is one amorphous group of ‘girls’ and that noun could be used as a commentary on how society often infantilizes women, reducing them to children, excusing their human desire hurting them. In stanza 6, the anaphora/repetition of ‘his’ is significant as it shows how the speaker, and the collective of women in society are often regulated to the role of sustaining men’s/ patriarchy’s human desire. ‘breadfruit’ is nutritious and a staple food, illustrating to the reader essentiality of women to men, even after all their selfishness. In Cooking with Blood, anthimeria like ‘she got mulligatawny’ and ‘tongue casseroled’ presents human desire as evolving and shifting, daring beyond the simple and one- sided relationship of consumption depicted in Eat Me. In stanza seven of ‘Eat me’ the stifling nature of human desire is expanded upon with the consuming repetition of ‘too fat’. The omnipotent ‘he’ ‘s human desire receives the most pleasure from her being fat but that prevents her from using it as ‘an emotional shield’ or be ‘called chubby, cuddly, big-built’. Moreover, the repetition shows her awareness. Still, she seems powerless. Notably, the stanza ends on a caesura, creating a pause before the volta in stanza eight. In Cooking with Blood, it reaches a more disturbing and ambiguously violent note. Dynamic verbs like ‘chopped’ and terms like ‘carcass’- the latter being associated with death- could be a warning on how human desire can be taken to drastic extremes a reader has already seen in ‘Eat me’. The alliteration also links these two disturbing images together, giving the reader a startling feeling that may mirror the same feelings of the victims of human desire detailed in ‘Eat Me’
Ultimately, human desire in both poems is presented as unequal and as both poems grow and develop the inequality that lies in human desire becomes even more glaring. Human desire while it can be a dream of an almost hedonistic pleasure for some, it can be a nightmare of inequity and oppression for others a seen in Eat Me.
This is a piece contributed by Oliver Campbell. Enjoy!
The techniques used by each poet to present the recollection of traumatic memories creates suspicion in the reader as the personas relay fantasies as memories. This conveys the character’s obvious guilt for their actions, though both seem to attempt to excuse their atrocities through justification and ambiguity, in turn attempting to excuse humanities tendencies for violence. The two poets present two guilty characters, in The Lammas Hireling the real events are shrouded in ambiguity, In Giuseppe blame is passed throughout the poem, these attempts to shroud the truth convey a shame for their own memories. Through this reluctance of confession, the reality of the destructive human condition is displayed, and the attempts to conceal their shameful recollections show that, at least, the characters have remorse and guilt for once displaying humanity not at its worst, although not at its best.
In Duhig’s ‘The Lammas Hireling’ and Ford’s ‘Giuseppe’, the two personas are presented to the reader, both utterly enthralled in their guilt, to the extent of rewriting their own memories in an attempt to avoid the reality of their actions. Duhig’s narrator in ‘The Lammas Hireling’ takes the blame for his actions, later proclaiming “I have sinned”, the word “I” conveying a personal hand in a heinous crime, as if he fears divine retribution for his sins. Although the ambiguity of his actions in the poem proves his reluctance for judgement, observed in the quotation “my dear late wife”, inferring the murder of his wife due to the lack of emotion conveyed through Duhig’s writing as the poem immediately moves forward in the story. This could illustrate to the reader that the narrator could be trying to obscure his guilt with lies. In contrast it can be observed in Ford’s ‘Giuseppe’ that the speaker’s uncle is brutal with his recollections of the contents of his memory, including the phrase “But the priest who held her hands while her throat was cut” as an example of the apparent honesty and brutality in which he tells his story, presenting a visceral contrast between the pure image of the “priest who held her hands” sullied by the description “while her throat was cut”. The lack of any figurative language such as metaphors and the existence of only one simile in the poem “she screamed like a woman” at first sight conveys honesty though the uncle does not accept his responsibility for his guilty memories, preferring to pass on the blame “by a doctor, a fish monger, and certain others”, creating suspicion that both characters are reluctant to receive their judgement and neither are experiencing complete remorse, rather shame for their memories and an attempt to justify their brutality.
Through the reluctance to confess their acts found in the recollection of the characters, Ford and Duhig create fantasies to conceal the realities of humanity’s capability for destruction and horror. These fantasies were created to limit guilt undergone by the personas, Ford’s uncle character stating their captive to be a “mermaid” and “was just a fish”, though this fantastical element is a jarring addition to the poem’s realistic and brutal themes of war. Through ‘Giuseppe’ the character clearly attempts to prove the mermaid’s existence, “fish can’t speak” and “ripe golden roe”, though this fantasy begins to break down as the real story of the memory is revealed as the mermaid possesses a “wedding ring”, a disturbing revelation of her humanity and of the character’s inhumanity as after the recollection is concluded he “couldn’t look me in the eye”. Duhig’s speaker also adopts a theme of the fantastical, of a “warlock”. Though Duhig creates a story off horror to mask his wrong doings, and the supernatural “then one night” and “There was no splash” as further justification. Both narrators create fantasy to obscure the reality of their memories with tales to distract the reader from their own grim realities.
Hello everyone,
We have another essay focusing on two more ‘Poems of the Decade’ set poems today.
As well as reading others’ essays it is also important to know what went well, what could be improved, which sections got the marks and the thought process behind the writing, so this is what we’ll be showing you!
The following essay was written in November of Year 12 and so looking back now there are a lot of things that could be improved. I have typed up the essay exactly how it was written, without any improvements on the left, and on the right is my commentary. The question for the essay was ‘How is guilt presented in ‘Giuseppe’ and ‘The Deliverer’?‘ and it achieved 26 marks out of 30.
I found that analysing my own work from a few months ago allowed me to see what exactly I would like my essay writing to be like, and what I wanted to make sure that I’ve improved on since then, so this is a great tool to use to improve writing skills!
In the disturbing poems ‘Giuseppe’ and ‘The Deliverer’ both Doshi and Ford display how guilt does not only affect the person that feels it, but also those influenced by them. Within ‘The Deliverer’ Doshi presents the product of Western guilt, whereas in Giuseppe we are shown a fantastical telling of a specific atrocity, where inconsistencies in the story revealed the truth for the reason behind the storyteller’s guilt. Both poets use their poems as tools not only to expose horrific historical atrocities, but also to make the reader reconsider how circumstance and culture can affect the guilt felt by the people involved. Does this imbalance in guilt between cultures sometimes cause more harm than good? Ford and Doshi explore this in different ways and from different perspectives causing readers to question their own moral beliefs and their place in the current and historical world.
Firstly, both poems introduce the idea that guilt felt is relative to circumstance, culture and individual morals. A key difference between the guilt felt by the storytellers is that in ‘The Deliverer’ Doshi shows the speaker using her secondary guilt to ,supposedly help those that are vulnerable, whereas in ‘Giuseppe’ the uncle is a guilty oppressor, using his guilt felt after the event to take action. This difference in type of guilt felt is due to circumstance and the part that the speakers play in the atrocity. In ‘The Deliverer’ Doshi doesn’t mention any guilt felt by the Indian oppressors and those involved in the infanticide or patriarchal regime as we can infer from the lack of judgement and descriptive information. Instead, the reader is left to create their own opinions on the occurrences depicted in this poem. This then sparks the question in the reader as to why no guilt from the oppressors is shown. Doshi uses her poem to show the reader that this horrific event is part of Indian culture and that, in fact, all parties are victims, exploring the unsettling question as to whether Western readers should feel secondary guilt or whether they should accept the morally opposite culture. Contrastingly, in ‘Giuseppe’, Ford has written the poem in a way where the moral standing is very clear and the speaker’s guilt is incredibly justified. Instead of the unopinionated language in ‘The Deliverer’ such as “one of them was dug up by a dog”, in Giuseppe spontaneous brutality such as “while her throat was cut” and “screamed like a woman” shows the horror of the event. The violent verbs of “cut” and “screamed” create a graphic and vivid description of the atrocity the uncle and story teller enabled, clearly showing the reader the reason for the uncle’s guilt when the fantastical frame is broken down. We see hints of the frame breaking down in the simile “screamed like a woman” as quite clearly the uncle cannot get the image of the woman’s face out of his mind. This guilt shown to be felt in ‘Giuseppe’ is an obvious main theme of the poem, however in Doshi’s ‘The Deliverer’ guilt from any party isn’t clear. The guilt felt by the speaker and the Western saviours that get involved is caused by the Western culture in believing in their own strong morality. This causes the speaker and, more widely, the Western world to interfere with other cultures, supposedly to help. However, does this interference caused by guilt that affects many already vulnerable people actually do good?
In both poems the guilt felt by the storytellers is attempted to be used for change. In ‘The Deliverer’, Doshi showcases the speaker to use her guilt to save babies from horrific deaths. Working in a nunnery, the women find the abandoned children and Western families to adopt them. In ‘Giuseppe’ it could be argued that the uncle also cryptically uses his guilt for good to teach his nephews a moral lesson. However, in both instances there is a question as to whether, despite good intentions, these actions caused by a person’s guilt actually do more harm to other people. In ‘Giuseppe’ the uncle tells his nephew the story of how he enabled the cannibalistic murder of a pregnant woman. However, he disguises his involvement and the reality of the story with a fantastical telling of it to protect the nephew. Although we can infer that he may have told the story to teach his nephew a moral story, or simply just as a fairy tale, there’s evidence that this does more damage than good. In the final two lines the speaker (the nephew of the enabler) states that after telling the story his uncle “couldn’t look me in the eye, for which I thank God”. This introduces the interesting revelation that the speaker has seen through his uncles guilt-ridden story, and knows the horrific truth of the uncle’s role in the murder. As a consequence, the guilt of the uncle has worsened and possibly ruined their relationship. However, even though the nephew knows his uncle’s disturbing secret Ford introduces the non spoken communication that his uncle feels tremendous guilt over the situation. The poignant last line of the nephew thanking God dictates his response and therefore the readers opinion; he understands that his uncle regrets the atrocity he committed. The guilt that is conveyed in that single, unspoken gesture may revive part of the trust in the relationship that has been lost, though it can’t be completely regained. Ford also uses this line to criticise mankind. The religious imagery of “God” used here is incredibly ironic as although the speaker is thanking God for his uncles guilt, within the poem a priest holds the victims hands whilst she is murdered and, in wider, real society , religion is the cause for many wars. This irony Ford uses makes the reader consider and dwell on the horrors that mankind has caused. Here the uncle’s guilt, although on the surface may seem to be used for good, actually causes more damage. His fantasy story that we originally think was made up for the nephew, is actually a device the uncle uses to try to cope with his own haunting guilt; similarly to in ‘The Deliverer’, the actions taken from the guilt are selfish.
In ‘The Deliverer’ Doshi introduces the concept of Western superiority and makes the reader question whether the speaker, and in the real world, Western charity workers in other countries, are feeling guilt for the wrong reasons. Although on the surface, much like in ‘Giuseppe’, the speaker seems to be helping those subject to infanticide, there’s evidence within the poem that she and her mother are harming the children as much as the disturbing regime. In Western culture it is instinct to protect children, and any time children’s lives are at risk the guilt felt due to allowing atrocities such as these to occur greatly increases, and therefore it is instinct to want to help. However, Doshi raises the question as to whether the Western world should accept that these disturbing events are part of another culture. The impersonal pronouns used to describe the girl such as “this” and “the one” objectifies her, making her just a part in a Western regime, rather than the Indian one depicted in the poem. The asterisks used to separate each stanza physically represent the stark change in culture that the girl experiences, being forced into a world where she still won’t feel she belongs. Finally, the irony of the familial imagery of the convent further perpetuates and highlights the lack of family and belonging that the girl has experienced. Doshi makes the reader question their own sense of Western superiority, exploring whether the guilt felt that atrocities occur in other cultures is the right thing to feel. Should Westerners feel guilty for intervening in other cultures even if the regimes are incredibly horrific? Perhaps Western guilt is misplaced.
Although in ‘The Deliverer’ and ‘Giuseppe’ Doshi and Ford present guilt in wildly different circumstances, they both explore guilt in the face of atrocity; they ask important moral questions and ask readers to reconsider their own morals, beliefs and culture, reminding the reader that guilt does not only affect those that feel it, but also those that this guilt affects for better, or for worse.
Thesis statement to begin that has evolved by the conclusion. I remember when writing this I struggled to communicate what I meant to say clearly, as you will see throughout, and so some points don’t make complete grammatical sense or are a bit wordy such as “those influenced by them”.
Questions can be a useful tool to engage the reader.
Another example of wordiness! I think this got better and gets better simply by practice.
This could have been explained further. For example, secondary guilt regarding what? Or, what specifically about morally opposite cultures?
Comparative language analysis. The point made about the image being stuck in the uncle’s mind and the acknowledgement of a frame structure could have been explored further through more analysis. Time of course is a huge factor in what can be explored more and what can be mentioned and left. I think the skill of deciding which point is which is difficult to grasp and constantly developing!
Like I mentioned in the introduction, I repeat a lot of ideas, words and phrases throughout and the whole essay is quite wordy, as shown in this section particularly. To combat this, experience in writing helps, but also checking the essay over at the end would have allowed me to reword many phrases – this is obviously limited by time.
This point needs some evidence, either from the text or from the real world.
Another example of bad grammar and my thoughts not transferring to the page correctly, making the sentence clunky! With the knowledge I now have, I could have written ‘The storytellers in both poems attempt to use their feelings of guilt as tools to implement change’. This isn’t much of a difference, but a lot cleaner and easier to read.
This point should have been evidenced with a quote from ‘Giuseppe’. As well as supporting my argument, it would have lead into a section of deep language, and possibly structure, analysis.
Here the relationship between the reader and the speaker is discussed, as well as the effect on the reader.
Explaining this point further would have been helpful as it is slightly too ambiguous. I could have gone on to say what this teaches the reader, and why the poet shows this. e.g. ‘… implying that, ultimately, guilt may be able to evoke change in the future, but can’t alleviate pain from the past. Guilt doesn’t excuse the offender from the crimes they have committed.’
Comment from marking: this here is a “great argument” in relation to ‘Giuseppe’ on it’s own, however when ‘The Deliverer’ is compared, a stronger comparative argument is needed. The comparison needed to have been further explained.
I needed to explain further! I remember at the time struggling to put my thought into words so it comes across as muddled. What was meant was: ‘are Western ‘saviours’ helping because they genuinely want to improve the lives of others, or do they want to help to boost their own pride?‘ The idea comes from the concept of a ‘saviour complex’.
A textual example would have been useful here.
I was told that this section here is what put the essay into level 5 and therefore into the A* range. It links analysis of language and structure as well as effect on the reader. It also creates a conceptual argument. A target for me then was to carry this quality into the rest of the essay.
Another target was to work on my conclusions having a greater impact.
Overall, (from the marking comments), there were some good arguments supported by evidence, and the comparisons between the poems ran through the entire essay. However, the main things that could have been improved are the relevance of some points, the choice of evidence, the length of the comparative arguments and the transitions between ideas. Of course it would also make it a lot easier to read, and it would have flowed better if a lot of the sentences weren’t as clunky!
We hope that you find this useful; maybe you can implement some of these ideas yourself, and we would love for you to leave your own in the comments for everyone to read.
We hope you’re having a lovely day
-Elisha
These coming additions to the blog will be produced by Elisha Carter, Fiona Hill, Efe Imoyin-Omene, Thea Dawson and Alexander Stephenson.
Every Monday, a new literary critique will grace you, courtesy of the crew, followed by a Friday post of an Author Spotlight, Book Recommendation, or a piece of our own writing.
We hope that you find our commentaries useful.
PLAN
Key Words/Final aim: greater significance (metaphorical or global), small moments, times, the themes of the nautical and the motif of the seas representing times (erosion), style (academic in Journal ‘paraphernalia’, often quite loose in History. Andrew Motion and John Burnside. The beach.
INTRODUCTION
Throughout their poems, John Burnside and Andrew Motion use small moments to symbolise events of great global or societal significance. In ‘History’, Burnside builds the image of a parent watching over his child on a beach within the backdrop of his fear and worry about the 9/11 attacks. In ‘The Journal of a Disappointed Man’ (Journal), however, Motion writes though the conduit of a journaling man, who writes down the proceedings of some men trying to fix a pile to secure the pier. The men are unsuccessful in their quest. Ultimately, both writers draw their poems around the central idea of meaning, and how meaning is often lost to underthinking.
ANALYSIS
Firstly, both poets use a coastal setting and the motifs of the sea and the coast to present a sense of inevitability and universality, even though both poems have unities of place. In History, the narrator writes that he and his son ‘flew the kites… along the beach.’ Here, the noun ‘kites’ may be emblematic of childhood and innocence, just like ‘the beach’. Throughout the poem, the kite motif could suggest this awkward balance between the dueling ideas of freedom and family, yet it is still something that is tethered, that must be held back, or it will be lost. This small moment could imply that we, too, as humans have the misconception of being free, yet are ultimately held down and burdened by both internal burdens and the pressures that exist in the world around us. In some of the final lines of the poem, the narrator later remarks on a ‘kite plugged into the sky’. The speaker’s new understanding of this burden and the misconception of freedom in our lives is epitomised here with this still, unwavering image of the kite being ‘plugged’. The kite-flying has now shifted, even though the narrator is focusing in on the same moment, to a pessimistic experience, and almost a degrading one, in which he has given up on romanticism and even hope for his child’s future.
In both History and Journal, our speakers place us in a coastal area. Just like for the narrator’s changing perspective, the beach may represent change in both poems. In Journal, men group together to replace a ‘pile’ on a pier, and are unsuccessful, leaving ‘the pile in mid-air’. Perhaps this could imply that both the masculinity of the ‘massive’, described as almost neanderthal by the journaling man, and the academic masculinity of the speaker are not the cure to solve the modern crisis of toxicity within masculinity. Motion seems to pin-point that these failures are caused by how ingrained stereotypical roles are hierarchies are within us.
Within moments of analysing the team, the journaling man creates a hierarchy between them. Because he has this literary dominance over the ‘monsters’, he creates this societal microcosm through his observation. Perhaps Motion is educating his reader on the inevitability of these concepts, that this cycle will constantly manifest itself. Even within the short viewing time, the observer already creates these constructs – they are innate within us. This problem, Motion dictates, is irredeemable. It is interesting that Motion picks the beach, the pier, the meeting of land and sea, as the symbol for this place and brokenness. Just like Burnside, Motion could be using the beach as an almost surreal place, adding to the sense of liminality and also the constant of change. The sea weathers away the frail and unstable forms of masculinity, as well as eroding innocence and childhood in History. This all engages with the sense of inevitability. How we will grow old, how we have to accept that men cannot always be strong, cannot always be beacons. The beach is a place where both the speakers do not go, but merely observe ‘on the dune slacks’ or watching from home. In History, the beach seems to represent a place where the adults can never return to, an innocence that they can never access again, even though the speaker may long to be given back those taken pieces of himself that he sacrificed for freedom and adulthood long ago.
Burnside speaks poignantly here about how ‘irredeemable’ our past is, and how we can only open it by pessimistically watching our children flying kites, and reliving the same experience as we have, only to end up one day by themselves watching on the ‘dune slacks’, the larger things in life watching over us in eerie dread as minutiae are lost to history and only the planes crashing into skyscrapers remains, and how surely all meaning and optimism and hope is lost to those things that people decide warrant a larger international stage, though all beauty might be lost. Perhaps Motion’s speaker does not go to the beach because, despite his verbosity, his casual utterance of ‘paraphernalia’ – though all he means is “stuff to do with stuff” –, he himself does not understand even the base levels of the present war on masculinity, so he covers up his inability to comprehend by not helping the men on the beach, by sitting in judgement of what he calls ‘monsters’ with his loquaciousness and academia and by forming his elaborate diacope around them. Ultimately though, he himself, just like the parents ‘on the dune slacks’ is left alone by the men, left ‘disappointed’. ‘That left… me of course.’ are the final words, and how his academic masculinity, just like what he perceives as the brutish masculinity, will be left behind by the turning time and the certainty of tides.
CONCLUSION
To conclude, the minutiae of our lives give greater meaning to our existence, and both poets use the failure or inability to truly understand that as the reason for cynicism, in the forms of pessimism in History and mockery or academic prejudice in The Journal of a Disappointed Man. Burnside and Motion both try to curve the trajectories or their readers into realigning their perspective with truth and the discovery of meaning through the use of the little things that colour our dreams and detail our lives, though, in the end, we must face up to the inevitability that we will all be lost to ‘History’.
Alexander Stephenson
A selection of practice questions for you and a couple of model essays:
Read More »A couple of model essays and a selection of practice questions – enjoy:
A few practice questions for some practice essays:
Read More »A selection of Othello essays for help/reference:
WymCol English Blog 