Oh, No. I Have Too Much Money To Be Happy.
Sorry. I understand the logic, but the concept is maddening.
Charles Foster Kane has everything people think they want. His newspaper empire provides him with the means to influence and, basically, control the minds of the general population. They love him and he gives them things to make them keep loving him. He also has limitless money to do with as he pleases, which he does. A literal palace serves as his home, stuffed with statues and paintings and countless other highly valuable objects. Fortune? Fame? Power? He must be the happiest man alive.
But, you know he’s not. There is no story with a message like that. It would make regular people sad.
Kane desperately wants for genuine love and friendship from the people around him. Not for lack of their trying; several times it’s mentioned that he’s just capable of loving no one but himself. He has two wives throughout the movie, and both relationships start out happy enough. Charles, however, is notably emotionally challenged. He can’t properly reciprocate their feelings, instead hoping to buy his friends’ and wives’ love and have that be a sufficient substitute. Or perhaps he believes it’s the same. His mother pretty much gave him to a bank when he was little. What do you expect, really?
Charles recognizes that his money has ruined him. It’s given him many things but alienated him from others at the same time. The mystery of his dying word is revealed as Kane longing for his childhood; what it could have meant to him had he been allowed one. People would kill for the life Charles Kane has, but his last happy memory is simply playing in the snow with his wooden sled, knowing his parents are in the house waiting for him.
Willy Loman thinks the American dream lies in money and notoriety. If he could just achieve that, his life would be complete. Charles Foster Kane has all of these things; he’s living Willy’s dream. They are both still miserable. I think it’s safe to say this definition of the perfect life is incorrect. Their preoccupation leads both to neglect the only thing capable of bringing them contentedness: friends and family. Even though Kane seems to recognize this need, his success causes most people, and sometimes himself, to place him outside everyday society. Willy already has a loving family, but his want of fortune drives them apart. Either way, both men cannot grasp or control the situation, and it eats at them. Plagues them to their deaths.
Willy Loman
Willy Loman’s fate is quite common in the soul-sucking business world. His obsession with notoriety and success causes him to neglect or destroy anything good he does have; anything that matters. (Or, at least, this is the lesson we’re probably supposed to be learning. In my opinion, most of those guys probably have enough money to fill in most of the hollow spaces. Jaded, I know. I think we’ve established this by now.)
Willy has no real work ethic. He wants to be “well-liked” and raking it in without the stress of laboring for it. That’s why he has so much respect for Ben in his flashbacks but so little for Charley. As we are reminded multiple times, Ben walked into some jungle as a teenager and walked out rich. He bought the land. Other people did the work for him. Charley is just as successful as Ben. However, he achieved that success through his own intelligence, with his own hands. Willy perceives Charley as somewhat of a dork for this lack of glamour, almost. When he was young, everyone knew his name. Willy made almost two hundred a week in commissions alone, and he was someone to be respected. This is one of the main reasons he behaves the way he does in the present. His youth, money, and recognition are gone. He woke up one day an aging man with distant, aimless sons and an exhausted wife. The change is too much for him. He can’t accept Charley’s job because it’s admitting that that part of his life is over.
These ideals of success are the same ones he tries to pass on to his sons. Biff is the golden boy, and most of Willy’s issues seem to hinge on their relationship. The oldest son seemed safely on the path to triumph, following in his father’s footsteps, when he suddenly veered off to the side; now he’s doubling back, going in circles, holding the map upside-down. I think I went a bit too far with that metaphor, but no matter. It’s killing Willy slowly. Even while he knows why Biff abandoned everything he taught him, he still won’t quite admit it. Will is always thinking ‘maybe I taught him wrong’ and never ‘maybe I’m just not right’. Denial is a key tool for Loman; denial and repression.
The writer definitely created Willy to mess with your emotions. One second he’s cheating on his wife, and the next he’s lost his job with no money to buy her new stockings. While I don’t think he deserves his fate, I was rather unsympathetic to his character for most of the story. I recognized all the places we were supposed to feel bad. Sometimes you just want to shake him, though. If he got over himself for five minutes and took Charley’s job offer, he’d be fine. Everything was nearly worked out at the end, Biff back to loving him and both sons instilled with a determination to finally get somewhere. Then he decides to smash himself up anyway. Exasperating.
Death of a Salesman
Death of a Salesman was written to be performed, so it only makes sense that it works better in that format than in a stage play.
Probably the most noticeable differences are the flashbacks. Trying to read the dialogue of six different characters who may or may not be alive is extremely tedious. To make it worse, sometimes characters who are alive appear not as their present selves but as they were in the past. There are a few comments which occasionally suggest that a person is younger. Usually, however, you’re left to figure out which characters are actually there and if the current event is in fact current. Watching the movie version clears up a lot of these problems. For most people, it’s much easier to associate a face with a history than it is just a name. That way, you can keep track of who is who and who is dead. The flashbacks are also clarified by visuals, as the characters from the past appear younger. Through use of creative transitions, the film doesn’t lose all of the vagueness and mystery of the work; Willy’s breakdown is every bit as psychological as it is in the stage play. Watching the movie simply aids in understanding.
Another advantage that film, in some cases, has over print is emotion. A good author can convey the emotional and psychological states of their characters with words alone, but, in a case like this where the writer essentially has dialogue alone, being able to hear the lines from the actors can make all the difference. You may read dialogue a certain way in your head while, in actuality, the writer intended another tone entirely. That tiny variation may change the meaning of a section for you. It could conceivably change the meaning of the whole play, or at least dull it. Facial expressions and body language are also huge helps, of course. Stage plays don’t often describe in detail what characters are doing or how they look unless it is of great importance. The audience can usually tell more about characters through these physical manifestations of personality and mood than from dialogue.
The performance of Death of a Salesman was understandably better than the written version. This is one of few instances where I would rather see the movie.
Must…not…use…cliché…
The poem I thought was the most effective imagist work was “Venus Transiens” by Amy Lowell. Imagism is about creating a specific picture, something the reader can immediately see in their heads. “Venus Transiens” is shorter than a number of the other poems, meaning Lowell minimized her use of language in fitting with the Imagism movement, yet manages to create an image which, in my opinion, is one of the most effective. Botticelli’s painting of Venus is referenced, a work with which many are familiar. This previous knowledge may cause people to overlook how completely Lowell constructs her image. Even someone who had never glimpsed the painting could fairly accurately describe it just from reading this poem.
The trick seems to lie in Lowell’s somewhat unique use of adjectives. They create a sharp, textured feel to the items depicted while many writers fall into the rut of trite description. For example, words like ‘rolling’ are often used in conjunction with waves. Lowell, however, uses ‘crinkled’, something you aren’t expecting which catches your attention and forces you to try to apply this new concept to waves. Similarly, ‘pointed’ is used when describing usually soft rosebuds and ‘bright’ for wind, which you can’t usually see at all. It’s these creative uses of language which aid in the development of the imagism in “Venus Transiens”.
I guess I should probably talk about the theme. “Venus Transiens” is meant to portray that beauty is subjective. No one’s idea of attractiveness is any more correct than somebody else’s. And yes, maybe the theme isn’t as impossibly hidden as some other poems. There’s no rule that says it has to be, and if anyone argues I’d like to point out that enforcing requirements on artistic expression defeats the purpose of the concept. So, there. Lowell does use a creative method to reveal theme, anyway. She compares her ideal person to Botticelli’s Venus, the goddess of love and beauty. To Botticelli, the woman he painted should have been the epitome of attractiveness, but Lowell asks whether his opinion is any more valid than hers.
Ha. Look at that. I made it through the whole “you can’t define beauty” theme without any tired sayings.
Story Time
When was the last time we had no prompt? Am I even supposed to be writing an entry for this week? No one else is. I don’t know. My class narrowly avoided a post on the effectiveness of certain imagist poems, but I assumed that meant we were to write about something else. I’m a paranoid type of person, so we’ll do this anyway. Just don’t expect anything terribly insightful.
I have no attention span this weekend, jittery and anxious. I want to talk about the only thing seemingly capable of holding my interest. But, I cannot at this moment think of anything about it which would qualify as an entry to my school blog, or, rather, I feel it’s in my best interest to not try very hard. This is, after all, just a television show which has eaten over five collective days of my life with still a season left to watch.
Supernatural is like crack, and I am a shivering junkie.
Anyway, books. Let’s talk about books. Those are usually better than television. Right now, I’m reading The Face by Dean Koontz, but, truth be told, I often despise his writing style. It’s only that my supply of fresh literature has run out for the time being. So, that’s out unless you want a rant.
The last things I read were three memoirs and one fictional novel by Augusten Burroughs recommended to me by a teacher who saw me huddled over the work of another author of the same last name. There seemingly isn’t much similarity between them, but, if you think about like I just have, suddenly things crop up. Both men interested in other men. Both obsessively recording their lives, though William does this in a very unique fashion. Both addicts. Both chased into their respective dependencies by less-than-ideal lives. I’m not sure what the significance of this is or where I’m going with it, but the facts remain.
At the risk of sounding like an awful person, the thing I like most about Augusten Burroughs is his awareness that, by most standards, he is an awful person. And, he owns it, accepts it.
Last year, I attended a leadership conference called HOBY for an unbearable number of days. Like, four. I won’t go far into details, because that overall experience is a door in my subconscious I would like to personally weld shut, but, at one point, we were made to listen to several speakers on professional ethics. Three of them offered up what you would expect: go out of your way to be helpful, selfless, and just downright friendly to the client. There was this last man, though. Not particularly extraordinary. Blond hair and glasses; short, thin build. He introduced himself to that room full of the hand-picked, best and brightest youths from schools across Pennsylvania (I’m not delusional; the reason for my being chosen is as much a mystery to me today as it was then) and launched into a speech about how his job involves taking advantage of the over-confidence of newlyweds and Grandma’s poor eyesight. He worked in some sort of money lending business. Those newlyweds were too proud to ask for help understanding their contract? Too bad for them. Elderly clients find it difficult to read the fine print? Not his problem.
While I could feel the teenagers around me bristle with this assault on their engrained morals, I couldn’t help but acknowledge the sudden need to talk with the man. Perhaps it was the result of existing in the disgustingly wholesome atmosphere of HOBY for two long days and one restless night. Spend any time there, and you would be looking for the smallest oasis of cynicism and self-interest, too. Perhaps, like with Augusten, I was simply drawn to his blatant and shameless dismissal of societal values. Whatever the case, he fascinated me.
During the Q&A afterwards, students ripped into him. He fielded the accusatory questions with the same efficient tone he had used in describing his work. My sense of alienation grew by the second, and I became obsessed with the thought of cornering him, making him relay his delightfully unsympathetic business tactics to me again, showing him that not every young adult here was smiling, manic, and chanting. Always chanting. Every second of every day for half a week, those little cheers.
You can probably imagine my discomfort when the man was revealed as playing a part and those certain aspects of my character were laid bare to me.
Augusten Burroughs’s frankness and behavior is such a startling break from normalcy that it conceivably accounts for a large portion of his popularity. He doesn’t require the vulgarity of William Burroughs or Alan Ginsberg to gain attention. There were times, like at HOBY, when I was suddenly self-conscious and unsure, but Burroughs plow through every societal boundary without looking back and that is, I think, at least interesting, if not admirable.
Please excuse the wall of text.
Brace Yourself…
…because I believe I recall you mentioning how much you love certain poems included in this movement, and there is utter loathing emanating from this post. Cold, spiteful loathing.
After some of the things we read about Imagism, I have to say that I find it difficult to regard the movement with the respect some believe it to deserve. It only lasted for a few years, though I realize its influence supposedly continues today, and the founder basically claimed he made it up to give someone’s career a jumpstart. Imagism comes off as a fad, like lava lamps or jheri curls. Just something to allow those with it to act superior over those who don’t and then abandon for the next thing. A year later, they’ll be at some gala where an eager young poet is reading his latest work and say, “Imagism? Ahaha. Yes, I remember that. How cute.”
(Mostly unrelated: Why is there a picture of Ezra Pound on a White Supremacist website? Is this a different man? Was this some sort of freedom of speech statement, like Ginsberg and NAMBLA? Otherwise, Pound, my respect for you dwindles quickly. Even more unrelated, from the website: THE VOICE OF PROGRESSIVE RACISM. Excuse me while I laugh forever.)
Anyway, the movement itself involved creating a single image, used to convey a specific meaning, with as few words as possible. Basically, every syllable of the poem is supposed to be bursting with metaphorical significance. I’m all for short, concise works, but, for whatever reason, I can’t shake the sense that, while it lasted, the members of the Imagism movement were even more pretentious than your average writer. Pound’s rules about what not to do in writing do little to help this feeling. Who made him the master of poetry?
Alright, I think that was the last of the rant. Like I said, I appreciate the concept of Imagism to a certain degree, but that doesn’t mean I find it any easier to decipher the poems written in this style. The two my group was given to work on have done a fairly good job of keeping me as frustrated and maddened as ever. I was led to believe by the example we read that they were all relatively short, but both of them prove this to be untrue. The knowledge that every word contains meaning and yet I read it and can find nothing in entire sections is rather disconcerting, I assure you.
Howl
Howl is a truly unique work of poetry. It shattered the expectations and social norms of the structured 50s and set in motion a revolution of literature.
While The Waste Land is about our society’s lack of morality, Howl is rebelling against the excessive enforcement of these ideals. Ginsberg disagreed that the groups who refused to conform were bringing about apocalypse. He argued instead that conformity was valued to the point of repressing individuality and the freedom of expression which drives progress. Only by allowing people to act in the manner they are predisposed to can any sort of societal balance be reached.
The first section deals with the stifling of certain individuals through several outlets, like government and religion. Admittedly, while I can identify which lines imply which concepts, I struggle to find exact meaning in any of them. Ginsberg thought the strict control of the decade hindered the minds of his generation, who were brilliant though perhaps strange and shocking. The second section deals entirely with conformity. Here, Ginsberg details the impact of the concept, how it’s blind and mechanical and destroying our population while being entirely of our own creation. He uses Moloch to imply conformity. Moloch was the god people sacrificed their children to. There may have been a legend at one point, some reason for the practice, but its effect has gone untested and adults continue to give up the lives of their children because this is what has always been done. In the same way, conformity is a concept created and enforced by us which wrecks self-confidence and grinds people down into what everyone else expects them to be. We have no reason. It is just what we do. Ginsberg also mentions his own struggle with the judgment of others. He felt repressed, unable to be himself, until he decided finally to rebel.
The last section I’m not entirely sure what to do with. It talks about Ginsberg’s friend, Carl Solomon, in a sanatorium called Rockland where he was apparently also a patient at some point. My one guess is that the section is meant to give an example of society’s inability to accept diversity. The behavior described however is not just harmless eccentricity and is rightfully confined, so perhaps this is not it.
Since Ginberg’s name has been mentioned several times in conjunction with William Burroughs’s, I can’t help but notice similarities in their work. Though Burroughs writes in a way which could possibly drive the average person to insanity, his work also contains elements of rebellion against conformity in the same shocking, he-did-not-just-say-that manner which Howl possesses. The decades described are different, but the messages and frustrations of these authors are entirely similar.
The Wasteland the Second
After the first section, The Wasteland’s intended theme becomes decidedly easier to spot. T. S. Eliot wrote the poem about society during his life; the roaring twenties and all that. He was apparently disgusted by the behavior and morals of his generation. From what you learn in history class, the good ones anyway, the twenties were rife with beer, guns, and short skirts, so I can see where someone not altogether on board with this change would be a little upset. Eliot was convinced that the world was doomed.
(Ah, middle school…)
The vices most touched upon in his poem are greed, sex, and godlessness. People are greedy to the point of disregarding anything and anyone else in favor of themselves and losing that all important faith. He devotes a very large amount of page space to talking about sex and how devoid of love it’s become. These are, for whatever reason, some of my favorite parts. There’s a gritty sort of realism to them, a departure from the roses and chocolates that you normally find, but it doesn’t come off as whiny as some other works with the same idea.
Unfortunately, I still feel as though most of the references meant to aid in decoding theme are lost on me. By using the Bible and biblical stories, Eliot wanted to provide easier clues which most people could pick out, no problem. I guess I’m just a victim of the same dooming heathenism he’s speaking against. All of his religious allusions are another thing I have to look up.
( I think most things by Frank Miller would fit the theme of this post.)
The Wasteland still applies to the present. In fact, if Eliot thought society in his lifetime was bad enough to warrant a poem like this, seeing our world would probably make him want to curl into a little ball and cry himself to sleep. Greed, sexual apathy, and atheism are things many people today could be accused of before lunch. Despite my own cynicism, I don’t think humanity is headed for self-inflicted destruction any time soon. We still have a good four, five centuries.
Humanity has proven itself to be pretty resilient. Even if a large portion of people are as morally ruined as Eliot fears, there will always be those who aren’t to shake their heads disapprovingly and build another rehab center.
The Wasteland
Ah. Nothing like coming back to analyze a poem after missing the initial class discussion. Especially when you fail at both poetry and analyzing things for deeper meaning to begin with.
As far I can tell, the first section of the poem is all about how humans are destroying themselves and the world. I might have more to say…but Google Docs is apparently having a personal quarrel with this poem and does not wish to load more than a page of it. So, no comments to help me.
Anyway, these two stanzas I can see are pretty dark in tone, even though the subject matter seems like it shouldn’t be. The writer is talking about spring, summer, and sledding, but still manages to make it depressing. An ability seemingly unique to poetry.
(It’s flowers, like spring, but they’re bleeding hearts, so it’s depressing? I don’t know. I’m tired.)
I don’t remember specifically what the allusions were, though I do remember that there were many of them. Perhaps I’m not well versed in history or the Bible enough, but none of the connections I was supposed to be making really happened. This poem will need a significant amount of outside research in order to fully understand its meaning.
On the other hand, I’m liking the style. Once I get a hang on what’s happening, I think this could be a good time.
Bartleby the Scrivener
Bartleby the Scrivener is one of those stories where absolutely nothing can be stretched out for dozens of pages which only centuries old authors seem capable of writing. They are masters of suspense but have not necessarily mastered the all important art of knowing just how long to hold it out for.
The surface plot is of a Boss desperately trying to deal with his less-than-cooperative employee. However, beneath all that lies a slew of observations and commentaries on people and the business world in general. What Melville was trying to get at it is the importance of creating and maintaining social connections. By isolating yourself, you fail to take full advantage of life and leave no impact. If no one knows you, and you don’t do anything which has an effect on the outside world, how can you be said to exist at all? In this case, the isolation of Bartleby is quite literal. He hardly speaks, never goes outside, and doesn’t care to accomplish much. Bartleby spends most of his time staring at walls, which are symbolic of the barriers he has put up between himself and the rest of humanity. As this gradually becomes the only activity he’s willing to participate in, he ends up dying in prison because he stops eating altogether. According to the theme, his lifestyle left him technically dead well before this.
While not quite as extreme as Bartleby’s, the workers of Wall Street during the time period isolated themselves to some degree. Like the scriveners, many of the jobs were tedious and, while perhaps important, ultimately pointless, if that makes any sense. All the scriveners did was copy documents. This may have been required to ensure the rest of the business world ran smoothly, but it made no real impact anywhere that most people would consider important such as helping other people, saving lives, etc. Wall Street was a place of non-stop activity, and the people probably spent a majority of the time working. They labored obsessively to make money for their families or be the best at their jobs, but, in the end, they neglected the same people they were trying to better and devoted their time to titles and accomplishments which meant nothing. This corresponds perfectly to today’s business world. The race is on for more money, bigger houses, and impressive titles. Unfortunately, the pursuit causes many to live the exact way Melville was trying to warn about. They hardly see their family and friends and often end up in a sort of monotonous bubble of their own creation. At the end of the work, the information about Bartleby’s previous employment is revealed. He had worked in a Dead Letter Office, and was continuously confronted with the idea of death. Everyone dies. No matter what they did or had, everyone will meet the same end. The business world he’s used to doesn’t value social connections, only the materialistic things which he learned make no difference. This causes Bartleby to basically give up on everything instead of making the most of the time he does have by socializing and impacting the world.
Anyone reading this story would certainly be determined to evade Bartleby’s life and death. To do this, one has to devote time to immersing his or herself in the world. Meet and talk to people. Maintain relationships with friends and family. Don’t get caught in the trap of jobs that are basically dead-ends, walls everywhere, and no place to go from there. You have to do something that makes a difference, even on the small-scale. Melville wanted Bartleby the Scrivener to teach the reader to value the things that he felt truly make a difference in life.
