"These are the days when Birds come back" by Emily Dickinson

Emily Dickinson, in her poem, “These are the days when Birds come back”, comments on the uncertainty of religion and implies that religion can be neither proven nor disproven.  In the footnotes in Perrine’s, it says the time of year represented in the poem is an Indian summer. An Indian summer is a sudden heat wave that occurs in the fall. Even the time of year depicted in the poem is representative of uncertainty as even when it is supposed to be cold, there can be a sudden, unexpected shift in temperature. I think the heat wave represents any unexpected or difficult time in life.  In the first stanza, “ a Bird or two” is fooled by the Indian summer and think that summer has returned.  Birds symbolize a higher connection to God which is represented by the fact they in flight they are physically closer to God. The fact that the word Bird is capitalized indicates that these birds are connected to God in some way and may be angels. The Birds looking back could be a metaphor for religious people who in an unexpected time of trouble, don’t look to God, but “take a backward look” or look for solutions from other sources.  The reason why religious people look back is because God can be neither proven nor disproven and thus they can’t be sure if God is the solution to their problems.

In the next stanza, “The skies resume the old”, as in they return to normal when the trouble has passed. However this transition is described as “sophistries of June” because the troubles appear to have passed for misleading reasons. The religious people think that the reason that their troubles have passed is because of God, but this can’t be proven. This image is depicted in the last line of the stanza: the portrayal of “a blue and gold mistake” is representative of a summer day where the sky is clear and the sun is shining.

Even though the Indian summer fooled the birds, it is a “fraud that cannot cheat the Bee”.  In the footnotes of Perrine’s, it says that the bee is “an allusion to one of the apocryphal tales of Solomon, who distinguished between real and artificial flowers by pitting a bee in the room; the bee of course flew to the real”. According to this description, the bee represents the ability to distinguish between the real and the artificial. Dickinson says that she was “almost” fooled which “induces” or influences her beliefs.  So unlike the other followers, she wasn’t fooled to blindly believe in God, but appears to take a more neutral stance on religion. He may or may not exist.

Dickinson describes death as the moment when one discovers whether or not God exists. The “altered air” represents a kind of enlightenment.  “Oh Last Communion in the Haze” is when you become enlightened to the existence or nonexistence to God as it is when the “haze” is lifted. When we die we “partake” in “bread” and “wine”. This represents the body of Christ, and in eating, we are becoming closer to God in the afterlife after we die. However, bread and wine are also associated with the death of Christ; so possibly upon us dying and not going to the afterlife, we will realize that God doesn’t existence and our idea of God dies. Either way we won’t be sure of the existence of God until we die, but at that point it is too late. 

The Alternate Ending of A Doll's House.

The alternating ending of the play changes everything. As I wrote in my previous blog, the original ending is powerful because Nora’s fate is unclear. Will she break free of society? Can anyone break free of society? A woman leaving her husband in the 1800’s was unheard of and was societal suicide. Ibsen pushes against the boundaries of society and critics the confines that favor conformity over individuality. Of course this is the sort of stuff we love in AP Lit. We could have a seminar on this for all 6 periods if allowed and I think this is what Ibsen was aiming for when he wrote the play. He wanted to challenge the social norms of society. However the problem with that is that society at the time didn't want to be challenged. It is ironic that the very thing that Ibsen challenges, the suffocation of individuality by social conformity, ends up causing him to write a new ending. Driven by a need to make money and “survive”, Ibsen conforms to society and writes the ending that society wants. Sounds familiar? Kristine conforms to society and gets married so that she can “survive”. Nora plays along with Torvald so that she can “survive”.  In all of these cases, social conformity = survival. For Ibsen “the wonderful” would be when society is ready to read the original ending of A Doll’s House. Maybe this is another reason why Ibsen hated the alternating ending; he realized that in writing it he exemplifies that not even he can break free.

I actually like that there are two endings. It shows the impact that the final lines of a work have on the meaning of a play and it is an interesting point of comparison. However seeing the alternate ending only, as many people did when the play was released, completely changes everything. Many of the questions that the original play evokes become answered. Nora can’t break free of society, that’s why she stayed with Torvald. Also, as a woman, she wouldn't dare give up her “sacred duties” to her husband and her children because in society’s eyes, her only reason for being alive was to fulfill those duties. If Ibsen took away all the allusions to sex and alcohol, it could be a Disney movie where the loving wife tries to save her husband whose hubris won’t allow him to receive help and this gets the wife into trouble. Her husband comes to her rescue and accepts her wrong doing. Actually this sounds exactly like Nora’s fantasy. The difference is while in the original ending the doll house falls apart and Nora decides to leave it in favor of living a life based in reality, in the alternate ending Nora returns to the doll house and nothing changes.  In the alternate ending, the play loses its original purpose because the boundaries of society aren't challenged, they are accepted. Each ending represents various paths in life we must between in many decisions that we make. Do you take the path of individuality or conformity? Do you take the difficult route of uncertainty or do you take the path of least resistance and familiarity? Whether or not you know it, the conflict of the doll’s house is present in your daily decisions. 

The Original Ending of A Doll's House

The final scene of A Doll’s House dictates how you read the play. The whole plays builds up to the ending in a way.  The final scene represents a moment of enlightenment for Nora who realizes that in trying to meet the social expectations of her, she has given up her own individuality. Torvald even tells her, “you are a wife and mother before you are anything else”, which exemplifies that society expects her to put her husband and children before herself. At this point Nora probably feels like a slave to a family and society that takes her for granted; she dedicates her whole life to serving her father and her husband. Of course Torvald, a man who has strictly obeyed his gender role in society, is baffled by Nora. A woman leaving her husband was something that was unheard of in 1800 society. It is ironic that while the man is expected to be the enlightened one who guides the ignorant wife who blindly follows him, Nora is the one who is enlightened about the true nature of their relationship and thus guides Torvald who has been blindly following society. Nora leaving Torvald represents her breaking the societal chains that have kept her from developing as an individual. Yet this raises the question, can you really break free from society? I mean unless you on a mountain by yourself, everyone is shaped by the society they live in. Sure Nora has left her societal obligations to Torvald and her children, but she will still be confined by how the outside world judges her. She will be looked down upon as a woman who left her husband and she will have difficulty finding work.  So is she truly free of society? Will Nora, who has lived her whole life sheltered by the warmth of the doll’s house, be able to survive in the harsh, outside world? I think implies that she won’t. Kristine, a foul for Nora, is pushed back into marriage. Nora says for her to return, “the most wonderful of all would have to happen”.  The wonderful represents when Torvald can treat her as his equal which would allow them to have a “true marriage”, one not based on lies or pretending. However I don’t think the most wonderful thing will happen. Torvald’s last line in the play, “The most wonderful -?!” ends with a question mark, meaning that he still questions what the wonderful is.  If Torvald doesn’t even know what the most wonderful thing is, how can he ever achieve it? Though Ibsen seems to imply that Nora will be unsuccessful in breaking free of her societal expectations and possibly changing society, history tells a different story. Women’s rights was achieved by independent who forcefully went against the grain such as by entering the work force and showed the world that women can operate in society without being babied by their husbands. Some women like Kristine did so out of necessity while others like Nora did so for personal development. The unresolved fate of Nora is what makes this play so thought provoking, possibly implying that the struggle between the individual and society is forever on going. 

Analysis of Ars Poetica by Archibald Macliesh

Archibald Macleish in “Ars Poetica” uses paradoxical imagery to potray that a poem should evoke a part of human experience by tapping into our senses rather than trying to answer some philosophical question or have a deeper meaning. The first line, “a poem should be palpable” says that the purpose of a poem should be obvious and easily perceived by the senses or the mind. The reader should just be able to get it when he or she reads the poem. This suggests that poems should aim to be simple and direct without complexities that could cause the meaning to be misinterpreted and maybe that the reader should aim to find paradoxical simplicity within any complexities of a poem. Also, a poem should be interpreted through the senses by which we experience life. This understanding should be evident like “globed fruit” as no one needs to explain the taste of fruit to someone for them to be able perceive the flavors. Taste is also something that can be innately sensed.  The meaning of the poem should also be nourishing and natural like the taste of a fruit. Additionally, they should be “Dumb as old medallion to the thumb” which is contradictory as medallions are items that awarded for past accomplishments and thus have vivid memories attached to them. “Silent as the sleeve-worn stone of casement ledges” evokes the sense of touch.  Poems also should be “silent” or “wordless” which is contradictory as poems are comprised of words. However by being wordless, it implies that a poem is instead comprised of parts of human experience that influenced it rather than just by words and thus the meaning of the poem should be easily understood with any explanation.  “A poem should be motionless in time” and convey a universal meaning that will be applicable throughout time like the moon which can be seen no matter where in the world you are. Like the changing stages of the moon, poetry should also changes from one era to the next so that it always retains relevance.  In doing so, a poem “releases twig by twig the light-entangled trees” and sheds light on parts of life that otherwise would have been shrouded in night like darkness.  Similarly, the title of the poem means the Art of Poetry in Latin which is a dead yet relevant language that even today influences many of the world’s languages today. However the speaker states that “A poem should be equal to: Not true” and thus isn’t searching for truth, but instead is simply trying to capture the essence of human experience such as grief which he portrays as an empty doorway or a maple leaf or love. A poem is a representation of a certain part of life.  The poem ends with the lines that “a poem should not mean but be” suggesting that a poem should not seek to have a hidden meaning that the reader much search for or try to decipher within the text, but should  represent that meaning in way that the reader simply grasps it as he or she reads the poem.

Analysis of Ellen Olenksa

Ellen Olenska is a cultural hybrid who was influenced by French culture during her marriage with the Count but has returned to America where the social customs are very different.  French society is driven by experience and understanding while the Old New York society remains in a perpetual state of innocence which is most prominent among the women. The Old New York society is driven by old fashioned customs that society blindly obeys without understanding why or questioning them, “inexorable conventions that tied things together and bound people down to the old pattern”. The lack of understanding leads to a very superficial society. This disgusts Ellen Olenska who asks “Does no one want to know the truth here, Mr. Archer? The real loneliness is living among all these kind people who only ask one to pretend!”. Because Ms.Olenska moved away with the Count, she was not conditioned to forever remain in a state of innocence like her fellow American women as Mr. Archer states, “the Polish Count must have robbed her of her fortune as well as her illusions”. As a result she is able to see parts of the society that the other women have to been taught to remain blind too. This difference as she states is the reason for her loneliness. Newland Archer also sees through the “illusions” of the American social system.  Like Countess Olenska, he is “sick of the hypocrisy that would bury alive a woman of her age if her husband were to live with harlots”. He believes “women ought to be free – as free as we are”; an unconventional viewpoint that Countess Olenska embodies in many ways.  She doesn’t need to be constantly accompanied by a man. For example, she ended a conversation with a gentlemen even though “etiquette required that she should wait, immovable as an idol, while the men who wished to converse with her succeeded each other at her side.” However she doesn’t purposely going against the customs, she was “unaware of having broken any rule”. Because of this, Newland Archer and Countess Olenska have a special bond, “there are only two people here who make me feel as if they understood what I mean and could explain things to me: you and Mr. Beaufort”. The contrast between a society based on experience(the French) and  a society of innocence(The Old New York society) is highlighted by the contrast of Countess Olenska and May Welland who are foils of each other.  Mr. Archer is fascinated with the Countess who represents the realism that is lacking in the superficial Old New York Society. In fact, when thinking of his fiancée,  Mr. Archer is “discouraged by the thought that all this frankness and innocence were only an artificial product”. However with Countess Olenska he knows she will say what’s on her mind and won’t be “oppressed by his creation of factitious purity, so cunningly manufactured by a conspiracy of mothers and aunts and grandmothers and longdead ancentresses”. Through the countess, Mr.Archer identifies the “illusions” that everyone else is blinded to and he says she is “opening my eyes to things I’d looked at so long that I’d cease to see them”.

William Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience

William Blake contrasts the innocent  Lamb in “Little lamb” with the dangerous tiger in “The Tyger” and asks the question, “Did he who made the lamb make thee?”. Aspects of both the lamb and the tiger can be seen in humanity and the world in the general.

“Little Lamb” begins with a child questioning the origin of the lamb, “Dost thou know who made thee?”. The seemingly obvious answer would be some god or deity. The lamb here represents innocence and purity as it has “clothing of delight”, “softest clothing” a “tender voice”. Now in the second stanza, the child answers the questions that he just previously asked the lamb. He reveals that the one who created the lamb also “calls himself a lamb”. However this time the connotation of a lamb refers not to the creation but to the creator, Jesus Christ. By referring to both the creation and the creator as a lamb, the creation is shown to be a reflection, or mirror image of the creator. The poem ends with the line, “Little Lamb God bless thee”, however to whom the lamb refers to remains ambiguous as it could refer to the creation or the creator.

While the lamb that is described in “Little Lamb” represent innocence and purity, the tiger in “The Tyger” is characterized by violence and terror. The tiger represents an investigation into the existence of evil in the world. It raises the question, would the same God who made the innocent lamb also create the dangerous tiger? Throughout the work the speakers asks a series of questions about the origin of the tiger. The poem begins with the contrasting description of a “Tyger burning bright” and “the forest of the night”. Burning has the connotations of energy, power, and danger which differs from the placidity of the night. And though the tiger is evil, it has “fearful symmetry” and thus is beautiful. The fact that the tiger’s creator must “twist the sinews of thy heart” implies the corruption that exists inside the tiger but not in the lamb. The poem continues with the portrayal of forging the tiger to create it which seems like an unnatural method to create life, like victor when he created the creature in Frankenstein.  The speaker asks the question, “Did he who made the Lamb make thee?”. The lamb represents the goodness in world and the tiger represents the evil in it. This leaves the unanswered question that did the same god who made all things good in the world also make all the evil things in it as well. The first and last stanza of the poem are the same except for the last line of each and it changes; It changes form “What immortal hand or eye/Could frame thy fearful symmetry” to “Dare frame thy fearful symmetry”.  This one word change shifts the meaning from is possible to would God venture to do so. And if the creation is a reflection of the creator as suggested by “Little Lamb”, is the evil that the tiger represents present in our creator?

Picture Analysis

“2.7 million children in Egypt don’t have a childhood.” This compelling public print ad wants to bring awareness to millions of Egyptian children who must forgo childhood in order to begin working a make enough money for their families. The ad depicts a young boy working in a repair shop fit for a grown man. He is shown to be a boy who is already living the life of a grown man. Robbed of his childhood, he spends much of his time working; he has no time to play. The boy is so small that he wouldn't be able to reach many of the tools without climbing on a ladder. The shop is dirty and many of the tools in the background appear dangerous. This is not a fit location for a young boy to be. The boy on the left side of the picture who is seen wearing a blue and white flannel shirt is already growing patches of gray hair on the sides of his head, symbolic of the stress and hard work that this boy has to endure. The skin on his face is worn like that of a grown man who does laborious work. On his forehead, the boy has a scar, likely from an accident while working, an indication of the dangers of his job. Bags are apparent under his eyes due to the lack of sleep. However, despite his body showing signs of stress and overwork, the boy’s eyes still retain the innocent look of a young boy. As he looks the viewer in the eyes, he sparks a sense of awe that would make anyone feel bad for flipping the page of their magazine without doing anything to help him.  The colors in the picture are very washed out which give the picture a very dreary tone. The lack of vibrant colors indicates the lack of fun which is instead is replaced by dull times. What’s powerful about this ad is that it reads, “2.7 million children in Egypt don’t have a childhood.” The sheer number of children who are working in these conditions and deprived of their childhood because of work shows that this is a huge problem that needs to be addressed. In the bottom right of the ad, it says, “Call Us. 012 1817 555” The font is so small however that it is difficult to read the number which hurts the cause if those who want to help can’t do so because they can’t read the number to call.  This ad speaks to everyone, including people who have lived a privileged childhood and now from firsthand experience the joys that it should bring and people who come an underprivileged background and understand the hardships that you must endure to survive in similar situations. Similar incidents of child labor used to happen in the United States before child labor laws were passed that prohibited employers from working young people in unsafe conditions. Though Egypt has similar laws, they seem to be ineffective in solving the problem.