Homeland

I almost started this post with “home is where the heart is.”  Then I realized that phrase was trite enough to have lost all meaning, and that it was untrue.  We can talk about home in the abstract sense- talk about the people, the emotional connections that provide us all with a sense of place and family.  But the truth is we all have a home.  It may not be a place we remember with fondness, or place we ever want to go back to, or even a place that exist anymore, but for the majority of people on this earth, it is a place.   For Mahmoud Darwish that home was Palestine.  In his poem “Identity Card” the speaker expresses a longing for a home that is no longer his.

                       Darwish himself “spoke of his relationship to a land where he had no lived for three decades: ‘I have become addicted to exile .  My language is exile.  The metaphor for Palestine is stronger than the Palestine of realty’” (1607).  Darwish recognized that the idea of home, of a homeland can have a powerful effect on the psyche.  We are all connected to the land where we came from.  There is a connectedness to the place where we came from that is hard to shake.

                        The speaker of the poem explains “my roots/ took hold before the birth of time/ before the burgeoning of the ages” (1608).  The speaker cannot separate himself from his homeland even though he has moved on.  The emotional connection to the land is in his bones.  Although “you stole my fathers’ vineyards/ the land I used to till…I don’t hate people/ I trespass on no one’s property” (1608).  The speaker considers his land unlawfully taken, and Darwish’s use of you makes the allegation personal, immediate, accusatory.    The speaker has been separated from his homeland, and he has suffered all of the indignities that came with that loss with as much dignity as he could muster.  But that did not break his connection to the land.  And he warns those who believe he has forgotten the loss of his home.   

           

                 Darwish, Mahmoud.  Identity Card. The Norton Anthology of World Literature: New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2013.  1606-1609. Print.

Neruda

The City has been a source of inspiration for the poets since the beginning of time.  The city is where mankind is reduced to extremes.  In the city greatest feats of human innovation are accomplished.  The best and brightest of literature, art, music, theater, politics, find themselves moving to an urban environment where culture can be created.  But every city has it’s dark side.  A city can also be the place where humans experience the greatest loneliness, apathy and heart ache.  Pablo Neruda’s “Walking Around” is a poem that follows a speaker as he confronts this dark side of the city as he finds the dark side of himself.

The poem begins on a note of indifference.  “It happens” the speaker declares.  He is not decisive, he is not an active participant in the story.  “It happens that I am tired of being a man” is all.  The world is a mess and so is the speaker.  The city is “all shriveled up” and the “smell of barber shops makes me sob out loud”.  But while the speaker tells himself he wants nothing but “repose” his mind still wanders to small pleasures, dark pleasures to be sure, but things that the speaker calls “delicious”.   

The middle section of the poem is a kind of revelation.  The speaker realized he is a “root in the dark/ hesitating, stretching out, shivering with dreams” (1423).  The speaker knows there is more to the world than the darkness he sees around him.  But still he is trapped under the earth.  While he is a root trapped in the city, with the possibility to flower, he is right now, trapped under the cement. 

The speaker is trapped in a place where the “Monday burns like oil” and “footsteps to the nightfall are filled with hot blood”.  The revelation doesn’t lead to change for the speaker.  He is still a root trapped in the city.  He can still see “birds the color of sulfur, and horrible intestines/ hanging from the doors of the houses which I hate”.  The speaker has become resigned.  He is the root trapped in the ground, and he “strides along with calm, with eyes, with shoes, with fury, with forgetfulness” in a world which “weeps slow dirty tears” (1424).  The speaker is a little mad.  The world is a little mad.  They are both capable of greatness. 

Neruda, Pablo.  Walking Around. The Norton Anthology of World Literature: New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2013.  648-653. Print.

The Rod of Justice

Power is important in every relationship.  In Joaquim Maria Machdo Assis’s The Rod Of Justice all of the power is held by Sinha Rita.  She holds sway over Damiao who comes to her for help, Joao Carneiro who wishes to remain in her good graces, the group of women she entertains each day, and most importantly the group of young girl who come to her each day for instruction.  Sinha Rita enjoys her power, her position.  She is not a tyrant, and sees herself as fair.  But Damiao does not wish to cross her, and when he believes that she is abusing her power, he does nothing to stop it.  When one of her students is found lacking at the end of a lesson Rita is determined to show her power through force.  Damiao had, only hours before, promised himself that he would protect this very girl, help her as he could.  But Sinha Rita had the power.  When she asks, demands, Damiao to hand her the switch that she intends to use to punish the girl Damiao hesitates.  He is breaking his own vow, participating in the beating of a child.  But Sinha Rita holds the power.  “Damiao was pricked by an uneasy sense of guilt, but he wanted so much to get out of the seminary!  He reached under the settee, picked up the rod, and handed it to Sinha Rita” (916).  Because Sinha Rita can make his life more comfortable Damiao is willing to look away from his responsibilities.  But he began the story running away from his work, his lively hood and his responsibility.  He ran to someone he knew help power.  And that person did fix his problems.  But what Damiao really needs is a spine. 

De Assis, Joaquim Maria Machado.  The Rod of Justice.. The Norton Anthology of World Literature: New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2013.  911-916. Print.

Martí and Darío

The late 19^th Century and the early 20^th was a time for the individual.  It was a time when personal expression began to take on a modern form, and private emotions became a medium for the poets.  Ruben Dario and Jose Marti both admired Walt Whitman’s passion and openness.  They followed his example in the personal and political nature of their poems.  All utilized the first person speaker to add depth and resonance to their work.  Whitman uses this voice to “celebrate myself, and sing myself” (648).  He is aware of his sole, his body, his place and presence in the world.  He is a force, and proud of his power.  Whitman uses his voice to express his individuality.  Marti uses the same first person persona   to express his connection to his culture and his land.  “I come from everywhere/ And I am going toward everywhere”.  Marti’s voice is of the people, but he too recognizes his own power. “I have seen in the dark night/ Rain over my head/ The pure rays of lightning/ Of divine beauty” (681).    Marti sees power in the earth, in the world, in the bonds of family.  Dario uses the first person persona as a confrontational device.  He speaks directly to Roosevelt, to Whitman himself, to the entitlements of an American hero. 

Works Cited

Dario, Ruben.  To Roosevelt. The Norton Anthology of World Literature: New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2013.  693. Print.

Marti, Jose. I am an Honest Man. The Norton Anthology of World Literature: New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2013.  681-682. Print.

Whitman, Walt.  Song of Myself. The Norton Anthology of World Literature: New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2013.  648-653. Print.