Existence

“The Daydreams of a Drunk Woman” begins with the young woman sitting at her dressing table, combing her hair, gazing at her reflection in the three mirrors: “her eyes did not take themselves off her image, her comb worked pensively, and her open dressing gown revealed in the mirrors the intersected breasts of several women” (Lispector 1555). With this vision, the idea of the woman’s fragmented self-image and questions about the meaning of existence are introduced to the plotless story which is focused on the protagonist’s inner emotional state. “Who am I?” is a key hypothetical question posed by the text. Prompted by seeing the mirror’s reflection, the young woman begins a flirtatious conversation with her images. “’Maria Quiteria, my dear’… ‘And who, might we ask, would she be?’ they insisted gallantly, but now without any expression. ‘You!’ she broke off, slightly annoyed. How boring!” (1556). Maria sees her existence as a wife and mother as dull. Maria scolds herself, “what a lazy bitch you’ve turned out to be” (1557). This self-condemnation answers the hypothetical question: what kind of woman am I?   

Unhappy and angry, Maria is unable to recognize the reason for her unhappiness, except when she is drunk, “and even then she can express her feelings only metaphorically… Disgusted at the thought of being a lobster, a passive object of consumption, the urge to assert herself as an active and autonomous being subsequently produces a different image in her mind” (Muller 38). Maria replaces the lobster image with a scorpion, predatory and dangerous. She tries to see herself as a desirable young woman, but resorts to self-deprecation, labeling herself as a slut, and repeating the insult “What a slovenly, lazy bitch you’ve become” (Lispector 1560). Seeing herself as a failure in the traditional, boring roles women fulfill, Maria’s interior monologues are the only outlet for expressing her unhappiness. Her husband does not listen, interpreting rejection of his advances as illness. She is alone and filled with self-loathing, unable to fuse her fractured self-image into a strong, unified self.

Works Cited

Lispector, Clarice. “The Daydreams of a Drunk Woman.” The Norton Anthology of World Literature. Edited by Martin Puchner, Shorter 3^rd ed., vol. 2, W.W. Norton & Company, 2013. pp. 1555-1560.

Muller, Ingrid R. “The Problematics of the Body in Clarice Lispector's ‘Family Ties.’” Chasqui, vol. 20, no. 1, 1991, pp. 34–42. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/29740322. Accessed 26 July 2020.

Neruda

Latin America’s most important twentieth century poet, Pablo Neruda, was a social justice advocate and important political figure, who “adopted the role of public poet, putting his writing at the service of the people” (Puchner 1421). Neruda is part of the modernist literary movement, which is characterized by breaking away from conventional poetics. Modernists sought new ways to portray the experiences of a rapidly changing human experience that included great technological improvement as well as increasingly destructive weaponry and world war. “Walking Around” exposes urban poverty and suffering, creating an image of the city as desolate, dirty, and filled with suffering.

“Walking Around” shows “the marked influence of surrealism: the surprising juxtapositions, the shocking associations, the pursuit of disordering states of consciousness” (Cosgrove 22). Neruda conveys great sadness and emotional exhaustion with the poem’s opening: “It happens that I am tired of being a man” (1). Walking through the city, the speaker goes into “the tailor’s shops and the movies / all shriveled up, impenetrable, like a felt swan / navigating on a water of origin and ash” (2-4). This is a strange image suggesting that great loss has caused the speaker to withdraw into himself. Felt is made from applying heat, moisture, and agitation to wool, which could symbolize the experiences that have brought the speaker to this place of hopelessness. The water of origin and ash may refer to scientific theories around earth’s formation through collisions with asteroids which would create both water and ash. Swans are beautiful, elegant birds, but here beauty is an illusion.

The speaker talks of death, darkness, and “shivering with dreams” (19) and declares the he does not want “to continue as a root and as a tomb, / as a solitary tunnel, as a cellar full of corpses, stiff with cold, dying with pain” (23-25). Loneliness and suffering are inescapable in this city, where even death is no escape from the “images of shame and horror” (38) that should make a mirror weep, but which society ignores. By the end of the poem, the speaker’s attitude shifts just a little, to include anger, but quickly returns to forgetfulness:

I stride along with calm, with eyes, with shoes,

with fury, with forgetfulness,

I pass, I cross offices and stores full of orthopaedic appliances,

and courtyards hung with clothes on wires,

underpants, towels and shirts which weep

slow dirty tears (40-45).

Ordinary things, like clothes hanging out to dry, convey the hopelessness of Neruda’s poem with their dirty tears. These images reflect the social environment. Even though the speaker sees all that is wrong and reacts with anger to society’s inequity, he quickly forgets and continues walking. “Walking Around” ends with the same hopelessness with which it begins, leaving the reader with a dirty image of urban misery with no hope for change.

Works Cited

Cosgrove, Ciaran. “A Poetry of Unpompous Circumstance.” The Poetry Ireland Review, no. 18/19, 1987, pp. 10–25. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/25576497. Accessed 19 July 2020.

Neruda, Pablo. “Walking Around.” The Norton Anthology of World Literature. Edited by Martin Puchner, Shorter 3^rd ed., vol. 2, W.W. Norton & Company, 2013. pp. 1423-1424.

Puchner, Martin. “Pablo Neruda.”  The Norton Anthology of World Literature. Edited by Martin Puchner, Shorter 3^rd ed., vol. 2, W.W. Norton & Company, 2013. pp. 1421-1422. 

 

Time

Chekhov’s play “The Cherry Orchard” begins with Lopakhin, a former peasant who is now a wealthy merchant, saying: “The train has come, thank God. What time is it?” (Chekhov 922). With this, he introduces the importance of time and change as central themes that are expressed through attention to patterns in nature, sleep, sleeplessness, life, death, and memory. The train, as a mover of things and people, is a symbol of change and progress. Emphasis on time is a reminder that change is inevitable, regardless of action or inaction. The train has come, and time moves on.

Lopakhin has a complicated relationship with time and change, as he is constantly aware of time as an opportunity, of time passing, and of not having enough time. He has a plan to help Liubov get out of debt by selling land, cutting down the orchard, and building vacation homes. Lopakhin feels the pressure of time to take advantage of this opportunity and is unable to understand Liubov’s inability to move forward. From her childhood nursery, she looks out at the white orchard and remembers, “Oh my childhood! My innocence!” (931). She is stuck, clinging to the past glory of her family’s status and wealth, and she remains stuck. Unable to let go or move forward, Liubov “keep[s] waiting for something to happen. It’s as if the house were about to fall down around our ears or something” (938). Despite Lopakhin’s reminders, Liubov does nothing to prevent the auction, and so Lopakhin seizes the opportunity for himself, buying the entire estate. Here he has a moment of sadness, telling Liubov: “you can’t ever go back to the past. Oh, if only we could change things, if only life were different, this unhappy, messy life…” (952). The character most closely connected to progress and change, has this moment of grief that interrupts his exhilaration as ownership of the orchard passes from the aristocracy, to a man whose family they enslaved. He has compassion for Liubov, even as he embraces his opportunities.

Representing the history of Russia, the orchard itself is an important symbol connected to the aristocracy, and each character has a connection to the orchard specifically related to their social and generational position. The play opens with Liubov returning via train to her family’s estate. It is spring, and the cherry trees are blooming. The play ends in the fall when the train takes everyone away from the orchard and the past, to confront their lives in a new era in Russian history. Time is especially pressing in the final act with worries of being late for the train, and references to endings and beginnings. Left behind, Firs dies with his memories in the empty house, a final symbol of change and of time passing. “The Cherry Orchard” ends with the sound of an ax.

Works Cited

Chekhov, Anton. “The Cherry Orchard.” The Norton Anthology of World Literature. Edited by Martin Puchner, Shorter 3^rd ed., vol. 2, W.W. Norton & Company, 2013. pp. 922-960.

Marti and Dario

Puchner describes Whitman as “affirmative, inclusive, energetic, defiant, and radically experimental” (646). His poetry defied conventions, embracing free verse for modern poetic expression. Marti and Dario, both influenced by Whitman, embraced a poetic awakening in their work. Raab asserts: “that Whitman grounded his verse in his American surroundings and that he presents the lyrical ‘I’ as symbiotically connected to the people, landscapes, scenes, or history out of which it emerges greatly appealed to Martí” (Raab 4). Dario adopts a similar approach in “To Roosevelt,” however, his poem is not grounded in ‘I’ as representative of Latin America, but in “you,” identifying Roosevelt as the United States.

Dario channels Whitman in his poetic address to President Roosevelt: “The voice that would reach you, Hunter, must speak / in Biblical tones, or in the poetry of Walt Whitman” (Dario 1-2). Mirroring Whitman’s imagery of landscapes, the body, and nature, he personifies the United States through Roosevelt’s image, as a godless, depraved hunter who is very different from Latin America: “You are the United States / future invader of our naïve America / with its Indian blood, an America / that still prays to Christ and still speaks Spanish” (5-8). Dario hears the U.S. shouting “like the roar of a lion” (Dario 22), drawing from Whitman’s “barbaric yawp” (Whitman 52, 4).  “To Roosevelt” offers a warning to the United States not to underestimate the rich, cultural history and faith of Latin Americans, while celebrating his own heritage.

Marti emulates Whitman’s lyric verse in “I Am an Honest Man.” Just as Whitman is everyman in “Song of Myself,” Marti embodies the spirit, art, and people of Cuba. Whitman begins, “I celebrate myself, and sing myself” (1-2). Similarly, Marti wishes “To fling my verses from my soul. / I come from everywhere / and I am going toward everywhere” (4-6). Intensely emotional, Marti’s poem captures his love of his country through simple landscapes, “where the palm grows” (2), in the herbs and flowers of the land, in the mountains, and vineyards.

Signaling a shift in Latin American poetics, Marti and Dario capture elements of Whitman’s experimental new poetry, adopting images of nature and creating synergy between the people, history, and the land. The arts, especially poetry, become the connectors linking all the parts together.

Works Cited

Dario, Ruben. “To Roosevelt.” The Norton Anthology of World Literature. Edited by Martin Puchner, Shorter 3^rd ed., vol. 2, W.W. Norton & Company, 2013. pp. 693-694.

Marti, Jose. “I Am an Honest Man.” The Norton Anthology of World Literature. Edited by Martin Puchner, Shorter 3^rd ed., vol. 2, W.W. Norton & Company, 2013. pp. 681-682.

Puchner, Martin. “Walt Whitman.”  The Norton Anthology of World Literature. Edited by Martin Puchner, Shorter 3^rd ed., vol. 2, W.W. Norton & Company, 2013. pp. 646-647. 

Raab, Josef. “El Gran Viejo: Walt Whitman in Latin America.” CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture, vol. 3, no. 2, June 2001. doi:10.7771/1481-4374.1122.

Whitman, Walt. From “Song of Myself.” The Norton Anthology of World Literature. Edited by Martin Puchner, Shorter 3^rd ed., vol. 2, W.W. Norton & Company, 2013. pp. 648-653.