Walt Whitman – “Song of Myself” – Part 1 Analysis

Walt Whitman (from Leaves of Grass, first published in the 1855 edition)

1

I celebrate myself;

And what I assume you shall assume;

For every atom belonging to me, as good belongs to you.

I loafe and invite my Soul;

I lean and loafe at my ease, observing a spear of summer grass.

Houses and rooms are full of perfumes—the shelves are crowded with perfumes;

I breathe the fragrance myself, and know it and like it;

The distillation would intoxicate me also, but I shall not let it.

The atmosphere is not a perfume—it has no taste of the distillation—it is odorless;

It is for my mouth forever—I am in love with it;

I will go to the bank by the wood, and become undisguised and naked;

I am mad for it to be in contact with me.

 [1]

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          The short opening stanza of part one of “Song of Myself” immediately draws the reader closer to Whitman, with “And what I shall assume you shall assume;/For every atom belonging to me, as good belongs to you.”. This gives the reader a more personal link to both Whitman and the poem, also leading to some ambiguity as to the identity of the “Myself” referred to in the title and the mass of personal pronouns in the opening stanza – with them, is Whitman referring solely to himself, or the reader, or is he perhaps voicing the private thoughts of many? With the line “For every atom belonging to me, as good belongs to you.”, Whitman could perhaps be suggesting that on the most basic level we are all one, and can be thought of as one unit, linked together inextricably. Although, with a more romantic reading, he could be professing the strength of his love for another, and their inherent oneness, as though on a most basic level they are one being.

          The scientific nature and connotations of the word “atom” in this line are then contrasted sharply with both the possible romantic interpretation of the line and with the purely religious and personal connotations of the word “Soul” at the end of the next line. The word ‘Soul’ stands out through its placement at the end of the line - which inevitably leads the reader to dwell on the word a little longer - in addition to its being capitalised which stresses its importance whilst perhaps suggesting that the soul is a different entity entirely. These two themes – science and religion – are conflicting in their nature, and – whilst being separated by the gap between stanzas – suggests that conflicting natures could perhaps be a theme of this poem, potentially through the voicing of internal and personal conflicts.

The poems opening line consists of only three words – “I celebrate myself” – which immediately instates a jovial mood and pleasant tone for the reader, a notion that is perhaps comforting and provides a sense of security in a reader or audience.  However, this initial happy tone and sense of security is then quickly undermined in stanzas three and four (lines 6-10) of part one. The stanza opens with the line “Houses and rooms are full of perfumes – the shelves are crowded with perfumes”. The word “houses” instantly conjures the thought of a building, and through being followed by “rooms” it takes the reader from a large open space of possibility within the poem to a small confined space, with the word “crowded” adding to the impression of claustrophobia and restriction. If taken literally, Whitman here uses the sense of smell to convey a sense of confinement, with the opening line creating the idea of a cloying, overwhelming but not unpleasant scent – in the next line he states that “I […] know it and like it”. The use of the word “houses” and the association of “house” with “home” combined with this could suggest that, like the scent of multiple perfumes, home life and daily routine can be seen as smothering, whilst not being unpleasant. Whitman also says that “the distillation would intoxicate me also”, which with this interpretation could suggest that we can become too familiar and dependant on our daily routine and day-to-day lives, an almost addictive comfort that can be detrimental to the leading of a full life. Whitman then adds that he “shall not let it” (intoxicate him), which gives this stanzas ending a defiant and determined tone, very different to the relaxed and jovial mood created in the first stanza. This rapid shift in tone and mood - and indeed the shift between the third stanza and the fervent longing at the end of the fourth stanza - so early in the poem suggests that similar shifts and conflicting ideas can be expected throughout the rest of the poem. This also perhaps gives the impression that Whitman is unsettled or ill at ease, whilst mimicking the jumpy nature of human thought, which fits closely with the notion of internal reflection suggested by the title “Song of Myself”.

There are, however, other possible interpretations of this passage. The perfumes could, for instance, refer to the past through cloying memories, which it is easy to find an addictive comfort in, a habit that can also, however, prevent one from moving on to create new memories.

In the following stanza, Whitman takes us out of the confines of the overly-scented room to the contrast of the atmosphere, in which he presents the notion of freedom, a notion that he is “in love” with. The stanza opens with “The atmosphere is not a perfume – it has no taste of the distillation – it is odorless”, contrasting to the perfumed air and close confines of the “room” referred to in the previous stanza. The increased number of hyphens used in the opening line increases the pace of the poem and gives the impression that Whitman is voicing a slightly disjointed, jumpy chain of thought. This increased pace also aids the shift to the more fervent and longing tone that is present in the fourth stanza, a tone that perhaps suggests that Whitman (or whoever he is voicing through the poem) is yearning unreservedly for the freedom he describes. This stanza is also the longest in part 1 of the poem, again suggesting that freedom is a priority and necessity for the speaker.

The stanza, and indeed part 1, ends with the third and fourth lines reading “I will go to the bank by the wood, and become undisguised and naked;/I am mad for it to be in contact with me.”. The word “undisguised” suggests that Whitman is not revealing his true self to the world and is hiding under a façade, but that he now wishes to reveal his true self to the world. There is an emphasis made in these lines on the idea of nature, with the reference to the wood and river bank coupled with the idea of disguise suggesting that Whitman wishes to return to what he naturally is. Whitman also states that he will “become undisguised and naked”, suggesting that the very clothes he wears restrict him and conceal his true self, and perhaps that he wants to feel at one with nature, as we were designed to be before social conventions were brought into being. The final line, “I am mad for it to be in contact with me” sustains the notion of a fervent longing for change, whilst also putting the character Whitman is presenting (be it himself or otherwise) in a rather extreme position, a fact that leads the reader to perceive everything written as being true.

These last lines could be seen as referring to Whitman’s homosexuality – given the context of 19^th century America, Whitman is likely to have had to repress or conceal his sexuality, something that would have been conventional at the time yet incredibly oppressive. Homosexuality was socially unacceptable and seen as amoral and unnatural at the time, however despite social opposition Whitman wrote a number of poems that make reference to or entirely concern his own sexuality, a fact that could lend a confident or defiant twist to his work. The word “contact” in the last line could suggest the longing for a physical relationship, whilst the nature he aims to return to could refer to Whitman’s natural sexual orientation, as openly adopting this would achieve Whitman a freedom from the constraints of social convention and the expectations of society.

[1] www.bartleby.com/142/14.html- this is one of the places you can read the rest of the poem.

Chaucer's Presentation of Nicholas and Alison in lines 78-203 of "The Miller's Tale"

Many aspects of the “The Miller’s Tale” oppose both convention and the reader’s expectations, and this is a commonality throughout the poem that is introduced in the very first verses.

“The Miller’s Tale” is described by the Miller (who is himself one of Chaucer’s creations) as “a legend and a lyf/Bothe of a carpenter and his wyf”, and it is this description in “The Miller’s Prologue” immediately preceding “The Miller’s Tale” that sets the opening to this tale at odds with the reader’s expectations (particularly following the traditional and eloquent tale of courtly love that was told by the Knight), as in only the fifth line the focus shifts from the carpenter Jon to Nicholas, a scholar lodging in Jon’s home. Chaucer – speaking through the Miller – then goes on to describe Nicholas in detail, ignoring Jon entirely despite it reportedly being a tale of him and his young wife Alison.

Chaucer starts by informing the listener of Nicholas’ passion for “astrologie”, a study with very little basis in science and a practise which requires an element of theatre and falsehood as insubstantial links are made between astronomical events and human lives. The implications of this on the reader’s view of Nicholas, however, is subject to the era, as for much of its history the study of astrology was seen as an academic, scientific pursuit, reinforcing the ‘scholarly’ aspect of Nicholas’ character, whereas today it is considered to be largely based in the belief of the improbable, with the only contact many of us have with the subject being in vague daily horoscopes. For a present-day audience, Nicholas’ passion for astronomy implies that he is fanciful, whilst his practise of it could be seen to suggest that he is fraudulent and has few reservations with regards to deceiving others, an aspect of his character that could diminish a reader’s regard for his character. The notion of Nicholas being a deceitful character is confirmed in lines 191-2, “‘A clerk hadde litherly biset his while,/But if he koude a carpenter bigile.’”, however to an older audience the emergence of this part of Nicholas’ character would come as more of a shock, whilst in addition giving his character more depth.

Chaucer presents Nicholas as a very vain character, whose actions are all directed towards attracting women. Nicholas is described as being “hande” or attractive, however the overuse of this description throughout the poem twists its meaning to imply the opposite, which is possibly justification of his excessive attempts to attract women. Nicholas is described as living “Allone, withouten any compaignie”, which as he is a young man leads the reader to presume is in order to more easily entertain female visitors. Nicholas also makes himself smell “as sweet as is the roote/Of licoris or cetewale”, filling his room with sweet herbs. These are clearly not the actions of a man considering only himself, and suggest that he is desperate to attract women, a notion that is confirmed to the reader by his hasty and forceful actions towards Alison as soon as Jon is out of town. Immediately, he “caught hire by the queynte”, and the shocking crudeness of this language and Nicholas’ actions acts as a sharp reminder that Chaucer is telling the tale through the character of the Miller. Nicholas then “heeld her harde by the haunchebones,/And seide, ‘Lemman, love me al atones,/Or I wol dyen, also God me save!’”. This is both impatient and forceful, with his crude behaviour being completely at odds to the polite language of courtly love that he uses throughout, such as “lemman”, meaning ‘darling’. Both Alison and Nicholas use this language in phrases such as “for youre curteisie!”, “by my fey!”(by my honour) and “I wol dyen”, however their actions are the polar opposite to the typical behaviour of refined ‘courtly lovers’, such as those presented in the Knight’s tale. With this, Chaucer is satirising courtly love and its practise, inserting the stereotypical language into a more realistic situation than in the Knight’s tale to expose the absurdity of it. However, by having the character of the Miller tell the tale, Chaucer succeeds in not only mocking the court and the practise of ‘courtly love’, but also the peasants who have aspirations above their station, and who present themselves as foolish by using only the language of courtly love, whilst not understanding the sentiment behind it as they attempt to act like members of the upper class.

Nicholas’  use of the language of courtly love and his constant referral to “deerne” love could be interpreted as his having aspirations above his social standing, as he is only a student but is using a romantic language usually reserved for the highest in society. This idea could also be applied to his relationship with Alison, who is described as being suitable “For any lord to leggen in his bedde,/Or yet any good yeman to wedde.”. Wishing to achieve a higher social standing, Nicholas is happy to have a physical relationship with Alison, however it is questionable as to whether he intends to marry her if at all possible, or whether he would consider Alison too low in society for to be his wife.

Chaucer primarily presents Alison, the carpenter’s wife, as an object of sexual desire, drawing many comparisons between her and young, frisky animals, such as “wezele”, “kide”, “calf” and “colt”, comparisons that express her animal vitality and youthfulness, but could also hint at an instinctual nature and a lack of civilised manners and morals, which would explain more comprehensively her behaviour with Nicholas and her committing adultery with so few reservations. However, her committing adultery does not altogether make the reader despise her character, as it could be the result of an unwise marriage devoid of passion to a man much older than herself, a fact which is explicitly mentioned earlier in the poem.

Alison is presented as very dissatisfied with her marriage to Jon, as she has a “likerous ye” (lecherous eye), and begins an affair with Nicholas with little argument. In response to Nicholas’ advances, “with hir heed she wryed faste awey”, rather than with her body, strongly implying that her ‘refusal’ is insincere and she desires to start an affair with Nicholas, with the purpose of her ‘refusal’ being an effort to try to fulfil the role of a modest and reserved courtly lover. After yielding to Nicholas’ pleading, Alison “swoor hir ooth, by Seint Thomas of Kent,/That she wol been at his commandement”, an oath which is inappropriate as she is already married, and both odd an unreliable as she is swearing to be faithful, whilst at that moment being unfaithful to her husband.

Chaucer – through the character of the Miller – presents “The Miller’s Tale” through the form of a fabliau. Fabliuax are comic short stories originating (typically) in the northeast of France between 1150 and 1400, written often by, about and for the lower classes and characterised by crude language and obscenity (sexual or otherwise). They are always set in the present, in locations familiar to the audience so as to be more accessible, and they present lively images of everyday life among the lower and middle classes. In fabliaux, there are a number of staple characters, including old men (Jon the carpenter), young men who will often trick the elderly men (Nicholas), cuckolded husbands (Jon again), members of the clergy, foolish peasants, whores (striking similarity to Alison), beggars and thieves, among others.

By presenting the Miller’s tale in the form of a fabliau, Chaucer is both connecting with his lower-class character of the Miller and a wider audience, whilst the character of the Miller distances Chaucer from the lower-class style of writing he adopts and the crude tale he presents. Chaucer further distances himself from this shocking crudeness and any criticism of this in the poems prologue, in which he apologises for the tale to come and lays blame on the Miller, whom he treats as a ‘real’ character.

"The Lovely Bones" by Alice Sebold - Notes

“The Lovely Bones” by Alice Sebold

Synopsis

The novel follows 14-year-old Susie Salmon, who, on December 6^th 1973, is brutally raped, murdered and dismembered by a neighbour, George Harvey, on her way home from school. As her spirit flees the earth to her own personal heaven, it touches Ruth Connors, a girl in Susie’s year, and this initiates a connection between the two girls.

            In her heaven, Susie meets Holly, whom she befriends, and Franny, a woman who used to work for social services and acts as their counsellor in heaven. Whilst in heaven, Susie also meets George Harvey’s other victims.

            After her death, Susie watches over her family and friends from her own personal heaven, seeing how their grief affects each of their lives as she herself comes to terms with her death, experiencing hope and longing for things she sees others doing but that she herself missed out on.

            Susie watches as her mother and father grow distant, her father desperate to catch her murderer whilst her mother is unable to cope, starting an affair before leaving home for eight years. Her sister Lindsey grows up, experiencing everything Susie longed to whilst trying to help her father prove Mr Harvey’s guilt, eventually marrying her boyfriend and giving birth to a baby girl, Abigail Suzanne, named after both Susie and her mother. Buckley, ten years younger than Susie, grows up coping with a family grieving for a sister he can barely remember, whilst watching his father’s health decline, and becoming bitter due to his mother’s absence throughout his childhood.

            Mr Harvey returns to the area years later, and drives to the sinkhole in which he dumped Susie’s body, chopped up and locked in a safe. Ruth Connors is there, stood with Ray Singh – a boy who wrote Susie a love note on the day of her death – and Ruth, due to her connection with Susie, senses the women he has killed and is overcome. Briefly, she and Susie switch places, and Ray senses this. Susie finally makes love to Ray, and afterwards must return to her heaven, which is now much larger.

            When sufficient evidence emerges that links George Harvey not only to Susie’s murder but to the killing of a number of other girls, he flees the area, and is never found by the authorities. Whilst stalking another young girl in New Hampshire, an icicle falls from a tree onto his shoulder, and he is knocked off balance, falling down a steep slope to his death, where his snow covered body will later be discovered.

Characters

Susie Salmon: a 14-year-old girl who is raped and murdered in the beginning of the novel, and who has always harboured a dream of becoming a wildlife photographer.

Lindsey Salmon: Susie’s younger sister and a talented athlete who through school joins the boys track team. Lindsey tries to help her father investigate Mr Harvey.

Jack Salmon: Susie’s father who, after her death, is consumed by guilt at having been unable to save his daughter.

Abigail Salmon: Susie’s mother, who starts an affair with Len Fenerman, the detective on Susie’s case, and who later leaves her home only to return eight years later.

Buckley Salmon: Susie’s youngest sibling whose unexpected birth came ten years after Susie’s, ending Abigail’s dreams of teaching. He occasionally sees Susie after her death.

Grandma Lynn: Abigail’s mother, an eccentric alcoholic who comes to stay after Abigail leaves to help Jack in raising Lindsey and Buckley.

George Harvey: a single man living alone, one of the Salmon’s neighbours and Susie’s killer.

Ruth Connors: a girl from school that Susie has a connection with after her spirit brushed her as she left earth.

Ray Singh: an Indian boy who wrote Susie a love note on the day of her death, that she never had a chance to read.

Len Fenerman: the detective assigned to Susie’s case. His young wife committed suicide, and he starts an affair with Abigail Salmon.

Samuel Heckler: Lindsey’s boyfriend, who she later marries.

Holly: Susie’s best friend in heaven.

Franny: Susie and Holly’s mentor in heaven.

Themes

The main identity-related theme in “The Lovely Bones” is looking at how we impact upon the lives of others, and who we are to them. In the novel, Susie watches down on her family and friends from heaven, seeing how she, and her death, affects them.

An important quotation on this comes from the novels conclusion, and also gives the novel its title:

                   “These were the lovely bones that had grown around my absence: the connections—sometimes tenuous, sometimes made at great cost, but often magnificent—that happened after I was gone. And I began to see things in a way that let me hold the world without me in it. The events my death brought were merely the bones of a body that would become whole at some unpredictable time in the future. The price of what I came to see as this miraculous lifeless body had been my life.” (pg. 320)

A number of aspects of the story tie into this theme, for example:

·          Susie, a budding photographer, was given a camera for her birthday, and the first picture she took was a candid shot of her mother. This photo captured her mother as a woman, rather than a mother and wife, showing Susie a side of her mother she had never really thought of before. We are different things to different people, depending on what we mean to them and how we enter their lives – Susie discovered this through her mother.

·          Building ships in bottles was a hobby Susie shared with her father, a hobby he himself shared with his father but that would forever “hold an echo of me [Susie]”. After her death, Susie watches her father smash every bottle in his den (a physical manifestation of his grief over losing his eldest child and the emotional detachment of his wife), and Susie appears to him in every shard of glass – this can be taken metaphorically, as each bottle represents Susie and the years of love and care they spent over a shared hobby.

·          Susie was Ray’s first love - he later sees her in Ruth Connors, and in making love to Ruth he believes he is making love to Susie, a belief he holds with him through the rest of his life, despite studying science and becoming a doctor.

Racial Identity: - Ray Singh, an Indian boy that wrote Susie a love note on the day of her death, is the police’s first suspect – the novel is set in America in 1973, and as a foreigner Ray is socially isolated, with locals and local law enforcement seeing him as a viable suspect for Susie’s murder.

Sexual Identity: - Susie never reaches sexual maturity whilst alive, and is brutally raped before being killed. One of her main regrets is never having had a relationship – as she watches  her little sister grow up, she sees her lose her virginity at the same age Susie was when she died, in a situation painfully romantic in comparison to how Susie lost her virginity. Samuel is holding Lindsey after they find that their summer camp project is based on how to commit the perfect murder, and he pulls her closer to protect her from the rain as they lay beneath an upturned derelict boat. Lindsey and Samuel retain their relationship and end up getting married, starting a family as idyllic as the one Lindsey lost when Susie died, even giving her daughter the middle name Suzanne in Susie’s memory. Susie grows up through living through her sister, watching her experience everything that Susie didn’t get a chance to.

            In addition to this, Ruth Connors struggles with her own sexual identity, which she begins to question in response to her “crushes on female teacher or her cousin”.

Personal Identity: - Lindsey in particular struggles with her personal identity after Susie’s death, as she becomes known not as Lindsey but as “the dead girls sister” by almost everyone. – “people looked at Lindsey and imagined a girl covered in blood”.

            Susie also struggles to come to terms with the reality of her death. Susie’s heaven is a manifestation of her hopes and desires, and in her heaven if she wants something, she will have it, provided she understands exactly why she wants it.

            Susie died very young, and feels she has missed out on many of the experiences she wanted to have in life – falling in love, having a career, etc. This could be what is holding her in her heaven, preventing her from moving on – after she makes love to Ray Singh through Ruth’s body, her heaven grows, allowing her to move on, and from that point on she less frequently looks down on earth, as she is more content with where she is.

Religious/Spiritual Identity: - When Susie dies, Ruth sees her spirit, and develops a connection with her. For the rest of her life, Ruth explores the idea of the existence of spirits, writing poetry on the topic. Throughout her entire life Ruth never forgot that she saw Susie’s spirit, despite other’s believing it impossible.

            Ray Singh also holds a belief in spirits after he makes love to Ruth, as both he and Ruth are certain that it was Susie he really made love to. Ray goes on to study medicine, and even though he throws himself into the rational world of science he retains that belief:

            “he [Ray] had more and more moments he chose not to disbelieve. Even if surrounding him were serious scientists and surgeons who ruled over a world of black and white, he maintained this possibility: that the ushering strangers that sometimes appeared to the dying were not the result of strokes, that he had called Ruth by my name, and that he had, indeed, made love to me.” (pg. 325)