“MY HEART LEAPS UP WHEN I BEHOLD”

“MY HEART LEAPS UP WHEN I BEHOLD”

              The poem “My Heart Leaps Up When I Behold” is written by William Wordsworth an English poet and worshiper of nature and simplicity. The poem is based on the recollection of poet’s childhood experience and feelings that bear the stamp of continuity.

              The poem deals with the spontaneous overflow of those powerful feelings and joys as felt by the heart of the poet in his childhood and manhood at the sight of rainbow in the sky and the poet hopes to feel the same in the old age.

              The poet describes the influence of a rainbow upon his heart. According to his words, he feels overjoyed to see it in the sky and his heart leaps up every time he notices a rainbow. He further points out that he used to feel the same joy and happiness when he was a child and he does feel the same experience in his old age. In the absence of such feelings, the poet admits he will prefer death as an alternative. The poem ends with the wish of the poet for his days to be bound with each other by natural piety.

              The poem consists of a well-known paradox “The child is a father of the Man”. It implies that as a child for the first time he felt the joy while looking at the nature in the form of a rainbow and every child does have some kind of experience before he attains manhood. In this regard he is senior to man and therefore the father of the man.

“SPEAKING OF CHILDREN”

“SPEAKING OF CHILDREN”

- By Barbara Holland

Q. Does this essay speak in favour or against having many children? Give reasons.

The essay “Speaking of Children” is written by an American Writer, Barbara Holland. It is an informal piece of writing made lively and effective through the device of conversation. It examines the negative aspects of having more than one child. Hence it speaks against having many children.

              The advantages of parents for having one child are quite obvious. One child is an appendage and it can be outnumbered by parents. It can be carried along on pleasure trips. The most important of all is the privacy, which remains intact. On the contrary, plural children will be the end of advantages and the beginning of disadvantages. They will be counter-culture in the house and the parents will be outnumbered. There will be no place left in the living room because of the toys all over. Long pleasure trips will be shortened. The parents will be obliged to adjust themselves according to new situation. First priority will have to be given to the children and their matters. The house will be at sixes and sevens. Above all, there will be no privacy for the wife and the husband. They will be interfered and interrupted by the children at every possible moment. Surprisingly enough, due to lack of proximity, the husband and wife will be reduced to the state of strangers unless some solution is found out to end the new problem.

              Since the writer has focused on the enlargement of the disadvantages for having plural children. It is clear that she against having plural children.

              Question: Summarize the main idea of this essay in one paragraph.

Write down the second paragraph of the above answer.

“LOOK AT TEACUP”

“LOOK AT TEACUP”

              “Look at Teacup” is a complicated essay with a great deals of hidden meaning to be read in between the lines. The essay abounds with rich as well as vivid description of China dishes especially tea cups and scattered information about the writer’s parents, her relation with mother and her views.

              As for the tea cups, they were made in Czechoslovakia and bought in 1939 by her mother. These cups which have been given to the author have a tiny “Czechoslovakia” stamped on the bottom. Each piece is thin and transparent having the palest water-green shade. One can see thin bands of gold around the edges of the saucer and cup. There is also a band of gold on the inner circle of the saucer. Inside the cup, flowers are depicted in different falling attitudes. It seems that as if someone had scattered a bouquet and the flowers appear to be caught in falling motion. One tends to notice a special significance attached to the cups because frequent references are made throughout the essay. In one place, the writer admits that there is a slur of recollection about the flowers, something imprecise, seductive and foggy, but held together with a bright bolt of accuracy-perhaps a piercing glance from a long dead uncle, whose face, all the features has otherwise faded. In another occasion, she wonders if someone with an important black umbrella had considered the future of teacups. A Prior to that she refers to an English politician his shaking a nation away while furling his black umbrella. Further she alludes to the falling of bodies, bombs and countries. Once can see a thread of associations. They indicate the degeneration that took place in Europe in general and disintegration in Czechoslovakia in particular during the Second World War. The teacups with the painting of falling flowers are relies of the disintegration process that began in Czechoslovakia with Munich Agreement signed on 29 September 1938 by the leaders of UK, France, Germany and Italy. Under this pact, the country was compelled to surrender its Sudetenland to Germany, Neville Chamberlain, the Prime Minister of Britain and his policy of appeasement failed to prevent the war. The umbrella he carried to Munich with him was called as the taint of Munich. The writer seems to suggest that the English politician with an important black umbrella also played a role in the disintegration of Czechoslovakia that is in the fall of Flowers from bouquet.

              The close association between the cups and a country is obvious in many expressions. One can notice it in the following expressions that “the cps was discontinued because a country was discontinued” and a country” lost its pure science of flinging glowers into the sides of teacups. Hence “the cup” stands for the relic and the evidence of the mid-century bonfire that is Second World War.

              The second aspect of the story is concerned with the unusual treatment of marriage, family and mother – daughter relationship. The writer is said to have been married in 1939 at the offing of the Second World War. This helped her escape the magnitude of history by retreating into pragmatism. Hence the writer associates the marriage with the fall of the flowers.

              At one place in the essay, she mentions that her mother’s cello voice was drowned somewhere in the sound of falling flowers, in marriage, in the thought of bombs falling on women with flowers, with teacups. Her marriage was the old bow pulled across the cello followed by the long low moan of another generation. On account of such association, the writer uses the word “fall” as the synonym of marriage and refuses to marry at all. Her announcement “We don’t get married anymore” indicates that she is not alone in having such interpretation. Likewise, one can see the similar treatment given to the concept of family and mother-daughter relationship. For the mother, family is the most important thing in the world where as for the daughter, the writer; the work is the most important thing. In spite of such an opinion, mother’s voice sounded a farewell, the first of all those good-byes mothers say to their daughters. She seemed to know that family and separation would always go together. Mothers and daughters are bound to say good-bye to one another. Their relationship ends with parting. The writer’s mother illustrates the same point by saying that they did not have any emotional relationships with their mothers.

“A WORN PATH”

“A WORN PATH”

              “A Worn Path” is the story about an old Negro woman, Phoenix Jackson who undertakes a long hazardous journey from her country area up to city. She does it to fetch medicine for her grandson suffering from chronic throat trouble. It is written by An American novelist, Eudora Welty. She takes the readers into old phoenix’s mind with great delicacy and discloses her firm dignity. The story is filled with such minute details about various obstacles overcome by Jackson that it gives the impression of a story of heroism. During a Christmas time Phoenix Jackson leaves the country for the city with dreadful cold around. Being rather old and small, she walks along a path slowly through the pinewoods. She comes across various obstacles till she reaches the hospital for medicine. The first obstacle that old woman of about hundred years old encounters is the frozen earth in front of her. While tapping it with a thin small care, she moves ahead. Because of her shoe-laces trailing along from her unlaced shoes. She is about the stumble down at one place.

              Since, it is a journey through pinewood. She should be quite careful so as the avoid snakes and wild animals on the path. So switching at the brush with her cane, she manages to keep out of the obstacles one after another. The path leads her up hill. No sooner does she pass this obstacle, she is caught by a thorny bush. Once she stands free of it, she finds another one ahead of her. This time it is log across the creek and she has to walk on it with balanced steps. At this juncture she speaks to herself that she is not as old as she thinks. This reminds the readers of an Egyptian myth of bird phoenix that consumers itself by fire after every five hundred years and rises renewed from its own ashes. Likewise phoenix Jackson by undertaking the painful and hazardous journey rejuvenates herself every now and then.

Thus obstacles continue to appear all along her path. At one place, she has to move through a barbed wire fence. Then she passes through a failed of dead corn, a maze. In one place, she mistakes a scarecrow for a ghost. A dog also knocks her down. On the way she meets a white man and diverts his attention to a dog so that she can pick up a nickel that has fallen off his pocket. Finally she reaches the hospital, takes medicine for the grandson and comes out with a nickel given by an attendant. She decides to buy a windmill for the grandson. Now her steps begin on the stairs, going down. The story may have allegorical and symbolical reference for the movement of the black against the violation of their rights.

THE THREE DAY BLOW

THE THREE DAY BLOW

              “The Three Day Blow” is a story with an analogy between the three day blow and the mental ordeal of the protagonist Nick. The story, which is written by an American writer Ernest Hemingway, traces a movement from conflict, through separation and suffering to reconciliation. It conveys the fullness of a formal ritual.

              It is the story of Nick Wemedge who intended to marry Marjorie. In order to get married with her, it was necessary for him to get back home to find a job and earn money. That was his original plan in the beginning and later he decided to stay in Charlevoix all winter so that he could be near Marge. He made a plan to go to Italy with her, visiting different places while having a lot of fun together. Unfortunately they had to break away and his plans went astray. All of a sudden, their relation came to an end. Marjorie’s mother could be responsible for it because she was regarded as being terrible. Nick was grieved to realize that he had lost her. He felt that she was gone and he had sent her away. He had no hope to see her again. The separation between Nick and Marjorie seemed to have been the outcome of conflict between Nick and Marjorie’s mother. It caused him to have a mental strain.

              In such an agony, he happened to visit the cottage of Bill when the first autumn’s storm broke out. The terrible weather condition reflected the mental agony of Nick. Being struck with grief due to the separation, he got into the cottage of Bill with a view to spend three days of his time three during the terrible wind blow. Bill was pleased to have his company. Both of them got into a long pastime activity while drinking wine and having conversation on different matters ranging over different topics such as drinks, baseball, and writing. Nick’s break up with Marjorie etc. Bill evidently looked happy for he had negative approach towards the married life. He held the view that a man is absolutely bitched and done for once he is married. He referred to Nick’s break up as a wise act. Nick was obliged to confess the matter with a tragic tone. In course of the conversation, Bill casually mentioned the possibility of Nick’s getting into it again. Nick had never thought about it. It had seemed so absolute. It made him feel better. It brought about a sudden drastic change in his way of thinking. He found himself on high spirits. He felt happy and lighter. According to the writer, nothing was finished and ever lost and also there was always a way out.

              With a new spirit, Nick suggested that they should take the guns, go down to the point and look for Bill’s father. Soon they were seen moving across the meadow towards Bill’s father. Nick was no more in a tragic mood and the wind blew everything out of his mind. This story ends with Nick being reconciled to the loss of his beloved. One can also interpret the happy ending of the story as the hint and hope of reconciliation between Nick and his beloved.

              As for the rhetorical strategy, the weather condition as described in the story presents a redaction and analogy of Nick’s suffering. The whole setting with story wind around acts as a stage with separation at one end and the reconciliation at the other's end. Being a dramatic story, it is presented in a sequence of approximately seven scenes: drinking wine, chat about baseball, discussion about literary works, habit of drinking, activities in Kitchen, view about marriage as well as Nick’s love affair with Marjorie and finally the scene of reconciliation or change of attitude.