Author: KRISTY WU

In Walcott’s poem The First, the author describes love as an excruciating pain overtaking his body. He acknowledges love can be painful, but in his case, his love is overstepping its boundary to a point where it “moved past love to mania” (Walcott, 3). His heart also plunged him “howling into the abyss” (Walcott, 3). The poem The First showcases the pain love comes with to describe a tragedy all humans go through in life. There will be times in life where our loved ones, significant others, and passions/goals will go wrong and cross over into the darker side of life. Just like how the author is experiencing his love plunging him into the abyss and mania, we will all experience this as a coming of age period of our lives. However, the author realizes that in order to fully live a fulfilling life, we must push through the hard times. For instance, Walcott writes “hold hard then, heart. This way at least you live” (Walcott, 3). In short, Walcott advises us that with the highs, there are the lows when we fully live.

I consider “The Second Coming” as an apocalyptic poem because of the author’s life-ending choice of words like “mere anarchy is loosened upon the world” (Yeats).  The title “The Second Coming” can be a reference to biblical story of Jesus’s return, which is a sign of God’s apocalypse, as well. To many, the story of Jesus’s return is a blessing because every spiritual believer would be sent to Heaven. However, Yeat questions the logic in this optimistic way of thinking and considers “the second coming” as a more grim outlook. This is because he ends his poem with the phrase “…slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?” (Yeat). For context, Bethlehem is seen as a holy center for those who are saved by Jesus. By the author adding the question mark at the end of the phrase shows his skepticism in whether or not those who die in the apocalypse will actually be saved by this higher being in the “second coming”.  Therefore, this poem is a perfect example of an apocalyptic genre since all hope is nonexistent.

The short story The Dead by James Joyce redefines what it means to be alive and dead through the comparison of Gabriel and Michael. In Gabriel’s speech, he mentions that the past often consumed his head with “sadder thoughts” causing him to “not linger on the past” anymore (Joyce, 177). Gabriel refuses to acknowledge his past because he believes it doesn’t bring any value or impact on his current life. However, this approach of mindset towards life is unrealistic and inhumane–like the dead– to think the past doesn’t affect the present. Gabriel soon realizes he’s mistaken from the points he made from his speech when Gretta confessed her love for Michael even though Michael was dead. Even though Michael is physically dead, he has more of an impact on the living now than Gabriel. Gabriel is also seen “dead” because he is unable to sympathize with others throughout the play due to his high class status and he often naively insulted those around him. In short, Gabriel believed his actions had no weight to them, but we see that the past indeed does affect on the present, just like how Gretta’s love for Michael still resonated with her. Therefore, Joyce redefines being “dead” as to someone like Gabriel who believes their past actions do not hold weight to those of the present who are living. 

The Lady with the Dog by Anton Chekhov is a story about two separate, married lovers, Dmitri and Anna, having an affair with each at a resort town called Yalta. During their first encounters together, Dmitri and Anna are passionately attached by the hip. But, their affair doesn’t last because of Anna’s insecurities and jealousy for Dmitri and Dmitri’s inability to present himself truly as a person. For example, Dmitri mistakenly presented himself to Anna as a “kind, exceptional, and lofty man” even though he only thinks of Anna as a “common woman”, misleading Anna in his intentions to be with her Chekhov, 5). Additionally, during their last encounters in Yalta, Anna cried out of jealousy that Dmitri wouldn’t love her like other women (Chekhov, 4). Both sides have different expectations and intentions for each other, therefore causes them to falter in their relationship.

The significance of the location, a resort town called Yalta, summarizes the point of love having strings attached because it symbolizes short lived, unrealistic expectations. Like any vacation, the thrill and happiness is temporary, but one must always return back to reality. Anna and Dmitri both had different intentions and expectations, which caused them to return back to their regular lives, just like how one comes back home from vacation. Therefore the author tells us that love has its stages of unconditional support, but in order to be long lasting, love must fit into both parties’ expectations of the relationship.

In the piece The Gilded Six-Bits by Zora Neale Hurston, two newlywed couples embark challenges in their relationship as the wife, Missie May, sleeps with another man, Slemmons, betraying her husband, Joe. Throughout the two exchanges of men whom she sleeps with, Missie May gains the same silver coin from both. However, the value of the silver coin changes based on who gives it to her. For Joe, the silver coin is worth more because it brought her happiness from real substances like going out on dates to get ice cream. For Slemmons, the coin was based on the lies of his wealthy businesses. Through Joe’s honest efforts to please May and make her happy, the author shows the power of the currency of exchange in the small, genuine interactions in one’s life. In fact for Slemmons, May realized how little value he brought into her life after she realized his wealth was all a lie when she did “not to recognize his stickpin as a gilded quarter, and his watch charm as a four-bit piece” (Hurston, 7). May’s life was simple with Joe in making breakfast for him and going out to eat. It was enough for her in the end because she was with meaningful people in her life, which brought great value, like the coin Joe gave her.

The Romantic period author utilized nature as a characteristic of love and passion. He would often get lost in the beauty of nature and time would pass with the wind. For instance, when starring at the colors of the mountain, the author felt “an appetite; a feeling of love… that time is past” (William Blake; page 3). Nature is his love and nature his distraction from reason. Romantic writers like Blake showcase the scattered, unreasoned thoughts of a person when love and passion take over. In fact, if you look at most romantic storylines, we see the same concept that many people get “blinded with love”. Therefore, like Blake’s awe for nature, Romantic period writers try to tell us that there is a catalyst of irrational thinking in everyone. We can not rely on reason, because love and passion will always get in the way.