Endless Deceit 

You tell me

What you want me

to see; a double shadow

Lurking into my peripheral

of which I call the sea

 

Beautiful roses

fresh memories

Oh how true is it

Question arises of what it is

To be

 

Light shines,

darkness is all

You tell me

 

-Rocky Alam

The book Notebook of a Return to the Native Land is difficult to understand from the first page. However, a passage that struck out to me the most is found on page 14, where Aimé Césaire begins to write about this idea of death which doesn’t go into context of the first few pages of the book. It’s as if this idea of death appeared out of nowhere and is hard to realize the meaning and context of the text at first. The previous page speaks upon speaking up for those who have no voice, but the transition into the line which says, “once again this life hobbling before me, what am I saying, this death…” (pg. 14) gives this ordeal of life being nothing but a buildup to one’s death. The author goes into exemplifying death as if we live throughout death. In order to understand this page of the book specifically, I had to reread the text numerous times while also looking for definitions of unknown words. The transition into this idea of death is a bit awkward, which created a confusion for me since the book speaks of one setting and message to a completely irrelevant thought. It’s as if he corrects himself when saying “what am I saying”, by stating that this life we live is just a pedestal for death. Hence the italics surrounding the word “death” creates a sense of emphasis and shifts the readers mind to a new subject, where in this context the shift was a bit difficult because there are so many that it’s hard to create an image. Overall, the book so far is quite difficult to understand as each paragraph seems to have its own message and meaning, but it appears to be more clear after reading the text over a couple of times. However, I don’t believe there is one meaning this passage specifically, just like the rest of the book, the meaning is based upon one’s interpretation.

The responsibility of a poem belongs to the reader, as the reader is the one who makes light of the meanings of the text through their own perspective. We often set ourselves into the poem to create a connection, moving us to an alternate world, created by the writer which we choose to inhabit. The writer is essentially giving the reader the tools as the reader is the one that puts all these ideas together to create a meaning for the text. One may interpret a poem differently from another, making it our responsibility of what we think of the text. We surely can’t say what the writer is trying to depict as there are no straight forwards answers most of the time. Emily Dickinson is able to uphold this concept of leaving the reader responsible for the text beautifully, as she tends to write lyrically and by using the word “I” continuosly. The word “I” doesn’t reflect to herself entirely, the “I” can be someone or something we can choose to be. She essentially makes us pick out the characters of who is who, changing the entire structure of the poem. Another concept Emily Dickinson used was that she never titled her work to her credit, leaving this idea that the reader is simply given text and they become the author. This is why the tool of translation is so important in understanding literary works, as they tend to “bring light” onto the meanings of specific words and analogies in a text when in reality we’re basically creating the poem from the text given to us.

When we view something on tv or on social media platforms poking fun at political leaders or celebrities, we tend to automatically assume that this is parody. However, most people fail to differentiate between the use of satire and parody as the word “satire” is more foreign to most people. Satire on one hand is commonly used to effect political or social change or to alter people’s views on certain issues through reaching a serious or comedic message. A prime example of satire would be political cartoons in newspapers as they often contain comedy by poking fun at recent world events or political leaders. The main goal for those who use satire is to shed light on an issue or to advocate a thought, this is usually more political in today’s world. Parody on the other hand is usually an imitation of particular person, whether this is a political figure or a celebrity, the goal in parody is simply for comedic reasons. An example of parody, which may seem ancient to some people now, would be the show “Mad TV” that used to air on Comedy Central, it was a platform where various actors would make fun of celebrities and well known figures based on tabloids, their physical appearance, or their personal lives. The uses of satire and parody can also be seen in literature as a prime example could be Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain which uses various forms of satire to speak about slavery. Overall, the distinction between satire and parody are quite different from each other but can be interpreted as either or.