Comparison of The Red Wheelbarrow and Winter Night and Their Authors - Research Paper Example

Topic: Comparison of The Red Wheelbarrow and Winter Night and Their I. Introduction A. Definition of Terms Modernism – Sympathy with or conformity to modern ideas, practices, or standards. Imagism – A literary movement launched by British and American poets early in the 20th century that advocated the use of free verse, common speech patterns, and clear concrete images as a reaction to Victorian sentimentalism. Enjambment – The continuation of a syntactic unit from one line or couplet of a poem to the next with no pause. avant garde – The adjective form is used in English, to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics. Pharisees – The Pharisees were, depending on the time, a political party, a social movement, and a school of thought among Jews that flourished during the Second Temple Era (536 BC–70 AD). Turmoil – A state of extreme confusion or agitation; commotion or tumult Activism - The use of direct, often confrontational action, such as a demonstration or strike, in opposition to or support of a cause. Holocaust - 1. Great destruction resulting in the extensive loss of life, especially by fire. 2. Holocaust The genocide of European Jews and others by the Nazis during World War II: "Israel emerged from the Holocaust and is defined in relation to that catastrophe" (Emanuel Litvinoff). (thefreedictionary.com) Note: All definitions come from the thefreedictionary.com B. Historical Background Intro Short stories and poems are categorized as creative writing. A poem written by a poet and a short story by a fiction writer go beyond formal writing. Formal writing requires a tone that is purely technical and professional. Although a poem and a short story are different in structure and form, writers of these two categories must have their thoughts organized, should not run out of words, ability to use imagery, and choose words and language that appeal to their particular audience. Similarly, poems and short stories convey a meaning. The writer used poem or short story as their media in delivering their message in an emotional, intellectual, social, political, or psychological manner although numerous reasons for writing are endless. Poems heavily rely on imagery. It often uses objects as symbols that define a meaning. Sometimes the meaning is too deep or complex, or the reverse. Word choice using figures of speech, rhythmic patterns, are the basic ingredient of a poem. The Iliad and the Odyssey of are two examples of poems written by the famous Homer (Cummings). In the Bible, however, we could find countless short stories that inspire us. Short stories in contrast with poems are far better free flowing but the choice of words should highly depict the author’s goal to achieve imagination on the part of the reader. Storytelling is deeply rooted in our lives. As long as we became conscious, we knew we could tell our own stories, whether real or imagined. We could tell of our past and personal histories that would entertain, encourage, terrify, or persuade. An anecdote, a joke, or a simple memory of the past is the reason why short stories evolved. The stories we tell are shaped. More important, stories are here to educate (Boyd). Poems and short stories are interpreted by their respective readers. Sometimes, different interpretations arise practically based on the varied point of view of the readers. In this paper, the writer makes a comparison between two pieces of different writings such as the poem “The Red Wheelbarrow” by William Carlos Williams and the short story “Winter Night” by Kay Boyle. C. Thesis Statement While the Red Wheelbarrow and Winter Night are different in form and structure, they may express similar meaning, concept, or interpretation. II. William Carlos Williams and the Red Wheelbarrow At first glance, the poem sounds lifeless. It is as if a painters still life rendered in words, but there is far more here than meets the eye. The poet, William Carlos Williams, is a Modernist. In his early poems, is inspired by his idol Keats but later embraced Imagism and its emphasis on the exact words and clear visual detail. His friendship with Ezra Pound kept him in touch with movements in the international avant garde and he also became part of a radical group of artists and writers in New York known as The Others that included Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray, Wallace Stevens and Marianne Moore (thepoetryarchive.org) His quest for a truly native form of poetry made him a restless experimenter, particularly as regards meters and lines. He explored the use of enjambment in his poetry, (the continuation of a syntactic unit from one line of verse into the next line without a pause) which encourages the reader to analyze simple objects like wheelbarrows and plums. William’s use of simple language in his poetry stirred argument among conventional writers. The Wheelbarrow, containing sixteen words, shows the brevity of the language without compromising the detail in each symbolism used (Pomeroy). Born on September 17, 1883, in Rutherford, New Jersey, William attended private school in New York City. There he was introduced to English traditional poetry and dedicated his life to it. He never gave up poetry even if he pursued on Dentistry and Medicine. While studying medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, Williams’ poetic direction was influenced by Pound. The Red Wheelbarrow as to some critics lacks punctuation, relies on unusual lineation, and generally dissolves the traditional boundaries between one thing, or idea, and another. Williams famous maxim, “No ideas but in things,” simply states that from things, we create ideas. It is just like talking about matter and idea, which stirs endless debate as to which was conceived first. In The Red Wheelbarrow, all but the first two lines of the poem is devoted to one image (Teicher). Williams thought about the creative process in painters’ terms, and he asks us to experience the work as we might experience a modern painting: "There is no subject; its what you put on the canvas and how you put it on that makes the difference. Poems arent made of thoughts — they’re made of words, pigments put on ...” (Costello, 2005). In poetry, the only realism in art is of the imagination. It is only thus that the work escapes plagiarism after nature and becomes a creation. Many interpretations could be derived from the poem depending on the reader’s point of view. One might say that the poem is a metaphor for communism, seeing the red wheelbarrow as a carrier of new ideas. The white chickens probably represent the victims of communist violence. Seeing the wheelbarrow glazed with water means, it is wet. It might obviously become soaked due to rain. The wheelbarrow cannot function much because it is too loaded with something. So if it is loaded, that “something” depended so much on it. The wheelbarrow might symbolize a person with distinct strength and the chickens can be people depending on it to be carried wherever the wheelbarrow planned to go. If the wheelbarrow already has something to carry, e.g. people or problems or both, is depicting suffering. The rain represents the gloominess of the situation. People depend on it for the liberation of the suffering of humankind, or for survival and salvation. Williams concentrated more on bringing out the simple beauty of everyday things, and therefore made a beautiful poem from a simple object, that is, the wheelbarrow. The tone starts of serious, but shifts to a somewhat lighthearted tone with the mention of the white chickens. At first glance, there are various hidden symbols and meanings inside. With this kind of writing, the readers are intrigued to find something deeper than what is portrayed. The red wheelbarrow symbolizes Jesus’ blood while he was on the cross. The white chickens beside the wheelbarrow represented his disciples who denied him. This was evident when the disciples went through and live along Jesus’ existence, ate with him, prayed with him, preached with him, and struggled with him against the wayward Pharisees. Williams might have point to them as chickens because they were weak. They need a strong Christ for salvation. The red is a color sometimes associated with suffering. The people and the disciples suffered the torture of human imperfection. And so is Jesus. He suffered to redeem his people. With his blood red stained on the cross presents his condition as a human deeply drenched in the predicament of saving the world. The rainwater refers to cleansing and purification that is achieved when the Jesus’ mission was over. The chickens being white symbolize purity, innocence, and rebirth. Williams used metaphors throughout the poem emphasizing the value of speech. By using metaphor, only the more literate people would have a clear understanding and appreciation of the poem. III. Kay Boyle and Winter Night Born February 19, 1902 in St. Paul, Minnesota, Kay Boyle is best known for her carefully crafted short stories. She was an award-winning writer, educator, and political activist. She has written many novels and some poetry during her life as she mingled through famous literary geniuses (absoluteastronomy.com). Her life and writing were a testament to her ideals. Kay Boyle attended an exclusive school in Pennsylvania, and then studied Architecture at the Ohio Mechanics Institute in Cincinnati. She worked as a writer/editor in New York in 1922. Prior to this, she studied violin because of her interests in the arts. She became heavily involved with activism in the 1960’s to 1970’s where she participated in numerous protests. She was arrested twice and imprisoned in that period (absoluteastronomy.com). Kaye became associated with several innovative literary magazines and made friends with many of the writers and artists living in France. Among her friends were the owner of the Black Sun Press and published her first work of fiction, a collection title Short Stories (Answers.com) Kay Boyle had three husbands and six children and managed to be in important places at the important times, participating actively in many of the major movements and events of our century (Spanier). Over the course of her career, Kay was not like Hemingway or Stein and sought no literary fame. Boyle was more concerned with political issues fascinated by the subtlety in human relations. She was at her best when writing about highly complex human beings caught in political, social or psychological turmoil, struggling to maintain identity and balance (novelguide.com). This may be the reason for writing Winter Night. Winter Night is a short story about a baby-sitter that comes to spend an evening with seven-year old Felicia. The woman is a survivor of the Holocaust and she keeps on remembering the persecution of the Nazis to the Jews (newyorker.com). Though Boyle clearly does not sympathize with the Nazis, she exhibits compassion for a proud and defeated people (novelguide.com). Felicia’s father is away in the war. Her mother is too busy working during the day and often stays late and leaves her daughter with a baby-sitter. The daughter and the baby-sitter had formed a bonding, which served a slap on the face to the real mother who neglected her daughter. The baby-sitter does her jobs providing no emotional attachment to the child. But when darkness sets in, the insecurity and the longing for love, Felicia life was filled with emptiness. IV. Comparison of the poem and the short story The poem and the short story were written by well-crafted individuals who were inclined to art. The Red Wheelbarrow highlighted the objects used by Williams to stir the imagination of its readers emphasizing every word coined in just one sentence. The wheelbarrow is an ordinary object in the world but presented a great meaning giving significant definition to its purpose. Awakening the imagination of the readers, the wheelbarrow becomes not just an everyday object seen in the world. Literally, the wheelbarrow carries heavy loads mainly used for construction (e.g. cement, sand, and gravel). Symbolically, Williams used metaphorical attribution rendering the wheelbarrow as somewhat or someone that can carry “heavy loads, that, being represented as Jesus Christ, the wheelbarrow now serves more substantial role than just being an earthly object. The “heavy loads” are the human sufferings, which seek retribution for the salvation of soul. The redness of it pertains to the blood that Jesus shed when he died on the cross. Here, we see the suffering of Christ in order to save those who seek His glory. The white chickens, as earlier described, represented Jesus’ disciples who were weak on their denial of him. (Among the 12 apostles, the bible highlighted the denial of Peter three times. Not given much focus however, were the weaknesses of the remaining apostles in their struggle with Christianity while living under the government of Rome, and doctrinal beliefs of the Jews.) They are referred to as “white” because they are innocent and blameless when it comes to the truth about Jesus’ purpose on earth. The revelation obviously was handed down when Jesus has served his ministry, died and rose from the dead. While the concept of sacrifice is eminent in the poem, Winter Night prevailed in conveying its message. The element of sacrifice was also present in the story. It highlighted the forlorn situation of the daughter day by day seeking for love and security from her real mother. The mother was too preoccupied with her work, perhaps, wanting to make a real nice living for her family. Aside from the fact that the child’s father is away too, the mother sacrificially works to provide a comfortable life for her and her daughter. Unconsciously, she has neglected her daughter. The mother-daughter relationship suffered when a baby-sitter unwittingly stole the affection of the child. The idea of sacrifice is used by both Williams and Boyle. In the Red Wheelbarrow, Christ sacrificed his life so everybody can earn a life. The mother in the Winter Nights sacrificed her time and relationship with her daughter in order to earn a living. In contrast, Jesus Christ is worth the sacrifice but the working mother in Winter Nights gained otherwise. The human bonding and affection that is needed by the child is far important than the material gained from working too hard. It is human nature to seek the affection of a parent especially at a very tender age. Most children who are being left and sent to day cares suffer the same predicament of the child in Winter Nights. Worse, the child becomes attached to her baby-sitter who performs sitting duty of a mother during bedtime. The racial issue here is not mentioned while the baby-sitter is described as a Jew, a survivor from the Holocaust. V. The Author’s Motivation, Concept, and Struggle in Writing. Back in the US, Kaye Boyle became active in the avant-garde artist and writers community. A series of novels about the German occupation of France and the French resistance to the Nazis followed Primer for Combat (1942), Avalanche (1944), and A Frenchman Must Die (1946). In 1960, she has written a novel Generation without Farewell discussed the point of view of a German journalist who admired Americans and rejected his own country but realized he neither belonged to each. After her husbands death in 1963, she moved to San Francisco and began teaching there. Altogether, Boyle published ten novels, half a dozen short novels and numerous short story collections, three childrens books, along with essays and several volumes of poetry before she died. (Spanier). William Carlos William lived differently as a major literary figure. Although he was college friends with Ezra Pound, he chose to become a medical practitioner and lived most of his life in New Jersey. For him, Rutherford, New Jersey was a place for younger poets. Ironic for a doctor and a poet, Williams wrote short poems on prescription pads spending the whole night with his typewriter. As an artist, Williams frequently traveled to New York and hung out with poets and painters. As a Modernist, he believed that modernizing American poetry meant including American speech into its content (Teicher). In “The Red Wheelbarrow,” Williams deviates from the conventional poem writing. He generally dissolves the traditional boundaries between one thing, or idea, and another. The first two lines of the poem are devoted to one image (Teicher). Williams reveals how language can break us into personal isolation, get out of our heads with the world around us. His famous maxim, “No ideas but in things,” which speak about ideas, emotions, and abstractions, we must position them firmly in the things of the world.  VI. Conclusion The Red Wheelbarrow and Winter Night are two entirely different literary pieces by two different literary artists. The first, being a poet, deviates from conventional poetry but uses simple words with huge essential meaning. With the use of metaphor, comparing things or objects in the world, Williams’ language is a contemporary style that inspires many young poets of this generation. Kaye Boyle’s vast experience in life thought art was both politics and religion. Her poetry was her religion and she referred to Whitman, Poe and Williams as “apostles of America,” (Spanier). Having seen wars in decades, Boyle returned to Europe as a correspondent for the New Yorker and teacher of English at San Francisco State College (questia.com). Her short story reflects the typical American family setting where husbands are out to defend the country and women work to elevate the finances, hence, leaving their children to the hands of strangers. The short story and the poem share a common point; that is to express the ideas encrypted in them. Both writers are liberal in their own style, Williams as a Modernist and Boyle as an activist. As a Modernist, Williams uphold a modern thought or practice arising from the West in the late nineteenth and twentieth century. The term “modern” deviates from the traditional or conventional forms of art, literature, or religion, which are becoming obsolete and superseded by new principles in the newly industrialized world. As an activist, Boyle is a progressive thinker. An activist opposes an obsolete idea. Activists uphold the idea of putting more action rather than all theory especially if political reforms need to be attended. An activist, is therefore one who makes things happen (answer.com) Works Cited Boyd, William. A Short History of the Short Story. Prospect 2009. Web. 26 Apr. 2010. Costello, Bonnie. William Carlos Williams in a World of Painters. Boston Review. 1979. Web. 24 Apr. 2010. Cummings, Michael J. Homer, Master Storyteller in the Age of Myth. Cummingsstudyguide.com. Web. 26 Apr. 2010. “Kay Boyle’s Life.” Modern American Poetry. American National Biography Online. 2000. Oxford University Press. Web. 25 Apr. 2010. Boyle, Kay. Novelguide.com. 2010. Web. 25 Apr. 2010. Kay Boyle. Absoluteastronomy.com. 2010. Web. 25 Apr. 2010. Kay Boyle. Answers.com. 2010. Web. 26 Apr. 2010. Kay Boyle, Fiction, “Winter Night,” The New Yorker, January 19, 1946. Newyorker.com. Web. 26 Apr. 2010. Kay Boyle. Questia.com. 2010. Web. 26 Apr. 2010. Spanier, Sandra W. Kay Boyle, Artist and Activist. SIU Press, 1986. Print. Teicher, Craig M. William Carlos Williams: “The Red Wheelbarrow.” Poetry Foundation. Web. 26 Apr. 2010. The Free Dictionary by FARLEX. thefreedictionary.com. Web. 26 Apr. 2010. William Carlos Williams. Poets.org. Academy of American Poets. 2010. Web. 25 Apr. 2010. Read More