# 13
To agree or not to agree? The speaker of Dickinson's poem urges readers through a major paradoxical statement to "demur" what society always says. While society claims "assent- and you are sane, demur- [and] you're straightway dangerous," the insanity is said to come from agreeing with the majority of society. There is truth in the paradox. The speaker is pushing individual thought, unique personality, and overall independence in beliefs. The insane aspect comes from simply agreeing with what the majority of people say or do.
I wonder if when Dickinson wrote this poem she realized the timeless qualities it would carry into future generations. It's human nature to follow what is popular; it's hard to stand out and stand up for the more abstract ideas. But it's the people who possess the confidence to step outside the realm of comfort and be different that make a lasting mark.
Showing posts with label paradox. Show all posts
Showing posts with label paradox. Show all posts
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
I Was A Coward- I Went to the War
Courage is like an inheritance. True. We keep it locked up inside until those crucial moments where life demands more from us than we are typically used to. Aside from all this, fear is pint up inside in a similar way. It leaks out of people almost simultaneously with courage. Also true.
O'Brien wanted us to feel his guilt, his fear, his so-called cowardice. He uses what I believe is an antithesis on page 38 when saying that "certain blood was being shed for uncertain reasons;" clearly he understood there was no certainty in the Vietnam War, or any war for that matter.
I thought the gross descriptions of the pig "Declotter" job built up to the parallelism of O'Brien's paralyzing choice towards "slaughtery" if he chose to accept the draft notice on page 41. We feel his frustration with his home town as he fears being judged, so he condemns them by saying, "They didn't know history..." (page 43). By combing all of the townspeople into a common pronoun "them," O'Brien uses a synecdoche to say that the people as a group are against him.
If I can clearly recall back to sophomore year, one of the stages in the hero cycle was flight. This is exactly the approach O'Brien took when he received the draft notice, until he came across the "hero of his life," Elroy Berdahl (pages 44-45). Berdahl taught him with few words in six days that absence of fear does not make one strong, for the only conclusion O'Brien left us with at the end of the chapter was that he "would not be brave." He let embarrassment of having to face all the people in his life make the decision for him to submit himself into the war. How often are we too pressured into a route we're not too fond of due to the driving force of peer pressure. Leaving us with a paradox, O'Brien tells us of his drive home, "... and then to Vietnam, where [he] was a soldier, and then home again. [He] survived but it's not a happy ending. [He] was a coward. [He] went to war" (page 58). 'Coward' and 'war' just don't mix in my mind.
O'Brien wanted us to feel his guilt, his fear, his so-called cowardice. He uses what I believe is an antithesis on page 38 when saying that "certain blood was being shed for uncertain reasons;" clearly he understood there was no certainty in the Vietnam War, or any war for that matter.
I thought the gross descriptions of the pig "Declotter" job built up to the parallelism of O'Brien's paralyzing choice towards "slaughtery" if he chose to accept the draft notice on page 41. We feel his frustration with his home town as he fears being judged, so he condemns them by saying, "They didn't know history..." (page 43). By combing all of the townspeople into a common pronoun "them," O'Brien uses a synecdoche to say that the people as a group are against him.
If I can clearly recall back to sophomore year, one of the stages in the hero cycle was flight. This is exactly the approach O'Brien took when he received the draft notice, until he came across the "hero of his life," Elroy Berdahl (pages 44-45). Berdahl taught him with few words in six days that absence of fear does not make one strong, for the only conclusion O'Brien left us with at the end of the chapter was that he "would not be brave." He let embarrassment of having to face all the people in his life make the decision for him to submit himself into the war. How often are we too pressured into a route we're not too fond of due to the driving force of peer pressure. Leaving us with a paradox, O'Brien tells us of his drive home, "... and then to Vietnam, where [he] was a soldier, and then home again. [He] survived but it's not a happy ending. [He] was a coward. [He] went to war" (page 58). 'Coward' and 'war' just don't mix in my mind.
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