If there were water
This motif of water is what helps with things to come back alive. This poem says IF there was water "spring" would come which is already another motif of things coming to life or "springing back to life." It's interesting how the water/wet motif meddles with the motif of death/zombies. Without water, people are dead/not right. Water revives.
Amongst the rock one cannot stop or think
The dryness motif also fits in with the motif of zombies because it is so dry in this setting that they turn sort of "brain dead"
Here is no water but only rock
I had focused on this part of the poem beforehand that it had to do with nature in general, but now that I have reread through it, I notice the wet/dry motifs we've discussed in class. This poem focuses on water being nonexistent, the wet motif in the setting, and rocks being the dry motif.
And water A spring
I wonder what his connection is with the seasons of spring, summer, and winter. He's also written things about nature in general that seems to be his muse.
And if it rains, a closed car at four. And we shall play a game of chess, Pressing lidless eyes and waiting for a knock upon the door.
It's very hard to tell if the "A Game of Chess" writing stops here or if it's one whole poem and it keeps going.
And I was frightened. He said, Marie, Marie, hold on tight. And down we went.
I'd like to know whose perspective this is considering that this is not Eliot. Who is Marie to Eliot? Or are they just made up?
some doctor’s family, some Elsie— voluptuous water expressing with broken
This poem is hard for me to understand. It first starts to maybe name "pure products of America" which I assume are different kinds of people living in America. It seems like Williams goes on to describe different groups of people who reside here including places that are filled with "isolate lakes" and "valleys." However, it seems specific at this point when he mentions Elsie. I think Elsie is someone they were around so much that they were able to be written about. But I'm not sure why. Maybe this Elsie has gone through much more than anyone else?
Lifeless in appearance, sluggish dazed spring approaches—
This poem seems to recite the rebirth of Spring. It's like the transitional period from Winter to Spring. Williams perfectly recites how nature generally starts to unravel when Spring is on its way. It's not a sudden change, its "sluggish" and "one by one" It starts to show in nature that Spring is here.
I have eaten the plums that were in the icebox
I like the imagery in these first lines and the last lines when they say "so sweet and so cold" because I feel like a cold plum would be super refreshing. It's like I can imagine its taste. They seem super worth it as the narrator is satisfied with the plums.
Ink of paper slightly mine breathes a shoulder able shine.
This line makes me think of a piece of writing/story/poem fully coming alive when it's written down on paper.
Pink coral white coral, coral coral
There are many different shades of coral, i didn't even know about a white coral
Noisy pearls noisy pearl coat.
the mention of pearls as coats reminds me of someone wearing pearls like a coat and they are flashy and loud.
His stalk the dark delphinium
This poem is sort of confusing to me. I looked up what delphinium is which is like a flower. Then Millay continues to use flower references throughout the poem. It's also interesting that the title refers to "his stalk" because I see it as the flower being a woman and perhaps that flowers do, they are changing/growing? The rest is hard for me to unravel.
what power has brought you low,
Maybe this signifies that this man's death is lonely because his power had been abused. Millay uses descriptions like "rusted iron column" "empty shore" and "all the clamour that was he silenced" that give me this sense of the idea that his life is no longer important. And perhaps it never was?
The witch that came (the withered hag) To wash the steps with pail and rag, Was once the beauty Abishag,
I feel like this beginning throws me off at first because I expected a fairytale of some witch but then he continues to mention Hollywood and now I just think of an actress.
The wayside blue and innocent heal-all? What brought the kindred spider to that height, Then steered the white moth thither in the night?
I like the sudden change of questioning the spider's existence because when I read it, I started to question the spider's design. Like I've never seen a white spider before. Its existence is confusing. Who made it? Why does it catch a moth?
The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep.
I think it's interesting to first hear the woods be described with snow and frozen lakes, which I feel would be a pretty scene, but when he connects his horse to question his actions, it gives me the sense that he should not even be there. And then he finally finishes with not wanting to die. (I'm assuming). Also it makes me believe that the thing who owns the woods is something darker.
At ninety–six I had lived enough, that is all, And passed to a sweet repose. What is this I hear of sorrow and weariness, Anger, discontent and drooping hopes?
Seems like the narrator is upset that the newer generation is "discontent" with their lives, or rather complains too much about it. I think this is another form of expressing that they don't like the change in the world because people aren't living life to the fullest.
There is one end of the room where it is almost intact, and there, when the crosslights fade and the low sun shines directly upon it, I can almost fancy radiation after all,—the interminable grotesques seem to form around a common centre and rush off in headlong plunges of equal distraction.
I think her imagination allows her to keep focus on this wallpaper, and since she had a better experience with "blank walls" " it troubles her to focus on something with so many curves and lines.
used to feel that if any of the other things looked too fierce I could always hop into that chair and be safe
I think one thing her husband is correct about is the imagination she has. She can find entertainment in furniture/walls!
John does not know how much I really suffer. He knows there is no REASON to suffer, and that satisfies him.
Seems like John very much gets in her head
We have been here two weeks, and I haven’t felt like writing before, since that first day.
It's interesting that a house has lifted her to write again. It tells you something that the house has that much affect on her.
It is dull enough to confuse the eye in following, pronounced enough to constantly irritate and provoke study, and when you follow the lame uncertain curves for a little distance they suddenly commit suicide—plunge off at outrageous angles, destroy themselves in unheard of contradictions.
This is probably the most interesting way I heard a wallpaper to be described as.
hat spoils my ghostliness, I am afraid, but I don’t care—there is something strange about the house—I can feel it.
I like that in this story, there's a language where it sounds so eery and mysterious. Just how the story is.
I did write for a while in spite of them; but it DOES exhaust me a good deal—having to be so sly about it, or else meet with heavy opposition.
It seems like they are ensuring she doesn't do anything. If I was put in a situation where I was trapped in a room or house all day, I would go crazy.
It is so pleasant to be out in this great room and creep around as I please! I don’t want to go outside. I won’t, even if Jennie asks me to.
It's almost like her plan to tear the wallpaper down made her feel liberated because she decided on her own. She wanted the wallpaper down but John didn't do it. (Plus, he never let her do anything else either.) So, she did it herself even though the way it happened was sort of erratic.
He felt the weight of his ignorance,—not simply of letters, but of life, of business, of the humanities; the accumulated sloth and shirking and awkwardness of decades and centuries shackled his hands and feet.
I can see some similarities here between Dubois and Adams where they both feel like their education of the world is constantly failing them.
The Nation has not yet found peace from its sins; the freedman has not yet found in freedom his promised land.
It's interesting to read the different perspectives of Adams and Dubios because they are two different people with way more different experiences in America. They both are trying to grasp all the change America is going through.
The shades of the prison-house closed round about us all: walls strait and stubborn to the whitest, but relentlessly narrow, tall, and unscalable to sons of night who must plod darkly on in resignation, or beat unavailing palms against the stone, or steadily, half hopelessly, watch the streak of blue above.
This is confusing to me. Is he trying to describe how it feels to be in his own house?
they were a revelation of mysterious energy like that of the Cross;
They've mentioned this many times but there really isn't any explanation after that. I'm thinking there is some context to this I should understand, but I don't
The planet itself seemed less impressive, in its old-fashioned, deliberate, annual or daily revolution, than this huge wheel, revolving within arm’s length at some vertiginous speed, and barely murmuring–scarcely humming an audible warning to stand a hair’s-breadth further for respect of power–while it would not wake the baby lying close against its frame.
To think the dynamos are more valuable than the planet itself is an interesting way to compare them just because I wouldn't think that way. But reading this puts in perspective the way they are thinking.
yet he did not know how to look at the art exhibits of 1900. He had studied Karl Marx and his doctrines of history with profound attention, yet he could not apply them at Paris.
Since the beginning of the chapter, it seems like Adams is struggling to understand certain topics. Why? Is he just being ignorant?
From the ferocity of pig driven to holiness, From the furred ear and the full jowl come
These lines confused me. Are they stating they were a pig before and then grew to be a lion?
They Lion grow.
so far I'm taking this as they are going through so many things in their life but they are growing in the process of everything. They are becoming a courageous lion themselves.