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English Literature -5th Semester Ernest Miller Hemingway (July
21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American journalist, novelist,
short-story writer, and sportsman. His economical and understated
style—which he termed the iceberg theory—had a strong influence on
20th-century fiction, while his adventurous lifestyle and his
public image brought him admiration from later generations.
Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the
mid-1950s, and he won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954. He
published seven novels, six short-story collections, and two
nonfiction works. Three of his novels, four short-story
collections, and three nonfiction works were published
posthumously. Many of his works are considered classics of American
literature. Hemingway was raised in Oak Park, Illinois. After high
school, he was a reporter for a few months for The Kansas City Star
before leaving for the Italian Front to enlist as an ambulance
driver in World War I. In 1918, he was seriously wounded and
returned home. His wartime experiences formed the basis for his
novel A Farewell to Arms (1929). In 1921, Hemingway married Hadley
Richardson, the first of four wives. They moved to Paris where he
worked as a foreign correspondent and fell under the influence of
the modernist writers and artists of the 1920s' "Lost Generation"
expatriate community. His debut novel The Sun Also Rises was
published in 1926. He divorced Richardson in 1927 and married
Pauline Pfeiffer; they divorced after he returned from the Spanish
Civil War, where he had been a journalist. He based For Whom the
Bell Tolls (1940) on his experience there. Martha Gellhorn became
his third wife in 1940; they separated after he met Mary Welsh in
London during World War II. He was present with the troops as a
journalist at the Normandy landings and the liberation of Paris.
Hemingway maintained permanent residences in Key West, Florida (in
the 1930s) and Cuba (in the 1940s and 1950s). He almost died in
1954 after two plane crashes in as many days; these consecutive
accidents left him in pain and ill health for much of the rest of
his life. In 1959, he bought a house in Ketchum, Idaho, where, in
mid-1961, he ended his own life.
Ernest Hemingway Biography (1899–1961) Nobel Prize winner Ernest
Hemingway is seen as one of the great American 20th century
novelists, and is known for works like 'A Farewell to Arms' and
'The Old Man and the Sea.' Who Was Ernest Hemingway? Ernest
Hemingway served in World War I and worked in journalism before
publishing his story collection In Our Time. He was renowned for
novels like The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, For Whom the
Bell Tolls and The Old Man and the Sea, which won the Pulitzer
Prize in 1953. In 1954, Hemingway won the Nobel Prize. He committed
suicide on July 2, 1961, in Ketchum, Idaho.
Early Life and Career Ernest Miller Hemingway was born on July
21, 1899, in Cicero (now in Oak Park), Illinois. Clarence and Grace
Hemingway raised their son in this conservative suburb of Chicago,
but
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the family also spent a great deal of time in northern Michigan,
where they had a cabin. It was there that the future sportsman
learned to hunt, fish and appreciate the outdoors.
In high school, Hemingway worked on his school newspaper,
Trapeze and Tabula, writing primarily about sports. Immediately
after graduation, the budding journalist went to work for the
Kansas City Star, gaining experience that would later influence his
distinctively stripped-down prose style.
He once said, "On the Star you were forced to learn to write a
simple declarative sentence. This is useful to anyone. Newspaper
work will not harm a young writer and could help him if he gets out
of it in time."
Military Experience In 1918, Hemingway went overseas to serve in
World War I as an ambulance driver in the Italian Army. For his
service, he was awarded the Italian Silver Medal of Bravery, but
soon sustained injuries that landed him in a hospital in Milan.
There he met a nurse named Agnes von Kurowsky, who soon accepted
his proposal of marriage, but later left him for another man. This
devastated the young writer but provided fodder for his works "A
Very Short Story" and, more famously, A Farewell to Arms.
Still nursing his injury and recovering from the brutalities of
war at the young age of 20, he returned to the United States and
spent time in northern Michigan before taking a job at the Toronto
Star.
It was in Chicago that Hemingway met Hadley Richardson, the
woman who would become his first wife. The couple married and
quickly moved to Paris, where Hemingway worked as a foreign
correspondent for the Star.
Life in Europe In Paris, Hemingway soon became a key part of
what Gertrude Stein would famously call "The Lost Generation." With
Stein as his mentor, Hemingway made the acquaintance of many of the
great writers and artists of his generation, such as F. Scott
Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound, Pablo Picasso and James Joyce. In 1923,
Hemingway and Hadley had a son, John Hadley Nicanor Hemingway. By
this time, the writer had also begun frequenting the famous
Festival of San Fermin in Pamplona, Spain.
In 1925, the couple, joining a group of British and American
expatriates, took a trip to the festival that would later provide
the basis of Hemingway's first novel, The Sun Also Rises. The novel
is widely considered Hemingway's greatest work, artfully examining
the postwar disillusionment of his generation.
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Soon after the publication of The Sun Also Rises, Hemingway and
Hadley divorced, due in part to his affair with a woman named
Pauline Pfeiffer, who would become Hemingway's second wife shortly
after his divorce from Hadley was finalized. The author continued
to work on his book of short stories, Men Without Women.
Critical Acclaim Soon, Pauline became pregnant and the couple
decided to move back to America. After the birth of their son
Patrick Hemingway in 1928, they settled in Key West, Florida, but
summered in Wyoming. During this time, Hemingway finished his
celebrated World War I novel A Farewell to Arms, securing his
lasting place in the literary canon.
Ernest Hemingway For Whom the Bell Tolls. For Whom The Bell
Tolls. Ernest Hemingway. Themes Love Love wins even if it is cut
short by death, injury, fear, or disgust. Robert Jordan and Maria
quickly realize that they love each other beyond anything either of
them has ever felt. Maria asks Pilar about how to approach sleeping
with Jordan, and she worries that he will not truly love her
because she is damaged from the rape. But Pilar tells her that
truly loving someone and making love to that person can heal what
was taken from her before. Jordan tells her "Thee, they cannot
touch. No one has touched thee, little rabbit," meaning that she is
still herself inside, no matter what someone has done to her
physically, and that this is the person he loves, the Maria inside.
It only takes that night to make them both believe that they are
one person, that they are meant to be husband and wife, which is
what they call each other on the third day. When they are forced to
separate, Jordan says they are together, always. Love even enters
the relationship of Pilar and Pablo, two people who almost seem to
hate each other: Pilar insults and shouts at Pablo while he drinks
himself into a stupor. But when Pablo throws out the equipment to
blow up the bridge and stays away for the night, he is incredibly
lonely without Pilar. He may fear death, and for that, Pilar is
disgusted with him and ashamed of him. When he comes back and
admits his wrongs, she feels the strength of his love for her. She
can't help but return it, because he did the honorable and right
thing for her sake, not just by returning, but by bringing men and
horses to help repair the damage he has done to the mission.
Courage and Self-Sacrifice In For Whom the Bell Tolls, courage is a
necessity. Robert Jordan believes that courage involves not
thinking and just doing, being so emotionally cold so that one can
move forward and complete missions. But he discovers there is more
to courage than he thought. His courage is tested at every turn,
especially when he has to figure out how to wire the bridge without
the materials that Pablo threw away. Anselmo's willingness to do
this with him serves as a model of courage. Pablo also shows
courage when he comes back to admit that he destroyed vital
equipment for blowing up the bridge, and although he still hates
Robert Jordan and doesn't want to do this job, he overcomes his
fear of death for Pilar in order not to lose her. All of his
guerrillas are willing to risk their lives, so he must risk his own
in order to stay with her. The theme of courage is also shown in
the lack of it, exemplified by Marty's paranoia. He suspects
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everyone of treachery, and while he thinks he's being courageous
by impeding progress, he is avoiding having anything happen to him
at all, and this is an unforgivable lack of courage that affects
everyone around him. Courageous self-sacrifice is part of what it
takes to fight in any war, but particularly in the Spanish Civil
War where only one side really had the advantage. The Republicans
had few resources and were far less organized than the Nationalists
because countries were unwilling to support a group who gained the
support of Stalin's Russia (a brutal totalitarian regime with
state-controlled media and education). The Republicans were left to
their own devices, having to deal with Stalin's rationing of
weapons and supplies, as well as disorganized volunteers and
infighting between communist and socialist factions. In the novel
the guerrillas living in the mountains sacrifice their homes and
their comfort in order to take down the Nationalists. When Maria
begins to do things for Robert Jordan that a wife would do, she
tells him to promise that if there is ever any need he will shoot
her. Then when Jordan breaks his leg, he sacrifices his happiness
with Maria and probably his life by staying behind, while Maria and
the rest of the guerrillas escape with their lives. Horrors of War
The horrors of war are everywhere. The deaths of Maria's family and
her rape at the hands of the Nationalists are only one example. The
Fascist cavalryman who is forced to behead the people he kills in
order to prove they are dead is horrified at the idea because it's
so disrespectful. And Republicans are not immune to creating
horrors of their own. The killing of priests is common, as the
Church sides with the Nationalists, and people like Pablo are
willing to shoot their own if they need their horses. The story
Pilar tells of Pablo directing the bludgeoning of a village full of
Fascists is so evil that it even upsets Pilar, who has become used
to seeing people killed. The fact that Pablo was disappointed that
the priest he killed didn't give a better performance as he died
speaks of how far some killers have gone in their minds. But some
of the Republican guerrillas don't want to have to kill anyone, and
the day that Robert Jordan and Anselmo have to kill people to get
to the bridge to wire it with explosives is a terrible day for both
of them. Anselmo, in particular, is crying because he has had to
kill people, and he hates it. He believes it is a sin to kill a
man, even to kill the Fascists, and he realizes that in war it has
to be done, but he doesn't believe in killing other people. Source:
Course Hero For Whom The Bell Tolls. Ernest Hemingway. Symbols
Ernest Hemingway uses symbols in For Whom the Bell Tolls to
represent the essence of the relationships between major characters
in the novel, the vulnerability they experience in hiding, and
their physical environment. Rabbit In Spain rabbits are commonly
used as meat, so they represent nourishment. Pilar cooks rabbit
stews for the guerrillas, and they "eat like generals." Rabbits are
also sweet little creatures, so in addition to calling Maria guapa,
meaning "beautiful," Robert Jordan also calls her "little rabbit,"
a term of endearment. Both references appear frequently in the
novel. However the term "rabbit" is also used to represent the
vulnerability of the guerrillas in the mountains. The peasants are
hunted down like rabbits, meaning that they are easy prey. Pines
Pines are part of the landscape in the Spanish Pyrenees, and they
serve as protection for the guerrillas, shielding them from gunfire
and keeping them out of sight. The ground is covered with pine
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needles, and they can either cushion a person who is hiding or
they can get into one's weaponry, bags, and clothing. The smell of
the pines is everywhere in the mountains, and Robert Jordan also
enjoys the beauty of the sunlight through the pines to keep him
occupied as he waits for the perfect moment to shoot a sentry. As a
symbol the pine needles provide a connection to nature and the land
of Spain, with which Robert Jordan has a physical relationship that
mirrors his relationship with Maria. Sleeping Robe The sleeping
robe is one of Robert Jordan's prized possessions, and it is
extremely warm. Jordan uses it to sleep outside the cave. When
Maria comes to make love to him under the sleeping robe, it
represents safety and the warmth of their love. At the end of each
full day in the novel, they are again safe in each other's arms
under the sleeping robe. Planes The guerrillas in the mountains are
only armed with explosives and guns, but the Fascists are heavily
armed thanks to help from other countries. The planes bombing El
Sordo on the hill are an example of how unprepared the disorganized
Republicans are in fighting such a powerful enemy. Planes are also
able to see all of the people hiding below, so for the guerrillas,
they represent the vulnerability of hiding in the woods and the
hopelessness of being so vulnerable to attack. Some unknown facts:
In Ernest Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls, published in 1940,
American protagonist Robert Jordan fights alongside the Spanish
forces during the Spanish Civil War of the late 1930s. As he fights
for the Republican government against the Fascist regime led by
Francisco Franco, Jordan experiences war in vivid, graphic, and
illuminating ways. A well-traveled expatriate himself, Hemingway
conveys the inevitable brutalities of war and considers the effects
of technology on warfare. Concerned with the rise of automatic
weapons and explosives in particular, For Whom the Bell Tolls is a
solemn reflection on the similarities and differences between
modern warfare and the battles of "primitive" civilizations—and how
technology has made killing more impersonal. 1. Hemingway borrowed
his title from a famous poet. The 17th-century English poet John
Donne wrote in "Meditation 17" from Devotions upon Emergent
Occasions: Any man's death diminishes me, Because I am involved in
mankind, And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
It tolls for thee. Hemingway chose this title to reflect how, so
many years after Donne, humankind was still interconnected yet torn
apart by war, chaos, and death. The same poem by Donne is also the
source of the adage "No man is an island." 2. For Whom the Bell
Tolls was inspired by Hemingway's time as a reporter. Hemingway
actually traveled to Spain during the Spanish Civil War in 1937 as
a reporter for the North American Newspaper Alliance. Hemingway
sided with the Republican government, while his wife supported
Franco's Fascist regime. 3. For Whom the Bell Tolls was cheated out
of winning a Pulitzer Prize. In 1941 the members of the Pulitzer
Prize board voted For Whom the Bell Tolls as the winner.
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However, the chairman, Nicholas Murray Butler, vetoed this
decision because he was offended by Hemingway's novel. His decision
overrode the rest of the committee. 4. Hemingway insisted that
Ingrid Bergman star in the film adaptation of For Whom the Bell
Tolls. Ingrid Bergman starred as Maria in the 1943 film adaptation
of For Whom the Bell Tolls. Hemingway first saw Bergman in the 1939
version of Intermezzo and purportedly later sent her a copy of his
novel, with the inscription, "You are the Maria in this book." 5.
Hemingway experimented with translation in For Whom the Bell Tolls.
Literary scholars have long been fascinated by the language
Hemingway uses in his novel. Though written in English, For Whom
the Bell Tolls features strange literal translations from Spanish
phrases and sayings. Hemingway also uses the antiquated words thee
and thou to mimic the words vos and vosotros used to address others
formally in Spanish. 6. The massacre Hemingway describes in For
Whom the Bell Tolls was based on a real event. Though critics
debate the exact setting of the massacre in Chapter 10, many
believe the scene was inspired by events that occurred in the
Andalusian town of Ronda during the summer of 1936. It is estimated
that between 200 and 600 people were executed in the town during
the Spanish Civil War. 7. Metallica was inspired by For Whom the
Bell Tolls. The famous metal band Metallica included a song by the
same name on their 1984 album Ride the Lightning. The song aims to
capture Hemingway's tone in relation to the effects of modernized
warfare on soldiers. 8. Hemingway traveled quite frequently as he
wrote For Whom the Bell Tolls. Hemingway began work on For Whom the
Bell Tolls in Cuba in 1939, after he purchased a house there.
However, he brought the manuscript with him and continued to write
it as he spent time in Sun Valley, Idaho, and Key West, Florida,
over the next year. 9. Hemingway used to assist Irish novelist and
poet James Joyce in bar fights. Much like the character Pablo in
For Whom the Bell Tolls, Hemingway was a drinker who considered
himself something of a brawler. His frequent adventures abroad made
him confident during fights. On at least one occasion when
Hemingway was drinking with James Joyce, Joyce yelled, "Deal with
him, Hemingway, deal with him!" regarding a man Joyce had picked a
fight with but was unable to match in strength. 10. One of For Whom
the Bell Tolls's characters broke gender stereotypes in Spain.
Throughout the novel, Maria, Robert Jordan's lover, is described as
wearing trousers instead of skirts. This was virtually unheard of
in Spain before the civil war and highlighted Maria's stance as a
guerrilla fighter, rebelling against the gender roles of her
culture.
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1.Hope Unit IV Poetry
1.Emily Dickinson 1)Hope is The Thing with Feathers
2)Because I could not Stop for Death 3)I am Nobody
4)A Bird Came Down The Walk
“Hope” is the thing with feathers - (314) BY EMILY DICKINSON
“Hope” is the thing with feathers - That perches in the soul
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And sings the tune without the words - And never stops - at all
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And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -
And sore must be the storm - That could abash the little
Bird
That kept so many warm -
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I’ve heard it in the chillest land - And on the strangest Sea -
Yet - never - in Extremity, It asked a crumb - of me.
Emily Dickinson And A Summary of Hope Is The Thing With Feathers
"Hope" Is The Thing With Feathers is one of the best known of Emily
Dickinson's poems. An
extended metaphor, it likens the concept of hope to a feathered
bird that is permanently perched in the soul of every human. There
it sings, never stopping in its quest to inspire.
Emily Dickinson wrote this poem in 1862, a prolific year for her
poetry, one of nearly 1800
poems she penned during her lifetime. Only seven of these were
published while she was still alive. Her sister Lavinia collected
and helped publish all of her poems after Emily's death in
1886.
The Belle of Amherst, so called, remains an enigma. Her poetry
was highly original but was dismissed or simply misunderstood when
she sent her work out for appraisal or publication. It was only
after she had passed away and her poems circulated more widely that
critics began
to appreciate her genius.
Her poems, together with those of Walt Whitman, were pioneering
works that pointed the way to a new and refreshing era of poetry in
the English speaking world.
Emily Dickinson seems to have been a recluse for most of her
adult life, living at the family
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home, only rarely venturing out. Quiet and timid, she never
married or actively sought a permanent relationship, despite
correspondence with several older men she viewed as her
protectors.
Her poetry however reflects a lively, imaginative and dynamic
inner world; she was able to capture universal moments in a simple
sentence, create metaphors that have stood the test of
time.
Hope Is The Thing With Feathers stands out as a reminder to all
- no matter the circumstances each and every one of us has this
entity within that is always there to help us
out, by singing.
Summary of Hope Is The Thing With Feathers Full of figurative
language, this poem is an extended metaphor, transforming hope into
a bird (the poet loved birds) that is ever present in the human
soul. It sings, especially when times
get tough. Hope springs eternal, might be a reasonable summing
up.
With typical disregard for convention, Emily Dickinson's odd
looking syntax has clauses interrupted by dashes, and only one
comma throughout. This can be confusing for the reader
because of the need to pause and place extra emphasis on certain
phrases.
The rhythm of the poem varies in places too, which may not be
apparent on first sighting. Readily set to music, the words are a
reminder of the poet's yearning for fulfilment in both
creativity and love. And they beautifully encapsulate what hope
is for us all - something that inspires and can make us fly.
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1. How do we know that Dickinson is referring to a bird at the
beginning of the poem? Hope is depicted as having "feathers", which
is the first indication that Dickinson is comparing it to a bird.
Hope also "perches" and "sings" like a bird. Dickinson uses
elements of a bird, such as its ability to fly and sing, to
illustrate her idea of hope. Later in the poem, she explicitly
refers to hope as the "little bird", which confirms the earlier
imagery.
2. What is the significance of seafaring in this poem?
In many literary texts, the idea of seafaring is used to
symbolize extreme adversity and difficulty. Dickinson uses the
imagery of seafaring in this poem, for example, the "gale" and the
"storm" to emphasize the adversity that the little bird is facing.
In the metaphor of the poem, seafaring is used to illustrate and
represent the struggles humans face in
their lives, and their ability to overcome them with hope.
Summary of “Hope” is the Thing with Feathers
Popularity: Written by Emily Dickinson, an American poet, “Hope”
is the Thing with Feathers” is a masterpiece of spiritual
expressions about hope and its impacts on
the mind. It was first published in 1891 and gained immense
popularity due to its subject. Emily has presented hope as an
ever-singing and selfless bird within the
soul of a person. According to her, hope as a golden quality of
human being that shines even during adversity. Using it as a
metaphor, she has highlighted the
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importance of being hopeful and optimistic. Dickenson also
explains that only hope can help us to remain positive during
extreme situations.
Representation of “Hope” as a God-gifted Quality: The poet
compares hope with a free and courageous bird that sings its
wordless tune no matter what the situation is. This bird, as a
silent companion, continues to preach the soul to stay steadfast
and hopeful regardless of obstacles. Its song helps the devastated
souls to regain their senses. By using the word “at all,” Dickenson
shows that hope is everlasting, ever
shining and undefeatable. She compares human struggle with the
storm and illustrates that hope serves as a beacon of light in that
storm. Towards the end, she represents her own miserable plight.
She expresses that hope helped her survive the tests and
trials of her life. Major Themes in “Hope” is the Thing with
Feathers: Hope is the major theme that
runs throughout the poem. Emily says that hope resides in the
hearts for good. It liberates us from despair and gives us the
strength to move on. It only empowers us
and in return demands nothing. Briefly, as the sole theme of
this poem, hope has been personified to show its importance to the
weak souls.
Analysis of Literary Devices in “Hope” is the Thing with
Feathers
Writers and poets use literary devices to make their poetry
comprehensible, beautiful and rich. Emily Dickenson also has used
some literary devices to express her spiritual thoughts.
The analysis of some of the literary devices used in the poem is
given below.
Alliteration: It refers to the repetition of the same consonant
sounds occurring close together in a row to create musical effects
such as /h/ sound in “we have heard it in
the chilliest land” where this sound has created a musical
quality in the line.
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Consonance: Consonance is the repetition of consonant sounds
such as the sound of /th/ in “the tune without the words” and the
sound of /t/ in “that could abet the little
bird.” Assonance: Assonance is the repetition of the vowel
sounds in the same line such as
the sound of /i/ in “I’ve heard it in the chilliest land.”
Metaphor: There is one extended metaphor in the poem. Dickenson has
compared
hope with “feathers”/ “bird” which shows how it sings and gives
courage to the spirit of a person.
Personification: When an inanimate object is given human
characteristics or qualities, it is personified. In the first
stanza, Dickenson considers hoping a preacher that keeps on
preaching and never stops. It sings its silent song in the hearts
of the
men to fill them with spiritual power. In other words, she has
personified hope in this poem.
Imagery: Imagery is used to make the readers perceive things
through five senses. It helps them to create a mental picture of
the objects described. The poet has used
images for the sense of sight such as, “bird”, “feathers”,
“storm”, “land” and “sea.” Symbol: Emily has used many symbols to
show the powerful impact of hope in our
lives. “Chilliest Sea” and “storm” symbolize struggles during
trying times when hope is still there.
The analysis of these literary devices shows that Dickenson has
made wonderful use of these literary devices to convey her message
effectively.
Analysis of Poetic Devices in “Hope is the Thing with
Feathers
Poetic devices are part of literary devices, but some are used
only in poetry. Their use brings rhythm, continuity, depth and
musical effects in poetry. The analysis of the devices
used in the poem is stated below.
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Stanza: A stanza is the poetic form of some lines. There are
three stanzas in the poem, each having four lines.
Rhyme Scheme: The poem is structured into a quatrain and a
sequence of three rhyming lines. Lines five to eight are the
quatrain whereas nine to twelve are three
lines. The rhyme scheme is ABCB. Meter: The poet has used iambic
trimeter and iambic tetrameter alternatively in different lines.
For example, “That perches in the soul —” is in iambic trimeter,
while
“And sings the tune without the words —” is in tetrameter.
Quatrain: A quatrain is a four-lined stanza taken from Persian
poetry. Here, each
stanza is a quatrain, as well as each stanza, has four
lines.
The analysis of these poetic devices shows that Dickenson has
used these devices to create a melody with the rhythm in the poem
while conveying the underlying message of hope.
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2. Death TEXT Because I could not stop for Death (479) Emily
Dickinson - 1830-1886 Because I could not stop for Death – He
kindly stopped for me – The Carriage held but just Ourselves – And
Immortality. We slowly drove – He knew no haste And I had put away
My labor and my leisure too, For His Civility – We passed the
School, where Children strove At Recess – in the Ring – We passed
the Fields of Gazing Grain – We passed the Setting Sun – Or rather
– He passed us – The Dews drew quivering and chill – For only
Gossamer, my Gown – My Tippet – only Tulle – We paused before a
House that seemed A Swelling of the Ground – The Roof was scarcely
visible – The Cornice – in the Ground – Since then – 'tis Centuries
– and yet Feels shorter than the Day I first surmised the Horses'
Heads Were toward Eternity – Emily Dickinson's Collected Poems
Summary and Analysis of "Because I could not stop for Death --" In
this poem, Dickinson’s speaker is communicating from beyond the
grave, describing her journey with Death, personified, from life to
afterlife. In the opening stanza, the speaker is too busy for Death
(“Because I could not stop for Death—“), so Death—“kindly”—takes
the time to do what she cannot, and stops for her. This “civility”
that Death exhibits in taking time out for her leads her to give up
on those things that had made her so busy—“And I had put away/My
labor and my leisure too”—so they can just enjoy this carriage ride
(“We slowly drove – He knew no haste”). In the third stanza we see
reminders of the world that the speaker is passing from, with
children playing and fields of grain. Her place in the world shifts
between this stanza and the next; in the third stanza, “We passed
the Setting Sun—,” but at the opening of the fourth stanza, she
corrects this—“Or rather – He passed Us –“—because she has stopped
being an active agent, and is only now a part of the landscape. In
this stanza, after the realization of her new place in the world,
her death also becomes suddenly very physical, as “The Dews drew
quivering and chill—,” and she explains that her dress is only
gossamer, and her “Tippet,” a kind of cape usually made out of fur,
is “only Tulle.” After this moment of seeing the coldness of her
death, the carriage pauses at her new “House.” The description of
the house—“A Swelling of the Ground—“—makes it clear that this is
no cottage, but instead a grave. Yet they only “pause” at this
house, because although it is ostensibly her home, it is
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really only a resting place as she travels to eternity. The
final stanza shows a glimpse of this immortality, made most clear
in the first two lines, where she says that although it has been
centuries since she has died, it feels no longer than a day. It is
not just any day that she compares it to, however—it is the very
day of her death, when she saw “the Horses’ Heads” that were
pulling her towards this eternity. Analysis Dickinson’s poems deal
with death again and again, and it is never quite the same in any
poem. In “Because I could not stop for Death—,” we see death
personified. He is no frightening, or even intimidating, reaper,
but rather a courteous and gentle guide, leading her to eternity.
The speaker feels no fear when Death picks her up in his carriage,
she just sees it as an act of kindness, as she was too busy to find
time for him. It is this kindness, this individual attention to
her—it is emphasized in the first stanza that the carriage holds
just the two of them, doubly so because of the internal rhyme in
“held” and “ourselves”—that leads the speaker to so easily give up
on her life and what it contained. This is explicitly stated, as it
is “For His Civility” that she puts away her “labor” and her
“leisure,” which is Dickinson using metonymy to represent another
alliterative word—her life. Indeed, the next stanza shows the life
is not so great, as this quiet, slow carriage ride is contrasted
with what she sees as they go. A school scene of children playing,
which could be emotional, is instead only an example of the
difficulty of life—although the children are playing “At Recess,”
the verb she uses is “strove,” emphasizing the labors of existence.
The use of anaphora with “We passed” also emphasizes the tiring
repetitiveness of mundane routine. The next stanza moves to present
a more conventional vision of death—things become cold and more
sinister, the speaker’s dress is not thick enough to warm or
protect her. Yet it quickly becomes clear that though this part of
death—the coldness, and the next stanza’s image of the grave as
home—may not be ideal, it is worth it, for it leads to the final
stanza, which ends with immortality. Additionally, the use of
alliteration in this stanza that emphasizes the material
trappings—“gossamer” “gown” and “tippet” “tulle”—makes the stanza
as a whole less sinister. That immorality is the goal is hinted at
in the first stanza, where “Immortality” is the only other occupant
of the carriage, yet it is only in the final stanza that we see
that the speaker has obtained it. Time suddenly loses its meaning;
hundreds of years feel no different than a day. Because time is
gone, the speaker can still feel with relish that moment of
realization, that death was not just death, but immortality, for
she “surmised the Horses’ Heads/Were toward Eternity –.” By ending
with “Eternity –,” the poem itself enacts this eternity, trailing
out into the infinite. Source Wikepedia "Because I could not stop
for Death" is a lyrical poem by Emily Dickinson first published
posthumously in Poems: Series 1 in 1890. Dickinson's work was never
authorized to be published so it is unknown whether Because I could
not stop for Death was completed or "abandoned".[1] The speaker of
Dickinson's poem meets personified Death. Death is a gentleman who
is riding in the horse carriage that picks up the speaker in the
poem and takes the speaker on her journey to the afterlife.
According to Thomas H. Johnson's variorum edition of 1955 the
number of this poem is "712". The poem was published posthumously
in 1890 in Poems: Series 1, a collection of Dickinson's poems
assembled and edited by her friends Mabel Loomis Todd and Thomas
Wentworth Higginson. The poem was published under the title "The
Chariot". It is composed in six quatrains with the meter
alternating between iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter. Stanzas
1, 2, 4, and 6 employ end rhyme in their second and fourth lines,
but some of these are only close rhyme or eye rhyme. In the third
stanza, there is no end rhyme, but "ring" in line 2 rhymes with
"gazing" and "setting" in lines 3 and 4 respectively. Internal
rhyme is scattered throughout. Figures of speech include
alliteration, anaphora, paradox, and personification. The poem
personifies Death as a gentleman caller who takes a leisurely
carriage ride with the poet to her grave. She also personifies
immortality.[2] Her familiarity with Death and Immortality at
the
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beginning of the poem causes the reader to feel at ease with the
idea of Death. However, as the poem progresses, a sudden shift in
tone causes readers to see Death for what it really is, cruel and
evil [3]. This volta (turn) happens in the fourth quatrain.
Structurally, the syllables shift from its constant 8-6-8-6 scheme
to 6-8-8-6. This parallels with the undertones of the sixth
quatrain. The personification of death changes from one of
pleasantry to one of ambiguity and morbidity: "Or rather--He passed
Us-- / The Dews drew quivering and chill--" (13–14). The imagery
changes from its original nostalgic form of children playing and
setting suns to Death's real concern of taking the speaker to the
afterlife. There are various interpretations of Dickinson's poem
surrounding the Christian belief in the afterlife and read the poem
as if it were from the perspective of a "delayed final
reconciliation of the soul with God."[6] Dickinson has been
classified by critics before as a Christian poet as her other works
have been interpreted as contemplation of the "merits of Christ and
his past, present, and future relation to herself."[7] The speaker
joins both "Death" and "Immortality" inside the carriage that
collects her, thus personifying the two part process, according to
the Christian faith, that first life stops and following death we
encounter immortality though our existence in the after life. While
death is the guaranteed of the two, immortality "remains ... an
expectation."[6] The horses that lead the carriage are only facing
"toward Eternity," which indicates either that the speaker has yet
to reach it or that it can never be reached at all. Dickinson's
tone contributes to the poem as well. In describing a traditionally
frightening experience, the process of dying and passing into
eternity, she uses a passive and calm tone. Critics attribute the
lack of fear in her tone as her acceptance of death as "a natural
part of the endless cycle of nature," due to the certainty in her
belief in Christ.[6] In 1936 Allen Tate wrote, [The poem]
exemplifies better than anything else [Dickinson] wrote the special
quality of her mind ... If the word great means anything in poetry,
this poem is one of the greatest in the English language; it is
flawless to the last detail. The rhythm charges with movement the
pattern of suspended action back of the poem. Every image is
precise and, moreover, not merely beautiful, but inextricably fused
with the central idea. Every image extends and intensifies every
other ... No poet could have invented the elements of [this poem];
only a great poet could have used them so perfectly. Miss Dickinson
was a deep mind writing from a deep culture, and when she came to
poetry, she came infallibly.
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3. "I'm Nobody
"I'm Nobody! Who are you?" is a short lyric poem by Emily
Dickinson first published in 1891 in Poems, Series 2. It is one of
Dickinson’s most popular poems. PFA the text. I'm Nobody! Who are
you? (260) Emily Dickinson - 1830-1886 I'm Nobody! Who are you? Are
you – Nobody – too? Then there's a pair of us! Don't tell! they'd
advertise – you know! How dreary – to be – Somebody! How public –
like a Frog – To tell one's name – the livelong June – To an
admiring Bog! Review Of ‘I’m Nobody! Who Are You?’ Thesis
Statement: Emily Dickinson poem, “I’m Nobody! Who Are You?”, is
successful on influencing readers that the best ideas can come from
nothing. Introduction: I chose this as one of the famous poet’s
known poem, which is found at Chapter 10.1, entitled: “The Speaker
(Persona) in a Poem.” It can also be found from Thomas H. Johnson’s
(1960) Book of “Complete Poems” as its 288th entry: “I’m Nobody!
Who are you? — Are you- Nobody-Too? — Then there’s a pair of us! —
Don’t tell! they’d advertise, you know. —- How dreary-to be-
Somebody! — How public-like a frog- — To tell one’s name- the
livelong June- — To an admiring bog!” What about the poem’s form,
language, content, or other dimension do you find engaging?: I find
engaging its genre of lyrical form, English language using informal
diction and bearing a very good rhyme scheme (“o” sound in lines 1
and 2 with “g” in 6 and 8) with 2 stanzas. The theme shows how one
can find the identity of self and gather the best ideas can come
from only doing nothing. It uses the simile and metaphor figure of
speeches, because it was able to compare or equate unlike things in
similarity (“Nobody” vs “Famous” persons) and used the word “like”
in line 6 in the second stanza. Moreover, to dissect the poem, when
the word “they” was mentioned in line 4, wherein the poet was
pertaining to famous people or any person situated in high levels
the of society (Essay on Emily dickinson “i am nobody! who are
you?” para. 1). With a very short content of only 8 lines,
Dickinson was able to quickly reach out to others who would want to
have the same privacy she experienced and also gain fruitful
outcomes from this choice. Doing this is actually not seen as usual
in famous persons or high level situated bodies. How does the
poem’s use of language compare to that of everyday speech?: I can
say that in terms of both modern and classic writing on poetry, it
still uses informal diction, though there certainly will be a
difference in the use of words if one can write it today. To
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site a modern view on Dickinson’s way of writing in the “I’m
Nobody! Who Are You?” poem, Jessica Writes (2007) wrote an online
essay saying that, it is evident here that she is referring to a
friend that she had relationships kept in private, but were
foretold mostly by her corresponding letters. Indeed she is
successful in her field. Wherein, she was productive during times
she was alone, nursing the gardens inside their yard, writing
poetry and reading. Since, she preferred to be named as an
anonymous poet to her poems; it shows a personal assessment as “A
Nobody” in the society, being a direct reflection of ideals as a
non-conformist to the society. Its psychological nature are greatly
affecting to people and objects geared towards seeing themselves in
this way in life. With today’s social pressures, even the smallest
poem can help. Back in the old days, wherein classic literature are
given birth to, renaissance and revolutions are greatly affected
with writers who seek for a new beginning and freedom thru their
writing skills. How do the differences and/or similarities between
speech and poetic form affect your experience of the poem?:
Domhnall Mitchell (2000), a very good critic of literature,
mentioned in his book, that the poem “I’m Nobody! Who Are You?” is
a form of confessional poetry. Wherein, I agree with this thought.
That is why it uses the simile and metaphor figure of speeches,
because it was able to compare or equate unlike things in
similarity, which is the Dickinson and akin others being the
“Nobody” type of persons judged against the “Famous” type of
persons (who would not likely to favor practices of a “Nobody.”) At
first, a reader would have taught that Dickinson was talking about
herself, but there is a quick turn of mood when the poem becomes
about the reader. I find this interesting. This can be seen after
the 1 line was said, which is a statement about Dickinson’s poetic
self, and then there is a following string of questions pertaining
to the reader’s own selves. Lastly, the poems 2 immediate concerns
are: the readers asking who we are, as well as the how is the
relationship existing between the reader and the poet (pp.
157-158). Do these differences and/or similarities influence how
you think or feel about the subject matter of the poem?: In terms
of familiarity, I can say that this poem is reflective of
Dickinson’s life and not the persons she sites in her poem. It is
more personal in nature. For instance, Arthur Versluis (2001),
another very good critic of literature in history, mentioned the
opinion of John Cody, in his own book, that her works are
pronouncing of her madness as a result. That is why the poem, “I’m
Nobody! Who Are You?”, has certain negativity touch on it. It was
also quoted, “one will inevitably misunderstand and trivialize much
of Emily Dickinson’s life and poetry if one fails to grasp the full
intensity of her suffering and the magnitude of her collapse. For
this reason let me state at the onset my thesis that the crisis
Emily Dickinson suffered following the marriage of her brother was
a psychosis” (p. 175). Conclusion: Yes, I agree that the best ideas
can come from nothing. You can occupy your time with writing
poetries like what Emily Dickinson is known for during her time.
Yet, even if one decides a secluded life, society will hunt.
Dickinson’s writes in such a way that she dictates and forces the
reader’s mind to think the same and view society like her opinion.
The advantage I can see here is that it is leading to a
self-evaluation and growth in uniqueness as individuals. On the
other hand, a disadvantage of her way of writing (as well as
thinking) is that it fails to show the right personality for an
individual. When, maturity takes place, when one knows his or her
purpose in life, then the best ideas can come in, one can make
fruitful outcomes and one can reach success. Even the quietest
moments or disturbing scenes takes self-confidence and trust, a
parallel thought to both being a “Nobody” and a “Famous”
person.
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SUMMARY “I’M NOBODY! WHO ARE YOU?” Summary The speaker exclaims
that she is “Nobody,” and asks, “Who are you? / Are you—
Nobody—too?” If so, she says, then they are a pair of nobodies, and
she admonishes her addressee not to tell, for “they’d banish us—you
know!” She says that it would be “dreary” to be “Somebody”—it would
be “public” and require that, “like a Frog,” one tell one’s name
“the livelong June— / To an admiring Bog!” Form The two stanzas of
“I’m Nobody!” are highly typical for Dickinson, constituted of
loose iambic trimeter occasionally including a fourth stress (“To
tell your name—the livelong June—”). They follow an ABCB rhyme
scheme (though in the first stanza, “you” and “too” rhyme, and
“know” is only a half-rhyme, so the scheme could appear to be
AABC), and she frequently uses rhythmic dashes to interrupt the
flow.
X Honest Names for All the Books on Your English Syllabus | The
SparkNotes Blog Honest Names for All the Books on Your English
Syllabus | The SparkNotes Blog Commentary Ironically, one of the
most famous details of Dickinson lore today is that she was utterly
un-famous during her lifetime—she lived a relatively reclusive life
in Amherst, Massachusetts, and though she wrote nearly 1,800 poems,
she published fewer than ten of them. This poem is her most famous
and most playful defense of the kind of spiritual privacy she
favored, implying that to be a Nobody is a luxury incomprehensible
to the dreary Somebodies—for they are too busy keeping their names
in circulation, croaking like frogs in a swamp in the summertime.
This poem is an outstanding early example of Dickinson’s often
jaunty approach to meter (she uses her trademark dashes quite
forcefully to interrupt lines and interfere with the flow of her
poem, as in “How dreary— to be—Somebody!”). Further, the poem
vividly illustrates her surprising way with language. The
juxtaposition in the line “How public—like a Frog—” shocks the
first-time reader, combining elements not typically considered
together, and, thus, more powerfully conveying its meaning (frogs
are “public” like public figures—or
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Somebodies—because they are constantly “telling their name”—
croaking—to the swamp, reminding all the other frogs of their
identities). 4. A Bird A Bird, came down the Walk - (359) BY EMILY
DICKINSON A Bird, came down the Walk - He did not know I saw - He
bit an Angle Worm in halves And ate the fellow, raw, And then, he
drank a Dew From a convenient Grass - And then hopped sidewise to
the Wall To let a Beetle pass - He glanced with rapid eyes, That
hurried all abroad - They looked like frightened Beads, I thought,
He stirred his Velvet Head. - Like one in danger, Cautious, I
offered him a Crumb, And he unrolled his feathers, And rowed him
softer Home - Than Oars divide the Ocean, Too silver for a seam, Or
Butterflies, off Banks of Noon, Leap, plashless as they swim.
Source: The Poems of Emily Dickinson: Reading Edition, edited by
R.W. Franklin (Harvard University Press, 1999) "A Bird came down
the Walk" is a short poem by Emily Dickinson (1830–1886) that tells
of the poet's encounter with a worm-eating bird. The poem was first
published in 1891 in the second collection of Dickinson's poems.
Summary The poet encounters a bird on the walk who eats an
angle-worm, drinks a dew from a convenient grass, and then steps
aside to let a beetle pass. The bird then glances about, apparently
frightened. The poet offers the bird a crumb but the bird takes
flight. In this poem Dickinson watched the bird when it came down
to the walk. The bird didn't know the poetess was watching it. It
caught the angle-worm and it pecked it into two parts. Then it ate
the raw flesh of the worm and drank a drop of dew from a nearby
grass. Then the bird looks around quickly with its darting eyes in
order to protect it from other evil forces. Then the narrator
offers the bird a piece of crumb, but the bird neglects it and then
it flies away. The poet observes that the flight of the bird is
"softer" than moving the oars that divide the ocean or that of
butterflies plunging soundlessly into space . The bird and its
actions are captured in minute details in the poem, through vivid
images. Critique Helen Vendler regards the poem as a "bizarre
little narrative" but one that typifies many of Dickinson's best
qualities. She likens the poet to a reporter observing a murderer
in the act, and later, pretending fear that the murderer may be
dangerous to herself and must be mollified by a "crumb". The bird
takes flight and Vendler regards what follows - the description of
the bird in flight - as "the astonishing part of the poem". Vendler
notes that the poem typifies Dickinson's "cool eye, her unsparing
factuality,
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her startling similes and metaphors, her psychological
observations of herself and others, her capacity for showing
herself mistaken, and her exquisite relish of natural beauty".[3]
Harold Bloom notes that the bird displays a "complex mix of
qualities: ferocity, fastidiousness, courtesy, fear, and grace",
and writes that the description of the bird's flight is that seen
by the soul rather than the "finite eyes".[4] Vendler observes that
Dickinson wrote two versions of the middle portion of the poem. The
version she sent to her literary mentor Thomas Wentworth Higginson
has no punctuation after "Head" and a period after the word
"Cautious". In Dickinson's personal copy, there is a comma (not a
period) after "Cautious". In the first version then, the bird is
cautious, but in the second version, it is the poet who is
cautious. In the fair copy, both a period and a dash follow "Head",
and a comma follows "Cautious". The fair copy version is the one
usually printed, and, as Vendler notes, this version accords with
Dickinson's comic sense.[3] Dr. Chuck Taylor, poet and professor,
believes this naturalistic description of a bird to be also
symbolic. The description of the bird taking flight lightly
suggests the same potential ease of journey for the soul to heaven,
in spite of imperfection, such as killing to eat, as the bird eats
the angle worm. Source:wikipedia SUMMARY “A BIRD CAME DOWN THE
WALK—...” Summary The speaker describes once seeing a bird come
down the walk, unaware that it was being watched. The bird ate an
angleworm, then “drank a Dew / From a convenient Grass—,” then
hopped sideways to let a beetle pass by. The bird’s frightened,
bead-like eyes glanced all around. Cautiously, the speaker offered
him “a Crumb,” but the bird “unrolled his feathers” and flew
away—as though rowing in the water, but with a grace gentler than
that with which “Oars divide the ocean” or butterflies leap “off
Banks of Noon”; the bird appeared to swim without splashing. Form
Structurally, this poem is absolutely typical of Dickinson, using
iambic trimeter with occasional four-syllable lines, following a
loose ABCB rhyme scheme, and rhythmically breaking up the meter
with long dashes. (In this poem, the dashes serve a relatively
limited function, occurring only at the end of lines, and simply
indicating slightly longer pauses at line breaks.)
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SparkNotes Blog Honest Names for All the Books on Your English
Syllabus | The SparkNotes Blog
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Commentary Emily Dickinson’s life proves that it is not
necessary to travel widely or lead a life full of Romantic grandeur
and extreme drama in order to write great poetry; alone in her
house at Amherst, Dickinson pondered her experience as fully, and
felt it as acutely, as any poet who has ever lived. In this poem,
the simple experience of watching a bird hop down a path allows her
to exhibit her extraordinary poetic powers of observation and
description.
Dickinson keenly depicts the bird as it eats a worm, pecks at
the grass, hops by a beetle, and glances around fearfully. As a
natural creature frightened by the speaker into flying away, the
bird becomes an emblem for the quick, lively, ungraspable wild
essence that distances nature from the human beings who desire to
appropriate or tame it. But the most remarkable feature of this
poem is the imagery of its final stanza, in which Dickinson
provides one of the most breath-taking descriptions of flying in
all of poetry. Simply by offering two quick comparisons of flight
and by using aquatic motion (rowing and swimming), she evokes the
delicacy and fluidity of moving through air. The image of
butterflies leaping “off Banks of Noon,” splashlessly swimming
though the sky, is one of the most memorable in all Dickinson’s
writing. Emily Dickinson's Collected Poems Themes Death is one of
the foremost themes in Dickinson’s poetry. No two poems have
exactly the same understanding of death, however. Death is
sometimes gentle, sometimes menacing, sometimes simply inevitable.
In “I heard a Fly buzz – when I died –,” Dickinson investigates the
physical process of dying. In “Because I could not stop for Death
–,“ she personifies death, and presents the process of dying as
simply the realization that there is eternal life. In “Behind Me
dips – Eternity,” death is the normal state, life is but an
interruption. In “My life had stood – a Loaded Gun –,” the
existence of death allows for the existence of life. In “Some –
Work for Immortality –,” death is the moment where the speaker can
cash their check of good behavior for their eternal rewards. All of
these varied pictures of death, however, do not truly contradict
each other. Death is the ultimate unknowable, and so Dickinson
circles around it, painting portraits of each of its many facets,
as a way to come as close to knowing it as she can. Truth and its
tenuous nature Dickinson is fascinated and obsessed with the idea
of truth, and with finding it in her poems. She knows that this is
close to impossible—like “To fill a Gap” teaches,
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answering one question just leads to further questions—yet she
also posits that a kind of truth can be found, if done so
circuitously, as in “Tell all the Truth but tell it Slant –.” This
is reflected in how she deals with all of her other themes. Her
poems come back to these central themes again and again, but they
are never treated in exactly the same way. She discovers new sides
to each of them, comes at them from new angles, and by
investigating each theme again and again in seemingly contradictory
ways, she is finding the truth in her “Circuits.” Dickinson also
clearly shows that truth is found more easily in negative or
painful emotions. In “I like a look of Agony,” she shows how she
can only trust people who are dying, because that is the one thing
that cannot be faked. Her own grief and others’ is powerful to her,
because, while it may not be pleasant, she has found something
honest. And this drives her poetry—the experience of these painful
emotions allows her to represent them faithfully, and thus write
honest poetry. Fame and success Dickinson wrote many poems dealing
with fame and success. These poems almost always elucidate the
negative sides of these ostensibly positive things. In “I’m Nobody!
Who are you?” to gain fame one must advertise oneself, use one’s
own name and identity as marketing tools. This fame, also, is made
meaningless by the fact that its audience is an unthinking “Bog.”
“Success is counted sweetest –“ does not present quite so wholly
negative a vision of fame and success. Success here, however, is
dangerous, for it takes away the speaker’s ability to appreciate
that success. This represents a general lessening of the successful
person’s emotional realm, and if this success is in the field of
poetry, that will certainly lead to weaker poems in the future.
This focus on the negatives of fame and success makes it seem like
Dickinson did not want them for herself, that she was happier
unpublished and unknown. This is belied, however, by the simple
fact that she wrote about them so frequently. She may have known
very well the dangers of them, but clearly still found fame and
success enticing and fascinating. Grief Grief is virtually
omnipresent in Dickinson’s poetry. Other characters are few and far
between in these poems, but grief is practically Dickinson’s
primary companion. When other people do appear, it is often only
grief that allows Dickinson to feel connected to them. She only
trusts people who display “a look of Agony,” because it is the only
emotion that she knows must be true -- thus it is only with the
dead and dying that Dickinson’s wall of distrust collapses. In “I
measure every Grief I meet,” grief does not just bring Dickinson
closer to others because she can trust it, but rather because it is
a bond between them, and knowing they are grieving too makes her
burden of grief somewhat lighter. Thus, in “I like a look of
Agony,” and “I measure every Grief I meet,” it is only grief that
allows Dickinson to feel that she is a part of the community.
Dickinson also shows another positive side of grief—it gives her
strength. In “I can wade Grief –“ she makes it clear that happiness
only intoxicates her, makes her stumble and ostensibly lose her
great perceptive abilities. Grief, however, emboldens her, makes
her
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able to face anything, and gives her the strength and
perceptiveness to write the poetry that she does. Faith Dickinson’s
poetry is highly interested in faith, in God, in religion. The fact
that she so often wrote in a traditionally religious hymnal stanza
form emphasizes this fact. God is essential to her, yet she is
unwilling to just accept the traditional dogma, and so explores
other possibilities for faith in her poetry, just like while she
follows stanza form, she breaks conventions of rhyme and
punctuation. Often, many of her poems about nature seem to be the
most religious. “There’s a certain Slant of light –“ presents this
light as almost a divine vision, and shows how nature can be very
closely tied to God, yet can also distance the reader from him.
“The Bat is dun, with wrinkled Wings –,” shows that it is the ugly,
eccentric creatures who can bring us closest to an understanding of
God. Her poems never claim to any understanding of the divine,
however. What she is most certain of is God’s inscrutability.
Indeed, it is only her relationship to him that she can fully
investigate. In many of her poems in which there is another figure
besides the speaker, it is often unclear whether this figure is God
or a lover, and these poems can often be read either way. This
elucidates the profound closeness with God that Dickinson searched
for. Freedom through poetry Poetry in Dickinson’s poems is an
expansive, greatly liberating force. In “They shut me up in Prose
–,“ society tries to limit the speaker to the acceptable female
roles, shutting her in closets or in prose to prevent her from
expressing herself. These limitations, however, only inspire her
further, and fuel her to write her poetry. This they cannot limit,
no matter how they try, for poetry is limitless, as she shows us in
“I dwell in Possibility –“ — it is a house with no roof but the
sky. This metaphor of poetry as house also allows Dickinson to
transform what oppresses her—those female tasks of running the
household—into a setting for what frees her—her poetry. This
metaphor also allows Dickinson to take possession of poetry—it is
not solely a male vocation, in the realm of politics and wars, but
also a female vocation, situated in the house and garden. Intensity
of emotion Dickinson’s poetry exhibits a profound intensity of
emotion, and her poems also focus on this as a subject, extolling
the virtues of such intensity. In “I like a look of Agony,” she
shows that only the most intense emotions can be trusted, can be
exhibited for others with honesty—and thus, only the most intense
emotions belong in poetry. “Dare you see a Soul at the White Heat?”
shows, however, that while positive, this level of emotional
intensity is neither easy to produce and experience, nor is it easy
to observe. In this poem, the speaker must enact a painful forging
process to refine her emotions to this heightened level, and while
it is glorious, almost divine when she does, it is still a
challenging thing for the reader to observe. “The first Day’s Night
had come” shows just how dangerous such intensity of emotion can
be; why the reader must “dare” to witness it. In this poem, the
speaker’s emotions are so overpowering that she cannot maintain a
whole, incorporated identity, and she loses her mind. Thus while
most of Dickinson’s poems extol the honesty in heightened emotions,
we see that there is a risk in all of this.
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The Glass Menagerie Tennessee Williams
The Glass Menagerie From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
The Glass Menagerie
Written by Tennessee Williams
Characters Amanda Wingfield Tom Wingfield Laura Wingfield
Jim O'Connor
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Mr. Wingfield
Date premiered 1944
Place premiered Chicago
Original language English
Genre Memory play
Setting A St. Louis apartment, late 1930s
The Glass Menagerie[1] is a memory play by Tennessee Williams
that premiered in 1944 and catapulted Williams from obscurity to
fame. The play has strong autobiographical elements, featuring
characters based on its author, his histrionic mother, and his
mentally fragile sister Laura. In writing the play, Williams drew
on an earlier short story, as well as a screenplay he
had written under the title of The Gentleman Caller. The play
premiered in Chicago in 1944. After a shaky start it was championed
by Chicago
critics Ashton Stevens and Claudia Cassidy, whose enthusiasm
helped build audiences so the producers could move the play to
Broadway where it won the New York Drama Critics'
Circle Award in 1945. The Glass Menagerie was Williams' first
successful play; he went on to become one of America's most highly
regarded playwrights.
Characters Amanda Wingfield
A faded Southern belle, abandoned by her husband, who is trying
to raise her two children under harsh financial conditions. Amanda
yearns for the comforts of her youth and also longs for her
children to have the same comforts, but her devotion to them
has
made her—as she admits at one point—almost "hateful" towards
them.
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Tom Wingfield Amanda's son. Tom works at a shoe warehouse to
support his family but is frustrated
by his job and aspires to be a poet. He struggles to write, all
the while being sleep-deprived and irritable. Yet, he escapes from
reality through nightly excursions to the
movies. Tom feels both obligated toward yet burdened by his
family and longs to escape.
Laura Wingfield Amanda's daughter and Tom's elder sister. A
childhood illness has left her with a limp, and she has a mental
fragility and an inferiority complex that has isolated her from the
outside world. She has created a world of her own symbolized by her
collection of glass figurines. The unicorn may represent Laura
because it is
unique and fragile. Jim O'Connor
An old high school acquaintance of Tom and Laura. Jim was a
popular athlete and actor during his days at Soldan High School.
Subsequent years
have been less kind to Jim; however, and by the time of the
play's action, he is working as a shipping clerk at the same shoe
warehouse as Tom. His hope to shine again is conveyed by his study
of public speaking, radio engineering, and ideas of
self-improvement that appear related to those of Dale Carnegie.
Mr. Wingfield Amanda's absent husband, and Laura's and Tom's
father. Mr. Wingfield
was a handsome man, full of charm, who worked for a telephone
company and eventually "fell in love with long-distance,"
abandoning his
family 16 years before the play's action. Although he does not
appear onstage, Mr. Wingfield is frequently referred to by Amanda,
and his
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picture is prominently displayed in the Wingfields' living room.
This unseen character appears to incorporate elements of
Williams'
father.
Plot summary[edit] "Yes, I have tricks in my pocket, I have
things up my sleeve. But I am the opposite of a stage
magician. He gives you an illusion that has the appearance of
truth. I give you truth in the pleasant disguise of illusion."
The beginning of Tom's opening soliloquy.
The play is introduced to the audience by Tom, the narrator and
protagonist, as a memory play based on his recollection of his
mother
Amanda and his sister Laura. Because the play is based on
memory, Tom cautions the audience that what they see may not be
precisely what
happened. Amanda Wingfield, a faded Southern belle of middle
age, shares a dingy
St. Louis apartment with her son Tom, in his early twenties, and
his slightly older sister, Laura. Although she is a survivor and a
pragmatist,
Amanda yearns for the comforts and admiration she remembers from
her days as a fêted debutante. She worries especially about the
future of her daughter Laura, a young woman with a limp (an
after-effect of a bout of pleurosis) and a tremulous insecurity
about the outside world. Tom
works in a shoe warehouse doing his best to support the family.
He chafes under the banality and boredom of everyday life and
struggles to
write while spending much of his spare time going to the movies
— or so he says — at all hours of the night.
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Amanda is obsessed with finding a suitor (or, as she puts it, a
"gentleman caller") for Laura, her daughter, whose crippling
shyness has led her to
drop out of both high school and a subsequent secretarial
course, and who spends much of her time polishing and arranging her
collection of little glass animals. Pressured by his mother to help
find a caller for Laura,
Tom invites Jim, an acquaintance from work, home for dinner. The
delighted Amanda spruces up the apartment, prepares a special
dinner, and converses coquettishly with Jim, almost reliving her
youth when she had an abundance of suitors calling on her. Laura
discovers that Jim is the boy she was attracted to in high school
and has often thought of since, though the relationship between the
shy Laura and the "most likely to succeed" Jim was never more than
a distant, teasing acquaintanceship. Initially, Laura is so
overcome by shyness that she is unable to join the
others at dinner, and she claims to be ill. After dinner,
however, Jim and Laura are left alone by candlelight in the living
room, waiting for the
electricity to be restored. (Tom has not paid the power bill,
which hints to the audience that he is banking the bill money and
preparing to leave the household.) As the evening progresses, Jim
recognizes Laura's feelings of
inferiority and encourages her to think better of herself. He
and Laura share a quiet dance, in which he accidentally brushes
against her glass menagerie, knocking a glass unicorn to the floor
and breaking off its
horn. Jim then compliments Laura and kisses her. After Jim tells
Laura that he is engaged to be married, Laura asks him to take the
broken
unicorn as a gift and he then leaves. When Amanda learns that
Jim is to be married, she turns her anger upon Tom and cruelly
lashes out at him,
although Tom did not know that Jim was engaged. Tom seems
quite
-
surprised by this, and it is possible that Jim was only making
up the story of the engagement as he felt that the family was
trying to set him up with
Laura, and he had no romantic interest in her. The play
concludes with Tom saying that he left home soon afterward and
never returned. He then bids farewell to his mother and sister
and
asks Laura to blow out the candles.
Themes MAIN IDEAS THEMES Themes are the fundamental and often
universal ideas explored in a literary work. The Difficulty of
Accepting Reality Among the most prominent and urgent themes of The
Glass Menagerie is the difficulty the characters have in accepting
and relating to reality. Each member of the Wingfield family is
unable to overcome this difficulty, and each, as a result,
withdraws into a private world of illusion where he or she finds
the comfort and meaning that the real world does not seem to offer.
Of the three Wingfields, reality has by far the weakest grasp on
Laura. The private world in which she lives is populated by glass
animals—objects that, like Laura’s inner life, are incredibly
fanciful and dangerously delicate. Unlike his sister, Tom is
capable of functioning in the real world, as we see in his holding
down a job and talking to strangers. But, in the end, he has no
more motivation than Laura does to pursue professional success,
romantic relationships, or even ordinary friendships, and he
prefers to retreat into the fantasies provided by literature and
movies and the stupor provided by drunkenness. Amanda’s
relationship to reality is the most complicated in the play. Unlike
her children, she is partial to real-world values and longs for
social and financial success. Yet her attachment to these values is
exactly what prevents her from perceiving a number of truths about
her life. She cannot accept that she is or should be anything other
than the pampered belle she was brought up to be, that Laura is
peculiar, that Tom is not a budding businessman, and that she
herself might be in some ways responsible for the sorrows and flaws
of her children. Amanda’s
-
retreat into illusion is in many ways more pathetic than her
children’s, because it is not a willful imaginative construction
but a wistful distortion of reality. Although the Wingfields are
distinguished and bound together by the weak relationships they
maintain with reality, the illusions to which they succumb are not
merely familial quirks. The outside world is just as susceptible to
illusion as the Wingfields. The young people at the Paradise Dance
Hall waltz under the short-lived illusion created by a glass
ball—another version of Laura’s glass animals. Tom opines to Jim
that the other viewers at the movies he attends are substituting
on-screen adventure for real-life adventure, finding fulfillment in
illusion rather than real life. Even Jim, who represents the “world
of reality,” is banking his future on public speaking and the
television and radio industries—all of which are means for the
creation of illusions and the persuasion of others that these
illusions are true. The Glass Menagerie identifies the conquest of
reality by illusion as a huge and growing aspect of the human
condition in its time. The Impossibility of True Escape At the
beginning of Scene Four, Tom regales Laura with an account of a
magic show in which the magician managed to escape from a nailed-up
coffin. Clearly, Tom views his life with his family and at the
warehouse as a kind of coffin—cramped, suffocating, and morbid—in
which he is unfairly confined. The promise of escape, represented
by Tom’s missing father, the Merchant Marine Service, and the fire
escape outside the apartment, haunts Tom from the beginning of the
play, and in the end, he does choose to free himself from the
confinement of his life.
The play takes an ambiguous attitude toward the moral
implications and even the effectiveness of Tom’s escape. As an
able-bodied young man, he is locked into his life not by exterior
factors but by emotional ones—by his loyalty to and possibly even
love for Laura and Amanda. Escape for Tom means the suppression and
denial of these emotions in himself, and it means doing great harm
to his mother and sister. The magician is able to emerge from his
coffin without upsetting a single nail, but the human nails that
bind Tom to his home will certainly be upset by his departure. One
cannot say for certain that leaving home even means true escape for
Tom. As far as he might
-
wander from home, something still “pursue[s]” him. Like a
jailbreak, Tom’s escape leads him not to freedom but to the life of
a fugitive. The Unrelenting Power of Memory According to Tom, The
Glass Menagerie is a memory play—both its style and its content are
shaped and inspired by memory. As Tom himself states clearly, the
play’s lack of realism, its high drama, its overblown and
too-perfect symbolism, and even its frequent use of music are all
due to its origins in memory. Most fictional works are products of
the imagination that must convince their audience that they are
something else by being realistic. A play drawn from memory,
however, is a product of real experience and hence does not need to
drape itself in the conventions of realism in order to seem real.
The creator can cloak his or her true story in unlimited layers of
melodrama and unlikely metaphor while still remaining confident of
its substance and reality. Tom—and Tennessee Williams—take full
advantage of this privilege. The story that the play tells is told
because of the inflexible grip it has on the narrator’s memory.
Thus, the fact that the play exists at all is a testament to the
power that memory can exert on people’s lives and consciousness.
Indeed, Williams writes in the Production Notes that “nostalgia . .
. is the first condition of the play.” The narrator, Tom, is not
the only character haunted by his memories. Amanda too lives in
constant pursuit of her bygone youth, and old records from her
childhood are almost as important to Laura as her glass animals.
For these characters, memory is a crippling force that prevents
them from finding happiness in the present or the offerings of the
future. But it is also the vital force for Tom, prompting him to
the act of creation that culminates in the achievement of the play.
Motifs
MAIN IDEAS MOTIFS Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts,
and literary devices that can help to develop and inform the text’s
major themes. Abandonment
The plot of The Glass Menagerie is structured around a series of
abandonments. Mr. Wingfield’s desertion of his family determines
their life situation; Jim’s desertion of
-
Laura is the center of the play’s dramatic action; Tom’s
abandonment of his family gives him the distance that allows him to
shape their story into a narrative. Each of these acts of desertion
proves devastating for those left behind. At the same time, each of
them is portrayed as the necessary condition for, and a natural
result of, inevitable progress. In particular, each is strongly
associated with the march of technological progress and the
achievements of the modern world. Mr. Wingfield, who works for the
telephone company, leaves his family because he “fell in love with
[the] long distances” that the telephone brings into people’s
consciousness. It is impossible to imagine that Jim, who puts his
faith in the future of radio and television, would tie himself to
the sealed, static world of Laura. Tom sees his departure as
essential to the pursuit of “adventure,” his taste for which is
whetted by the movies he attends nightly. Only Amanda and Laura,
who are devoted to archaic values and old memories, will presumably
never assume the role of abandoner and are doomed to be repeatedly
abandoned. The Words and Images on the Screen One of the play’s
most unique stylistic features is the use of an onstage screen on
which words and images relevant to the action are projected.
Sometimes the screen is used to emphasize the importance of
something referred to by the characters, as when an image of blue
roses appears in Scene Two; sometimes it refers to something from a
character’s past or fantasy, as when the image of Amanda as a young
girl appears in Scene Six. At other times, it seems to function as
a slate for impersonal commentary on the events and characters of
the play, as when “Ousont les neiges” (words from a
fifteenth-century French poem praising beautiful women) appear in
Scene One as Amanda’s voice is heard offstage.
What appears on the screen generally emphasizes themes or
symbols that are already established quite obviously by the action
of the play. The device thus seems at best ironic, and at worst
somewhat pretentious or condescending. Directors who have staged
the play have been, for the most part, very ambivalent about the
effectiveness and value of the screen, and virtually all have
chosen to eliminate it from the performance. The screen is,
however, an interesting epitome of Tennessee Williams’s
expressionist theatrical style, which downplays realistic
portrayals of life in favor of stylized presentations of inner
experience.
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Music Music is used often in The Glass Menagerie, both to
emphasize themes and to enhance the drama. Sometimes the music is
extra-diegetic—coming from outside the play, not from within it—and
though the audience can hear it the characters cannot. For example,
a musical piece entitled “The Glass Menagerie,” written
specifically for the play by the composer Paul Bowles, plays when
Laura’s character or her glass collection comes to the forefront of
the action. This piece makes its first appearance at the end of
Scene One, when Laura notes that Amanda is afraid that her daughter
will end up an old maid. Other times, the music comes from inside
the diegetic space of the play—that is, it is a part of the action,
and the characters can hear it. Examples of this are the music that
wafts up from the Paradise Dance Hall and the music Laura plays on
her record player. Both the extra-diegetic and the diegetic music
often provide commentary on what is going on in the play. For
example, the Paradise Dance Hall plays a piece entitled “The World
Is Waiting for the Sunrise” while Tom is talking about the approach
of World War II. Symbols
MAIN IDEAS SYMBOLS Symbols are objects, characters, figures, and
colors used to represent abstract ideas or concepts. Laura’s Glass
Menagerie
As the title of the play informs us, the glass menagerie, or
collection of animals, is the play’s central symbol. Laura’s
collection of glass animal figurines represents a number of facets
of her personality. Like the figurines, Laura is delicate,
fanciful, and somehow old-fashioned. Glass is transparent, but,
when light is shined upon it correctly, it refracts an entire
rainbow of colors. Similarly, Laura, though quiet and bland around
strangers, is a source of strange, multifaceted delight to those
who choose to look at her in the right light. The menagerie also
represents the imaginative world to which Laura devotes herself—a
world that is colorful and enticing but based on fragile illusions.
The Glass Unicorn The glass unicorn in Laura’s
collection—significantly, her favorite figure—represents her
peculiarity. As Jim points out, unicorns are “extinct” in modern
times and are lonesome as a result of being different from other
horses. Laura too is unusual, lonely,
-
and ill-adapted to existence in the world in which she lives.
The fate of the unicorn is also a smaller-scale version of Laura’s
fate in Scene Seven. When Jim dances with and then kisses Laura,
the unicorn’s horn breaks off, and it becomes just another horse.
Jim’s advances endow Laura with a new normalcy, making her seem
more like just another girl, but the violence with which this
normalcy is thrust upon her means that Laura cannot become normal
without somehow shattering. Eventually, Laura gives Jim the unicorn
as a “souvenir.” Without its horn, the unicorn is more appropriate
for him than for her, and the broken figurine represents all that
he has taken from her and destroyed in her. “Blue Roses” Like the
glass unicorn, “Blue Roses,” Jim’s high school nickname for Laura,
symbolizes Laura’s unusualness yet allure. The name is also
associated with Laura’s attraction to Jim and the joy that his kind
treatment brings her. Furthermore, it recalls Tennessee Williams’s
sister, Rose, on whom the character of Laura is based. The Fire
Escape Leading out of the Wingfields’ apartment is a fire escape
with a landing. The fire escape represents exactly what its name
implies: an escape from the fires of frustration and dysfunction
that rage in the Wingfield household. Laura slips on the fire
escape in Scene Four, highlighting her inability to escape from her
situation. Tom, on the other hand, frequently steps out onto the
landing to smoke, anticipating his eventual getaway. A R R O W
L I T E R A T U R E
15 Facts About Tennessee Williams's The Glass
Menagerie BY KRISTY PUCHKO
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OCTOBER 30, 2017
NEW YORK PUBLIC L IBRARY, B ILL Y ROSE THEATER COL LECTI ON / /
PUBLIC DOMAIN 00:41 01:06 The Glass Menagerie is an American
classic that tells a tragic family tale of love, bitterness, and
abandonment. But beyond its delicate glass unicorn and
heartbreaking drama, this Tennessee Williams play proved to be a
defining moment for the author—and for theater history.
1. THE GLASS MENAGERIE IS A MEMORY PLAY. The play's story is
narrated by a central character looking back on the events
presented. The format gives the playwright more creative freedom in
the narrative, as memories are affected by emotion and temporal
distance. Williams says as much in The Glass Menagerie's notes on
set design, which read, "The scene is memory and is therefore
non-realistic. Memory takes a lot of poetic license. It omits some
details; others are exaggerated, according to the emotional value
of the articles it touches, for memory is seated predominantly in
the heart."
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2. THE NARRATOR WARNS HE IS AN UNRELIABLE NARRATOR. The story
focuses on the impoverished Wingfield family at a time when their
matriarch Amanda is pressuring her grown son Tom to find a suitor
for his fragile sister Laura. Tom is the narrator of the tale. But
in his first monologue, he warns, "The play is memory. Being a
memory play, it is dimly lighted, it is sentimental, it is not
realistic."
3. THE GLASS MENAGERIE WAS THE FIRST MEMORY PLAY. Williams
coined the phrase to explain this groundbreaking new style. In its
production notes, Williams wrote, "Being a 'memory play', The Glass
Menagerie can be presented with unusual freedom of convention.
Because of its considerably delicate or tenuous material,
atmospheric touches and subtleties of direction play a particularly
important part." He goes on to encourage those staging the show to
be "unconventional" in their productions, noting such exploration
was essential to preserving the vitality of theater. Other examples
of memory plays are Harold Pinter's Old Times and Brian Friel's
Dancing at Lughnasa.
4. THE GLASS MENAGERIE BEGAN AS A SHORT STORY IN 1941. At 30,
Williams wrote "Portrait of a Girl in Glass," which centered on the
glass figure-loving Laura, rather than her brother Tom. She was
presented as a desperately shy young woman with a fearsome mother,
who went unnamed in this early incarnation. By 1943, Williams was
in Hollywood, and so transformed the
-
short story into a spec script called The Gentleman Caller.
After MGM Studios passed on the script, Williams reconceived it as
a stage play in 1944.
5. THE TITLE REFERS TO LAURA AND HER GLASS ANIMAL COLLECTION.
The Glass Menagerie's young female lead fawns over her titular
collection, polishing them obsessively. Lovely but fragile, these
prized figures are regarded as a metaphor for their owner. Notably,
Laura's favorite is the glass unicorn, an unusual creature that her
could-be suitor Jim says is “extinct in the modern world.” A
popular reading of this exchange is that Laura is like this
unicorn, out of place in the world around her.
6. THE GLASS MENAGERIE IS CONSIDERED WILLIAMS'S MOST
AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL WORK. The frustrated protagonist Tom is named
after the author, who was born Thomas Lanier Williams III.
(Tennessee was a nickname earned in college.) The unhappy family
life at the center of the play mirrored his own. Like the
Wingfields, the Williams family included a dominating matriarch,
Tennessee's mother Edwina, who raised the family largely without
the help of her husband, a traveling shoe salesman. Like Amanda,
Edwina was a faded Southern belle. Laura—nicknamed Blue Roses—was
based on his older sister Rose, who struggled with mental illness
and retreated to a world of isolation, surrounded by her beloved
glass ornaments. Even the description of the Wingfield's St. Louis
apartment mirrored a home the playwright once shared with his
family.
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7. IT MADE WILLIAMS AN OVERNIGHT SUCCESS (EIGHT YEARS IN THE
MAKING). He'd written a slew of plays ahead of The Glass
Menagerie's debut in Chicago in December 1944. But this was the
first to earn widespread notice. In the Chicago Tribune, theater
critic Claudia Cassidy declared that the play was "vividly
written," "superbly acted," and, "paradoxically, it is a dream in
the dust and a tough little play that knows people and how they
tick." Rave reviews sparked such intense interest in Williams's
very personal play that by March 31, 1945, the production had been
transferred to Broadway, where it won a New York Drama Critics’
Circle Award just two weeks after re-opening. It went on to run for
563 performances, and made Williams a rising star in American
theater.
8. LAURETTE TAYLOR'S BROADWAY PERFORMANCE IS LEGENDARY. The New
York City-born actress performed on stage and in silent film, but
she is best known for originating the role of Amanda Wingfield on
Broadway. Once The Glass Menagerie opened, Taylor was nearly
universally praised by critics and colleagues. "I have never been
that affected by a stage action in my whole life. It made me weep,"
lyricist Fred Ebb said. Actress Patricia Neal deemed Taylor's
Amanda "the greatest performance I have ever seen in all my life."
And writer Robert Gottlieb, who witnessed this portrayal as a
teenager, said, "When I saw her, I knew it was the finest acting I
had ever seen, and, more than 65 years later, I still feel that
way."
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9. WILLIAMS WAS ONE OF TAYLOR'S BIGGEST FANS. Taylor's
celebrated performance helped cement The Glass Menagerie's rarefied
reputation. Looking back on her work in the production, Williams
said, "There was a radiance about her art which I can compare only
to the greatest lines of poetry, and which gave me the same shock
of revelation, as if the air about us had been momentarily broken
through by light from some clear space around us.”
10. SOME SAY THE SHOW HAS A UNIQUE CURSE. The theatre is ripe
with superstitions and lore. One story around The Glass Menagerie
centers on the seemingly impossible standard set by Taylor. Even
decades later, her performance is the one by which all other Amanda
Wingfields are judged. And while there have been seven revivals of
the show since its initial bow, none of her successors has won the
Tony Award. The curse suggests that because Taylor didn't win the
honor for that role—the Tonys were not established until a year
after Taylor's run—no one will. Since then, Maureen Stapleton
(1965, 1975), Jessica Tandy (1983), Julie Harris (1994), and
Jessica Lange (2005) performed the role with nary a nod. Cherry
Jones scored a nomination in 2013, and Sally Field did the same in
2017. But neither took home the Tony.
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11. THE PLAY GAVE WILLIAMS A SECOND SHOT IN HOLLYWOOD. He left
Los Angeles smarting from the failure of The Gentleman Caller, but
came back with a heralded Broadway hit. In 1950, The Glass
Menagerie became his first produced screenplay. But though Williams
imagined the great American actress Ethel Barrymore as Amanda,
director Irving Rapper cast English comedienne Gertrude Lawrence in
the Southern belle role. The perturbed playwright later declared
this a "dismal error." The resulting film was ruthlessly panned.
"[The film] comes perilously close to sheer buffoonery in some of
its most fragile scenes. And this makes for painful diffusion of
the play's obvious poignancy,