Analysis and Interpretation of Wordsworth's Ode on Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood

Drawing upon the personal experiences of his own life and the Platonic theory of anamnesis, Wordsworth in his ode "On Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood" presents such a typical theme, which can easily be generalized as a Romantic cry over the loss of innocence, and of the splendour that goes with the vision of innocence. Wordsworth’s originality lies in the poetic transformation of the theme, and the poetic treatment also gives human touch to a deep philosophical problem. While discussing the process of the birth of Particular (human) Soul from the Universal Soul, Plato said that the human soul undergoes a change, and that there occurs the forgetting (anamnesis) of the Supreme Beauty and Goodness and Truth of the Universal Idea, which it descends from.

Wordsworth’s approach to the problem is, however, different. He begins in a tone of profound regret at the loss of visionary splendour, which seemed, in retrospect, to have invested so many scenes of nature in his childhood. He says that during his childhood the world appeared to him,

          “Apparelled in celestial light

          The glory and freshness of a dream.”

Here it should be remembered that dreams are precious evidence of an activity, which is now impossible in the normal condition of adult wakefulness. Wordsworth’s insight here is in complete accord with Freudian and Jungian psychological theories of the mind. They insisted that in the waking state the ego’s censorship of fantasy takes over there a cognisance of space and time, of probability and of cause and effect. According to Freud, dreams can involve a considerable degree of “primary process of thinking”. This kind of mental activity can be found in the babies who are not where their own selves end and the outer world begins. As he develops into an infant and changes to “secondary process of thinking”, the small child still has the regression into “primary process of thinking”, taking refuge in fantasy form the realities of the world.   Gradually the attention to the outside world comes to dominate the conscious waking mind in a process exactly traced by Wordsworth:

          “Shades of prison-house begin to close upon the growing Boy...”

          At the time Wordsworth began the Ode, he had on several occasions recalled “that Golden past”. But instead of wishing to “travel back”, like Vaughan in the 'Retreat' , he had accepted his lot philosophically. Reflections showed him that his childhood experiences were not lost, and that his imagination had developed from the dreamlike and visionary state to a philosophical stage. He could now feel,

          “My heart is at your festival,

          My head hath its coronal…” 

But the problem was profound one and until it was solved Wordsworth could not resume the 'Recluse' confidently, as the main idea in planning it had been the belief that man could be redeemed only by holding “fit converse with the spiritual world” through Nature. After writing the first four stanzas he left the remaining part unfinished nearly for two years. It seems that for quite sometime he groped for the answers to the agonising questions:

“Whither is fled the visionary gleam?

Where is now, the glory and the dream?”

Wordsworth found the answer in Plato’s theory of transmutation of the soul. Platonic theory of pre-existence is, however, fanciful and possibly a borrowing from Coleridge. According to this theory, the soul can vividly remember its prenatal existence in heaven during childhood because its separation from heaven is a comparatively recent phenomenon. The best that can be said about this Platonic theory is that it provides a logical explanation that integrates the poem, and that he gave great imaginative appeal to it. But he was never happy with it and said, “It is far too shadowy”. The mundane answer that follows is reasonable though rather commonplace. It suggests that the child gradually becomes part of the world as a foster nurse slowly but surely wean him away from heaven. The child travels the further from heaven the more he begins to imitate the elders. But Wordsworth, while criticising the child’s habit of imitating and thereby inviting the weight of custom, “Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life”—also asserts that in moments of calm even the mind of an adult can in imagination travel back to childhood, the fountainhead of all our light, and

          “…see the Children sport upon the shore

          And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.”

          But this is not the recompense, which reconciles Wordsworth to the loss of childhood vision. The recompense that he speaks of is two-fold: recollection of childhood, which proves that man’s life is all of a piece, and that “The Child is father of the Man”; and the “philosophical mind”, which can look on Nature with an awareness of human life, especially its tragedies. That is why he finally pronounces:

          “Thanks to the human heart by which we live,

          Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears,

To me the meanest flower that blows can give

Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.”

Wordsworth means that to a mature and philosophic mind actually conscious of the transience of earthly realities even the slightest object becomes a precious and cherished possession.      

A brief Literary Analysis of Faulkner's A Rose for Emily

In William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily,” Emily becomes a minor legend during her lifetime. After her death, when her secret is revealed, hers becomes a story that no one can forget. “A Rose for Emily” is the story of the old maid who fell in love with a northerner, but resisted being jilted once too often. And only after her death, “When the curious towns people were able to enter her house at last, did they discover that she had kept her dead lover in the bed where she had killed him after their last embrace.” (Kazin 162) . “In her bedroom, Emily and the dead Homer have remained together as though not even death could separate them.”(Kazin 162) . Even though her lover had been dead for many years, she found her own way for them to remain together.While being isolated in her home, she becomes somewhat of a small legend in the town, after she dies, and her secret is revealed, “it becomes so appalling that no one can forget.” (Kazin 162) . “It is the monstrousness of this view which creates the final atmosphere of horror, and the scene is intensified by the portrayal of the unchanged objects which have surrounded Homer in life.” (Lewis 157).“Miss Emily Grierson remains in voluntary isolation away from the bustle and dust and sunshine of the human world of normal affairs, and what in the end is found in the upstairs room gives perhaps a sense of penetrating and gruesome horror.”(Brooks and Warren 158) . As revolting as it is, Emily chooses to separate her self from daily life and live in that house for years with the dead body of her lover, Homer.This story also tells a story of a woman set in her ways, for example; when townspeople come to her door every year to collect her tax, and she replies that she does not owe the city any money.“ A Rose for Emily would seem to be saying that man must come to terms with the past and the present.”... ;(Lewis 157)

“Stories that show all too clearly how airily Faulkner can reproduce the manipulation of the reader’s emotions is the real aim of the commercial short story. (Kazin 162) . “The total story says what has been said in so much successful literature.” (Lewis 157) . “Man’s plight is tragic, but that there is heroism in an attempt to rise above it.”(Lewis 157) .Emily Grierson for years has slept beside the physical remains of her dead lover and is sadly a victim of a father who dominated her for years, and drove away suitors.She is victimized also by a lover who would leave her, and by a passion, which would murder rather than let him go. “The incestuous image of the father and daughter that suggests the corrupt nature of the new south, is a Faulknerian concern.”(Pierce 1362) . When love is gone, and the lover is killed, Miss Emily clings to the illusion of love.For forty years Emily Grierson has slept beside the physical remains of her dead lover. “In her bedroom, Emily and the dead Homer have remained together as though not even death could separate them.”(Kazin 162) .“She is also a victim of her lover who would leave her”, but she is driven “by her passion which would kill him rather then let him leave.”(Pierce 1362) .“When his love is gone, and she has killed him, she holds on to her illusion of their love.”( Pierce 1362) . “But even in the story, the intended gothic touch of horror counts less with Faulkner than the human drama of the southern woman unable to understand how much the world has changed around her.”(Kazin 162) . Some people who recall the time when Miss Emily was young, remember,“When she was young and part of the world with which she was contemporary, she was, we were told, a slender figure in white, and also contrasted with her father, who is described as a spraddled silhouette.”(West 149) .

Emily is also described as “Not monstrous, but rather looked like a girl with a vague resemblance to those angels in colored church windows-sort of tragic and serene.”(West 149) . “ The suggestion is that she had already begun her entrance into that nether-world, but that she might even yet have been saved, had Homer Barron been another kind of man.”(West 149) . “Many stories such as this show all too clearly how well Faulkner can re-invent the direction of the reader’s emotions is the real aim of the commercial short story.”(Kazin 162) . Also A Rose for Emily would seem to be saying that man must come to terms with the past and the present.”(Lewis 157) . It does seem that A Rose for Emily is saying that a man must come to terms with the past, especially this is shown in the story when it tells how Emily refused to acknowledge the death of her father. It also shows how a man must come to terms with the present, in telling how Emily refused to recognize the death of Colonel Sartoris....

Literary Analysis The Catcher in the Rye : Holden Cauffield; Complete Failure in Reaching Maturity

Literary Analysis The Catcher in the Rye : Holden Cauffield; Complete Failure in Reaching Maturity

by : Raditya Darningtyas

According to Wikipedia, maturity psychologically means the ability to respond to the environment in an appropriate manner. Since the term ‘appropriate’ is too subjective of a word, Dr. William Menninger established the progressive stages of emotional maturity as the criteria whether or not someone is a hundred percent matured. Menninger’s criteria are carefully listed with the intention that it has to be followed in order without skipping any step. According to Menninger, an emotionally immature person possesses the following characteristics:

Having the ability to deal constructively with reality; having the capacity to adapt to change; having a freedom from symptoms that are produced by tensions and anxieties; having the capacity to find more satisfaction in giving than receiving; having the capacity to relate to others in a consistent manner with mutual satisfaction and helpfulness; having the capacity to direct one’s instinctive hostile energy into creative constructive outlet; having the capacity to love; living for a cause rather than dying for it.

The concept of growing up and getting mature,  which involves fear of losing one’s innocence, confusion in dealing with the ambiguous adult world, and how to adapt ourselves are  intriguingly explored in the infamous The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger.  Using some of Menninger’s criteria, Salinger illustrates emotional immaturity through Holden Caulfield’s failure to deal with reality by having the capacity to adapt to change, his incapability to relate to other people with mutual satisfaction, and his desire to die for a cause rather than living for one. 

            Even though some may argue that Holden possess a bit of maturity based on his ability to love especially toward children and his little sister, his emotional immaturity is indubitably proven by his failure to deal with reality and having the capacity to adapt to change. He is having a problem in dealing with present truth and new reality around him. This inability makes him prefers the past over present and tries to avert reality by inventing an imaginary plot in his head. First, we can see his love for museum where everything stays the same and seemingly easier to deal with. Holden is looking for his little sister Phoebe, and then he goes to the park where she usually plays. Holden can’t find her at the park and a little girl told him she might be at the museum. He talks about this Museum of Natural Art that he used to go in a field trip when he was little and how much he likes it: “I loved that damn museum. The best thing, though, in that museum was that everything always stayed right where it was. The only thing that would be different would be you” (Salinger 120-121). Moreover, it is obvious that Holden is still deeply troubled by the death of his little brother, Allie. He is still unable to get over his grief and move on. When Phoebe confronts him to mention one thing he likes in the world, he mentions his deceased brother, Allie, seemingly having trouble choosing an actual living person or things: “I like Allie. I know he’s dead! I can still like him, though, can’t i? just because somebody’s dead, you don’t just stop liking them, for God’s sake—especially if they were a thousand times nicer than the people you know that’re alive and all” (171). Beside all these actions, Holden has this habit of inventing an imaginary situation like he has been shot and has a bullet in his gut whenever a bad episode happens to him. For instance, after he lost in a fight with Stradlater, his roommate at Pencey Prep Boarding School, he goes to the bathroom. Amazed by the blood on his face, he started to act like he had been shot. Second time happens during his encounter with a prostitute named Sunny and her pimp, Maurice, in a motel when he was forced to pay for the ‘service’ more than what he has agreed on. Maurice beats him up and takes his money. Holden goes to the bathroom afterwards and starts acting like his belly were bleeding. Immediately, he starts picturing himself gong to Maurice’s room to shoot him with a gun and wiping the fingerprints off the gun. This is one of a coping mechanism Holden has invented to deal with his reality, yet he puts the blames of movie. While imagining all this scenarios in his head no longer serves its purpose to make him feel better, and when the realization finally knocks him out of his reverie, he admits to himself what he really feels. “What I really felt, though, was committing suicide. I felt like jumping out the window. I probably would’ve done it, too, if I’d been sure somebody’d cover me up as soon as I landed.”(104). According to Menninger, before someone gets to the point where he could love somebody, he must be able to succeed at the previous stages. Holden fails the process of getting matured because he skips around the list and he is having it the other way around. These show how Holden is immature by failing the first stage of emotional maturity right away, which is to deal with reality and adapt to the changes.

            Hold also lacks the ability to relate to other with mutual satisfaction. Whenever he meets somebody, either stranger or people he has known for a long time, he often focuses on their depraved features and regards them with negative remarks. For instance, Holden tells us a story about an old alumnus from Pencey Prep who came to his room during Veterans Day. The old man asked Holden and his friends if they would mind letting him use the bathroom because he wanted to see if his initial was still carved in the bathroom. Instead of trying to understand his sentimentality and find a way to sympathize, Holden finds this depressing and even accuses him of being phony: “Boy, did he depress me! I don’t mean he was a bad guy. But you don’t have to be a bad guy to depress somebody. All you have to do to depress somebody is give them a lot of phony advice while you’re looking for your initials in some can door..” (169). This quote shows that Holden lacks the ability of relating to others positively to gain mutual satisfaction, he’d rather finds something to hate from somebody. It would have been easier for him to just try interacting with others without judging them and trying to look at the bright side of every occurrence in his life. He could have just appreciated the man’s fondness of Pencey Prep and try to take in the lesson from his advice that might be valuable for him, so that both parties could gain fair advantage of each other. That is him helping the man find his initials while he gets something useful for him in return.

Holden’s immaturity leads him to think about death every so often. Consequently, it makes him believe that death would be a better solution for him, instead of trying to deal with his life. His desire to die for a cause rather than living for one leads him to fail the last step of Menninger’s emotional maturity criteria. For example, he is telling us a story about how his big brother D.B used to be in the army during the war. Then he keeps going on and on about books that D.B has given to him and suddenly states his opinion about atomic bomb: “Anyway, I’m sort of glad they’ve got the atomic bomb invented. If there’s ever another war, I’m going to sit the hell on top of it. I’ll volunteer for it, I swear to God I will.” (141). This quote proves Holden’s inclination to die for a cause which is to ‘sit on top of atomic bomb’ in a war. In addition to that, he keeps pondering the idea of him dying and how people who are close to him would react to that, which is quite an immature thing to do. It happens after he got out of a bar, he is sitting alone in Central Park in the middle of the night, looking for the lake to find out where the ducks go when the lake in frozen. He finds out that the lake was, “..partly frozen and partly not frozen..” (154). The temperature was very cold and his head was wet, “I thought probably I’d get pneumonia and die. I started picturing millions of jerks coming to my funeral and all. The only good thing, I knew she wouldn’t let old Phoebe come to my goddam funeral because she was only a little kid.” (154-155). Holden sees death as the easy way out of dealing with his problems. By dying for a cause, Holden believes that he would do a good thing while being able to avoid and solve his problems altogether. His inability to reach this point of emotional maturity is somehow makes sense, since he can’t even get past the first stage, again proving that Holden is a complete immature individual.

Every adult individual must have experienced the phase of adolescence. Being a teenager who stuck in the middle of two worlds is definitely not an easy position. One must try to understand the world they used to perceive differently as a whole new world with its new ambiguity and anomaly. The Catcher in the Rye tries to depict one example of struggle of a teenager in dealing with his problems that come with a price of growing up, and Holden fails to pay the price. In conclusion, he doesn’t have the ability to complete the journey required to earn the maturity every teenager is supposed to earn. Despite his effort to grow up, he still can’t get his ultimate goal to grow up because he is trying to jump and skip around the order on Menninger’s list. First, he can’t deal with the new reality that surrounds him because he is still holding on too much on the past, making it impossible for him to succeed at the next step in Menninger’s list. Then, he finds it difficult to correlate with others in a positive manner without having to focus on someone’s negative trait. Finally, his preference to serve a purpose by dying instead of living adds to the evidence of his fiasco.