Love Me Not Unit: February

"February"
Margaret Atwood

As we enter the month of February, I can relate to the speaker's disgust for the month and winter as a whole.  Although February is the month of Valentines, the poem discusses the folly of love and the love of fattening food.

The poem opens in the speaker's bed on a February morning with a cat looking to snuggle.  However, the speaker will not have any of the smelly beast's self-centered affection.  Instead, the speaker turns the cat into a symbol for humanity's problems and potential solutions.  Love and sex drive cats to spray houses and fight.  Taking away those parts responsible for those feelings and habits solves the problem.  Therefore, the same should work with humans.  Obviously, the speaker takes a more practical approach to love that includes its complete eradication.

In fact, the only words relating to love are used to refer to fattening foods: "I think dire thoughts, and lust for French fries/ with a splash of vinegar," (Atwood).  Usually people think of food and love as being on opposite ends of the spectrum.  I can eat these french fries, or I can get a date.  The speaker gets around this conundrum by forgetting the date and dating the french fries, because they don't care if there's a gap between your thighs.

The speaker's attitude towards love is obviously one of disgust and mistrust.  She expels the cat who wants to cuddle, despises Valentine's month, and supports Nazi-like population control measures.  Nevertheless, she recognizes her pessimism and longs for spring when she can embrace life and love.

Love Me Not Unit: You're Ugly Too

"You're Ugly Too"
Lorrie Moore

Essentially, "You're Ugly Too" is the short story version of 30 Rock.  Zoe's failed career dreams, failed relationships, and tendency to hide her insecurities behind crude jokes led to my envisioning Tina Fey the entire story.  Although entertaining, this characterization of Zoe contributes to the insight that some women cannot find love as portrayed in the stories.

On several occasions, Zoe seems to shoot herself in the foot with her deflective sense of humor.  For instance, during her double date, she decided to attack the married subject of her date's interest: "'Once at a dinner party I amazed the hast by getting up and saying good-bye to every single person there, first and last names' 'I knew a dog who could do that,' said Zoe, with her mouth full," (Moore, 357).  As a result, her date never called back.

However, before completely blaming her, one must observe her past.  In her professional life, she deals with critical students in a boring town; in her love life, she has only ever had one decent boyfriend who eventually only wanted to get her pregnant in order to add a new distraction to the relationship; and in her family life, she lives away from all of her relatives and her sister is planning on marrying an uninteresting man.  Such a life might not be fitting for a character in a story focused on love, but most would agree that her imperfect existence and humorous coping mechanisms are more realistic.  Therefore, her eventual failure to connect with the naked woman at her sister's party reveals that the common ironic armor protects people from finding love.

This theme actually works both ways.  Even though Zoe's hiding from herself (jokes, owning a tree, plucking the chin hair, keeping her ultrasound a secret) stands in her way, she was not the only one in the story hiding. The guests at her sister's Halloween party, Earl in particular, literally hid behind costumes.  Earl decided to dress as a naked woman most likely to debase the female sex following his divorce.  How could anyone expect Zoe to strike a match with a caricatured nude woman with steel body hair?  Earl's mask deepens the meaning of the story: many people fail to find love because both parties hide from themselves.

Love Me Not Unit: Popular Mechanics

"Popular Mechanics"
Raymond Carver

I can say confidently that this has been the most confusing piece of literature for me this year.  From what I can surmise, the story revolves around a feud between a separating couple over ownership of the child.  Apparent to anyone who is familiar with Solomon, "Popular Mechanics" resembles the legal battle between two women over legal guardianship over a baby, but neither parent in this story has the love to allow the other to raise the child.  Nevertheless, I cannot figure out what mechanics have to do with babies torn asunder.

What I can analyze is that the baby serves as a prominent symbol for the couple's happiness.  Although at first I believed the baby to symbolize the possessions, the mother didn't care what the father took as long as he left and neither cared that their fights destroyed the pot in the kitchen.  Moreover, their disregard for the baby's crying during the fight proves that neither parent desired guardianship for the child's future.  In fact, the baby is only ever referred to as an inanimate object: "She would have it, this baby," (Carver).

All the evidence suggests that the parents are fighting for something only they can have.  A child can represent many things for his or her parents: love, future, success as a person.  Therefore, each parent was fighting for what the child represented in order to withhold those things from the other.  Unfortunately, the baby's role as symbol revealed a troubling theme: when parents quarrel over a child, it is the child, not the losing legal party, that pays the ultimate price.

Love Me Not Unit: The Story of an Hour

"The Story of an Hour"

Kate Chopin

Although brief, as the title might suggest, "The Story of an Hour" packs incredible tension into a very specific event.  Mainly through situational irony, Chopin conveys the woes of an unloving marriage by presenting both the joys of its termination and lethal nature of its return.  

The story commences as many other tragedies might.  Minor characters report the untimely demise of the main character's spouse and the widow retreats in grief.  However, several eccentricities stand out.  The spring setting typically promises new life, not death, and Josephine Mallards reaction to her husband's death comes without disbelief.  Eventually, the purpose of these incongruities is revealed.  Instead of grief, Josephine rejoices in her loss: "'Free, free, free!' The vacant stare and the look of terror that had followed it went from her eyes," (Chopin).  

This sudden irony unlocks one of the central themes of this story: unhappy marriages imprison those trapped.  Josephine clarifies her dreadful engagement by declaring that her marriage had rarely been happy and his funeral would free her forever to a life dedicated to her.  The seemingly out of place spring weather now serves a purpose; her husband's death granted her new life.  

Nevertheless, Chopin decided to extend the irony once more to illustrate the other side of the coin.  As Josephine ventured out of her room into a new great unknown, a too familiar face reappeared.  Her husband Brently returned home unaware that people thought him dead.  In place of hugs or kisses, Josephine greeted him with a cry and a heart attack which took her new life.  The final paradox, "joy that kills", which the doctors meant to reassure Brently that her relief put too much stress on her frail heart, in fact describes unhappy marriages as having the appearance of loving union while destroying the hearts and hopes of the miserable participants.

Love Unit: A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning

"A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning"

John Donne

From the title itself, it can be inferred that the speaker of the poem is about to leave his lover.  However, it is not clear whether the speaker is simply departing on a journey or about to die.

The last three stanzas of the poem seem to imply that the speaker is simply embarking on some journey.  First, diction of navigation and motion are used: "If they be two, they are two so As stiff twin compasses are two; Thy soul, the fixed foot, makes no show To move, but doth, if th' other do," (Donne, 802).  In analyzing this stanza, the reader would assume that the speaker is imploring his lover to follow him.  However, it can be argued that the speaker is referencing the fact that, when one lover dies, the other is sure to follow.

Furthermore, the very last stanza raises two words that suggest death is in store for the speaker.  First, the speaker's lover is described as one "who must" follow the lover. This would imply that the lover's following is inevitable, like death.  Finally, the speaker is described as ending.  If he were simply to go on a journey, the lover would stay stationary and force him to return from where he sent out.  But since he is ending where he began in a larger sense, the poem most likely describes his death.

Love Unit: Delight in Disorder

"Delight in Disorder"
Robert Herrick

Obviously, tidiness is not among the preferred characteristics of the speaker.  Through oxymoron, the contrast between what society demands from a woman and what the speaker desires is made clear.

Throughout the poem, the speaker develops a favorable tone almost entirely through diction and structure.  Words describing a woman's dress like "wantonness", "thrown", "distraction", and "confusedly" describe qualities of spontaneity and wildness.  Additionally, these qualities are glorified through words like "sweet", "winning", and "deserving".  Along with explicit glorifications, the structure of the poem itself reflects the speakers favorite carefree qualities.  Even though the poem itself was short, a relatively high amount of lines are present.  Like the woman's dress, the poem has a wild structure with multiple enjambments that still allow the poem to flow.

Even now, society tends to pass judgment on wild dress.  During the time the poem was written, elaborate dresses and precise matching were required by the upper classes.  Likewise, the contemporary media tends to favor fashions that are precisely designed by professionals with decades of study and practice.  However, the speaker contradicts this timeless demand:  "A careless shoestring, in whose tie I see a wild civility..." (Herrick, 979).  Although wild and civil contain almost opposite connotations, the speaker relates the two.  He claims that the wild dress he finds beautiful is not that of barbarians, but that of sophisticated society.

Love Unit: Eveline

"Eveline"
James Joyce

Throughout the story, Eveline balances her desire to escape her fading home and dedication to her family.  Through imagery, the speaker conveys the idea that she is losing much of what she enjoyed during her childhood but still feels inexplicable attachment.  Despite the expected grandeur of running off with Frank, the speaker argues that home's imperfections can never sever one's attachment to his or her childhood.

From the very first sentence, an atmosphere of defense is assumed.  "She sat at the window watching evening invade the avenue.  Her head was leaned against the window curtains and in her nostrils was the odor of dusty cretonne.  She was tired," (Joyce, 218).  The opening imagery foreshadows the coming descriptions of Eveline's current life.

Whereas once she played in a field with all of the other children and her siblings, the field is now filled with houses build by a foreigner and her sister has passed.  Whereas once Eveline's mother shielded the children from their father's violence, she was now dead and her father threatened Eveline herself.  New situations had begun to invade Eveline's life.  The open spaces and peace of her childhood had given way to modern accommodations and fear.

Frank seemed to be the only stability in her life with his promises of adventure and societal status in Buenos Aires.  However, like the subjects of her lamentations, both Frank and Buenos Aires were foreign and unknown.

Like the dust in her nostrils, some memories of happiness from a bygone era remained for some reason.  Eveline had promised her mother to care for the house as long as she could.  Although her family was in turmoil, memories of peaceful picnics and her father's bedtime stories gave her hope of happiness to come.

When Eveline refused to leave, she suggested to the reader that family is all anyone has that can guarantee true peace and safety.

Love Unit: How I Met My Husband

"How I Met My Husband"
Alice Munro

Throughout the story, the speaker reflected on several instances of naivete.  On one instance, her own naivete frequently played a negative role while her husband's belief that she anticipated his coming to deliver the mail presented a more positive view of being in the dark.  In all situations, situational and dramatic irony served to present a character's lack of awareness.

The speaker's first major run in with naivete in the story occurs after Chris had abandoned Alice.  Specifically, the speaker misunderstood what it meant to be intimate with a person.  Through this use of dramatic irony in which other characters and the reader understood the connotation of intimacy, the speaker revealed her lack of experience and knowledge when it comes to love.  In this case, the speaker at least suggests that naivete inevitably casts young adults into awkward and potentially violating experiences if not advocates becoming more aware by recounting Alice's attempted inspection of her virginity.  My reluctance to type those words reflects the unsettling effect created as a result of the speaker's incorrect assumptions.

Although the speaker's trusting character led her to wait for Chris to write for her, she eventually realizes how much she has misunderstood things relating to relationships.  However, the naivete simply transfers to her husband.  "He always tells the children the story of houw I went after him by sitting by the mailbox every day, and naturally I laugh and let him, because I like for people to think what pleases them and makes them happy," (Munro, 146).  Naturally, the reader and speaker know that she sat out waiting for Chris, but the speaker's reaction to her husband's pride shows how she reacted to her past love life.  Interestingly, since she allowed her husband to believe inaccurate observations on their love as Chris did when he said he would write, the speaker actually accepts that naivete is inevitable and harmless.