Saturday, January 21, 2012
On "Long Time Ago" Group B
When I read this poem, I first noticed its drastic shift of tone from the first "half" (non-italics) to the second "half" (italics and after). I believe, in addition to what Rahol said about it, that using "baseball tournament" as a metaphor helps to establish a less serious tone at the beginning of the poem. As baseball tournaments are trivial, fun, and entertaining events, comparing the witches gathering to such an event seems to lighten the fact they're gathering for "dark things". "So anyway" is used immediately after, as though the purpose is a digression from the simple fact the meeting is occurring. This once again lightens a tone that might be associated with such dark things.
The mood grows a little heavier when the details of the "dark things" are discussed, such as the "whorls of skin" and "circles of skull". I believe the purpose of this is to provide a juxtaposition between the darkest of the witches' powers and the darkness brought not by the power, but by the vision the final witch provides. The witch brings a story of destruction, almost like tidings of death, to come at the hands of the white men. The repetition, the imagery, and the word choice [Rahol gave some examples of] gives a very dark and foreboding tone to the story the witch tells.
One question I would ask is, do you think the witch's story brought on the white men? Or is the future destruction implied to be inevitable, as though the witch was just a messenger?
Also, to what effect does the formatting enhance the passage? Such as (but not only) the use of italics, line breaks, and stanza lengths.
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I believe the witch to be a messenger, and likely one of otherworldly origin, foretelling inevitable destruction. The witch's introduction is the best indicator of this. The speaker says, "The witch stood off in the shadows beyond the fire / and no one ever knew where this witch came from / which tribe / or if it was a woman or a man." (65-68) The phrase "off in the shadows" could indicate one of two things: that the witch had been there for the whole event, simply standing alone and unseen.But, it could also suggest that the witch suddenly appeared among the others. Also, the use of the word "ever" would suggest that, after the witch told its story, it disappeared, with none able to find it and learn where it came from.
ReplyDeleteThe formatting, I believe, supports this. The first part and last two stanzas of the poem are in block text, which is what we consider "regular" for most writing. However, when the witch begins its story, the text shifts to italics, which suggests that something is very different about that passage, which the writer was attempting to convey. Maybe the witch's voice took on an otherworldly tone. Or maybe something in the air changed, the direction of the wind or the temperature. Or maybe something just felt different, strange, and notably so. Either way, this passage is meant to be distinct in this poem.
This difference is further emphasized by the dialogue before and after the italicized passage. These statements, "What I have is a story" and "Okay you win ... Call that story back", are in quotation marks, which the reader would think of as a "normal" way to indicate speech. Thus, the witch's speech is further distinguished as sounding different.
Based on this, I believe the witch to be a messenger of otherworldly origin. However, there have always been messengers and prophets - Christianity is rife with them - and not all of them are true. So I ask, how would this story have gone over with the people present to hear it? Would they have taken heed of the witch's story, or ignored it? Would it matter either way?
Expanding on the juxtaposition Andrew mentioned between the witch's darkest rituals and the white people's invasion, I believe this comparison is meant to describe the two's comparative moral depravity.
ReplyDeleteThe imagery behind the witch's vanity fest horrifies. It was what horrified many settlers and was used in large part as a justification for the settlers' continued expansion into Indian lands. Colonial settlers argued the Indians were savages incapable of looking after themselves citing horrific images such as these along with other supposed examples of moral depravity.
However, this poem exhibits a limit on the witches' willingness to destroy. Most of the imagery serves only as imagery, like a vain, cultural contest over bragging rights for who is the "darkest." They don't appear to wish darkness on each other.
The settlers, on the other hand, bring about much more large scale irreversible destruction across the land. Though they don't do it for the express purpose showcasing their "darkness," the colonial settlers wreak more havoc than the witches ever wanted.
This poem's purpose is to highlight that although the differing intentions of the witches and the settlers put the native inhabitants in a darker light, the concrete consequences of each's actions indubitably put the white man in obvious wrong. The native inhabitants were never nearly as self-destructive as the settlers were straight out destructive.