Thomas Gray’s “Elegy Wrote in a Country Churchyard” portrays the pastoral ideal through many different images. The traditional pastoral notion of idyllic life changes in this poem to form a connection with people themselves. The speaker of this poem creates a process by which laborers come to symbolize the perfection of the pastoral through their daily toils. These people come to represent the ideal form of pastoral life. In this poem, however, Gray consigns these people and their lifestyle to darkness and death in order to save them from a world whose changing ideals support their idyllic lifestyle.
This poem can be broken into four parts. These parts describe a kind of conversation between the speaker and the fading light of the traditional pastoral notion. The first part, ending around line 28, shows the ways in which the working people have integrated successfully into the pastoral lifestyle. The second, and longest part, ending around line 73, paints a portrait of an “urbanized pastoral” where people are no longer ignorant of their own potential, but strive to make changes in the world around them. Though this in itself is not necessarily negative, by desiring to change the world, the pastoral ideal of static bliss is directly challenged. The third section gives a kind of resolution to the situation by letting the pastoral tradition slide, safe and unmarred, into the comforting darkness of death.
The opening stanza paints a portrait of the end of a day. The herds of farm animals walk away from the speaker to their home, just as a weary farmer “plods” (3) his way back home. All of these figures recede from the speaker into the appr…
… middle of paper …
… poet could the pastoral be kept alive. The speaker deals with this concept throughout “Elegy Wrote in a Country Church Yard.” The “darkness” which is alluded to in the first stanza is the place the world has left the pastoral. As “The Plow-man homeward plods his weary Way,” (3) he leaves behind the realm of the pastoral for the speaker to deal with. As society begins to turn its back from fanciful simplicity, towards commercial complexity, the poet’s duty falls to creating a place where the world of the pastoral is safe. For Gray, this is the darkness of death. This poem, however, does not create this “darkness” of death as an everlasting sleep. Rather, the importance of the pastoral is kept safe, and has the ability to influence generations of socially-influenced people that there is a world of peace and simplicity awaiting them, if they choose to look for it.
Biculturalism in Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club
Biculturalism Exposed in Joy Luck Club
America does not have a culture. The established American society is made up of multicultural peoples that are forced into assimilation by social pressure. Webster’s dictionary defines biculturalism as the existence of two distinct cultures in one nation. I am a prime example of biculturalism in America. My mother was born and raised in another country and her daughter was raised far away in the United States. The novel “Joy Luck Club” by Amy Tan illustrates biculturalism in America and the profound impact it had on the main character’s life and is paralleled, in many ways by my own.
Asian and American cultural ideas and beliefs differ in many ways. The American culture values freedom as an individualistic society. In America you can question authority because everyone is held accountable for his or her own actions and your self-motivation is what will make or break you. In contrast the Chinese / Asian culture is that of a collectivist society. You see yourself as a small part of the whole. The whole is your family or you nation. You trust that others above you know what is best and you have respect for those above you. They value hard work. You work hard and then you work hard some more and when you think you have tried you hardest at what you want you try hard again not just for yourself but for family and nation. Another contrast is the level of respect. In Chinese society you respect everyone older than you especially your parents. In America respect is all relative to your own family and is not an essential part of those relationships.
Biculturalism has consciously effected my life and self-perceptions but for the main character of Amy Tan’s novel (Jin…
… middle of paper …
… pieces of music and find that they are two halves of one whole piece.
Works Cited and Consulted:
Dorris, Michael. “Mothers and Daughters.” Contemporary Literary Criticism. Vol. 59. Ed. Roger Matuz. Detroit: Gale, 1990.
Schell, Orville. ” ‘Your Mother Is In Your Bones’.” Contemporary Short Criticism. Vol. 59. Ed. Roger Matuz. Detroit: Gale, 1990.
Tan, Amy. “Joy Luck Club.” The Harper Anthology of Fiction. Ed. Sylvan Barnet. New York: HarperCollins, 1991.
Tavernise, Peter. “Fasting of the Heart: Mother-Tradition and Sacred Systems in Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club.” America Online. Online. 15 Mar. 1998.
Willard, Nancy. “Tiger Spirits.” Contemporary Short Criticism. Vol. 59. Ed. Roger Matuz. Detroit: Gale, 1990. 97-98.
Wang, Qun. The Joy Luck Club. Masterplots. 2nd ed. Vol. 6. Ed. Frank N. Magill. California: Salem Press, 1996. 3357.