Perhaps the most haunting poem in Mountain Interval is “An Old Man’s Winter Night,” a poem about an old man dying in the wintry climate of New England and alone. Here, more so than in “The Oven Bird,” the comfort of a warmly human subject is held out; no one who ever responded to a Norman Rockwell magazine cover could but be taken by the old man, alone in his house (“All out-of-doors looked darkly in at him”), unable to summon up the resources to hold the winter night at bay:
What kept his eyes from giving back the gaze
Was the lamp tilted near them in his hand.
What kept him from remembering what it was
That brought him to that creaking room was age.
But if lovers of Rockwell had paused over these lines and tried to read and listen to them, they might well have noted how odd is their disposition. The “sense” of them is that the old man can’t see out because the lamp won’t permit him to see out — all he gets back is an image of himself. And if he cannot see out, neither can he see in; he is so old that he can’t remember how or why he is where he is. But what, in the prose paraphrase are concerned and sympathetic insights into the plight of old age, sound rather different when experienced through the sing-song, rather telegraphic formulations of the lines. As with “The Oven Bird” there is a heavy use of the verb “to be”: “was” occurs three times in four lines, something a novice writer of poetry would try to avoid. And there are also three “whats,” two of which occur in a single line (“What kept him from remembering what it was”), designed to make it hard to indulge in sad feelings about old age — one notices the way that “age” is quietly buried at the very end of the next line.
Apropos of his sister Jeanie, Frost claimed that as he grew older he found it easier to lie awake and worry about other people’s troubles. But he is at least as much a critic of such sympathetic identification with others — lonely old men or oven birds — as a practitioner of it. Or rather, some of the best poems in Mountain Interval derive their energy from the play of movement toward and withdrawal from the subject contemplated, play such as can be seen in two lines further on which summarize the old man in his setting;
Love, Isolation, and Redemption in Great Expectations
Love, Isolation, and Redemption in Great Expectations
The major themes of Charles Dickens novel Great Expectations to be discussed in order of importance, are “Love” in the context of human relationships, “Isolation” and finally “Redemption”.
The loneliness isolation brings can be redeemed by the loving association of our fellow man, in two ways. “Had grown diseased, as all minds do and must and will that reverse the appointed order of their maker” (author’s last name and pg. #). In isolation, the greatest sin we commit against others and ourselves is to shun human companionship, as Miss Haversham did. After her betrayal in love, she hardened her heart towards her fellow man. By hardening her heart and suppressing her naturally affectionate nature, she committed a crime against herself.
Miss Haversham’s love for Compeyson was one of a compassionate kind, which blinded her to his true nature. Herbert remarked, “too haughty and too much in love to be advised by anyone” (author’s last name and pg. #). At Compeysons’ desertion, her anger and sorrow became extreme and she threw herself and the Satis House into perpetual mourning and created a monument to her broken heart; she shut the world out and herself from the world. Her only concession was adoption of Estella. Miss Haversham had ulterior motives in adopting Estella, which was not a loving action on her part, but a calculated maneuver to turn the child into a haughty heartless instrument of revenge against men. Estella was encouraged to practice her disdain on Pip and to break his heart.
Paradoxically, Miss Havershams greatest sin was against herself. By hardening her heart she lost her generous, affectionate nature and becomes withered emot…
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… He endures hardship and triumphantly emerges a mature, thoughtful person.
The themes of Love, Isolation and Redemption are the structure the other themes hang on. The loneliness of isolation is the beginning. Love is the backbone of the novel, the thing that binds the others together; redemption is its conclusion. There has to be love or the characters would not be able to interact, if there were only isolation each character’s tale would be a separate piece of work. All good novels have a moral to relate and involve love and redemption.
NOTES:
tHE SENTENCES IN CAPITAL LETTERS CAN BE MADE INTO AN INTRODUCTION.
THE WHOLE PAPER CONTAINS EXCELLENT IDEAS, BUT THEY ARE RAMBLED.
IN THE INTRODUCTION TRY TO SAY THE MAIN POINTS. THEN, WRITE ONE PARAGRAPH FOR EACH POINT. THEN FINALLY WRITE A CONCLUDING PARAGRAPH.