Death

Paul Celan, in addition to another Holocaust survivor and writer, Tadeusz Borowski, ended his own life after struggling with personal issues. Ironically enough, Celan actually committed suicide on April 20th, Hitler's birthday. Through his poetry, Celan expresses his experiences with death in the concentration camp ("Paul Celan" 1468).

The poem "Deathfugue" "refers to the dance music that an SS commander forced prisoners to lay during marches and executions at the Janomska camp in L'vov, Ukraine" ("Paul Celan"1468). Throughout the poem, Celan mentions "black milk" being drunk in all day and all night. Based of the other lines suggesting "you'll rise up as smoke to the sky/ you'll then have a grave in the clouds where you won't lie too cramped" (1470). Perhaps, this black milk filling the air that the prisoners ingest is actually the smoke from the crematoria where dead (or alive) prisoners were burned. This is in contrast to the prisoners having to "shovel a grave in" (1469). Death is so much a part of concentration camps that while you are digging graves, you are also ingesting the ashes of the dead.

"Aspen Tree" is a poem that focuses on Celan's mother  who "was shot when she was no longer capable of working" ("Paul Celan" 1468). He spends the poem reflecting on all the things his mother will not be able to do while asking questions of nature. He writes, "Aspen tree, your leaves glance white into the dark./ My mother's hair never turned white" (1470). While the world keeps on moving, the tree's cycles continue, his mother's cycle has been ended.


The introduction describes Celan's poetry "responded to the calamities and horrors of his time with a restrained, minimalist art that spoke the truth about the unnamable" (1469). "Deathfugue" and "Aspen Tree" are examples of this.

Works Cited

Celan, Paul.  “Aspen Tree.”  The Norton Anthology of World Literature. Ed. Martin  Puchner. Vol. 2.  New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2013. 1470.  Print.

Celan, Paul.  “Deathfugue.”  The Norton Anthology of World Literature. Ed. Martin  Puchner. Vol. 2.  New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2013. 1469-70.  Print.

"Paul Celan." The Norton Anthology of World Literature. Ed. Martin  Puchner. Vol. 2.  New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2013. 1467-9.  Print.

Neruda

In Pablo Neruda's poem "Walking Around," readers are given a description of a busy city. However, it is not a celebration of this city's booming activities. Neruda sets an bustling, gritty tone, so an insufferable image of city life emerges.

"Walking Around" describes the cramped style in which one has to walk in a city, as well as the grittiness the city has within it. Neruda uses words like "navigating," "pass," "cross," and "shoves" to describe the walk through the streets. Each one of these words has more of a bustling connotation (1424). This is not a pleasant, open-field walk but a tight, crowded one. As the speaker is attempting to walk through the crowded streets, readers are given a description of the surroundings. Every description of the city is horrendous. Neruda even describes drying laundry as "weep[ing] slow dirty tears" (1424). Even a description of drying laundry has a gritty, depressing tone. Instead of water dropping from the wet clothes, Neruda calls it tears. Words like "intestines" and "poisons" also contribute to unpleasant descriptions of the speaker's surroundings (1424). 

Overall, Neruda is simply setting a depressing tone. He continuously repeats, "It happens that I am tired of being a man" (1423). This repeated line itself depicts the overwhelming sadness the speaker is feeling. Neruda writes of "cold, dying with pain" to add to this overall depressing tone (1424). There is even an evil undertone of agression- speaking of "knock[ing] a nun stone dead with one blow of an ear" (1423). Of all people to murder, a nun seems an odd selection. This is the only time Neruda writes of pleasantry. When he writes of murdering a nun or walking through the streets with a gun, he uses words like "delicious" and "beautiful," which adds to the very unsettling tone of the piece (1424). 



Works Cited

Neruda, Pablo. “Walking Around.” The Norton Anthology of World Literature. Ed. Martin Puchner. 3^rd ed. Vol. 2. New York: W.W. Norton, 2013. 1423-1424. Print.

Gender

In many of the texts read lately, there has been a focus on submissive women. Perhaps they were still strong, but the women were usually left with very little choice or respect. In Joaquim Maria Machado De Assiss' "The Rod of Justice," readers see a very strong, self-sufficient woman, Sinha Rita, insert her dominance over three characters. Sinha Rita is described as "a fine figure of a woman, lively, merry, and fond of a joke, but, if need be, fierce as the devil" (913).

First, Sinha Rita displays her dominance over her lover, Joao, the godfather of our main character, Damiao. When Sinha Rita decides to help Damiao leave the seminary, she uses her hold over Joao. She writes to him, "either you rescue the boy, or we never see each other again" (916). Rather than being at the full disposal of her lover, she actually makes demands and threats to him.

Sinha Rita is also in command of slaves, and the Damiao specifically notices one slave girl, Lucretia, who laughs at his joke. Sinha Rita responds by threatening the girl with a birch rod if she does not get her work done. "If her task was not finished at nightfall, Lucretia would receive the usual punishment" (913). Damiao resolves to stand up for Lucretia if she would be punished with the rod.

Lastly, Sinha Rita, although she has set out to help Damiao, eventually shows her dominance even over him. By the end of the story, the time arises for Lucretia to receive a punishment. Even though Damiao has vowed to protect her from the rod, when Sinha Rita asks him to hand the rod to her he obeys. He "was pricked by an uneasy sense of guilt, but he wanted so much to get out of the seminary" (916). He knows the power Sinha Rita is using to help him, so she is ultimately able to control him. 

De Assis, Joaquim Maria Machado. "The Rod of Justice." The Norton Anthology of World Literature. Ed. Martin  Puchner. Vol. 2. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2013. 911-916. Print.

Martí and Whitman

Walt Whitman and Jose Marti both explore themselves, nature, and the world around them through their free verse poetry. Although these poems are simply written, the topics explored are expansive.

In Whitman's "Song of Myself," he discusses the world and its connection to himself. He writes, "I celebrate myself, and sing myself,/ And what I assume you shall assume,/ For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you" (648). There is a connection between celebrating who he is, as well as the brotherhood between all beings because we are of the same. He later continues this brotherhood, spanning throughout the nation, "At home on the hills of Vermont or in the woods of Maine, or the Texan ranch" (649).

Similarly, Marti writes in "I Am an Honest Man," "I come from everywhere/ And I am going toward everywhere: Amonf the arts, I am art/ In the mountains, I am a mountain" (681). Not only does Marti also have the sense of unity between himself and the world, he also specifically mentions being a part of nature like Whitman. 

Both poets feel their importance and connection to others, as well as nature around them. With this, each poet has a poem with a tone of acceptance and unity. 

                                     Work Cited

Marti, Jose. "I Am an Honest Man." The Norton Anthology of World Literature. Ed. Martin  Puchner. Vol. 2. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2013. 681-682. Print.

Whitman, Walt. "Song of Myself." The Norton Anthology of World Literature. Ed. Martin  Puchner. Vol. 2. 
New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2013. 648-653. Print.