In Reading the poems by James Dickey I found them to be some what depressing and morbid, but also confusing. Most of the lines in the poems had different meanings, or meanings that I think are supposed to be applied to the happenings of that time period of which I am unaware off, and do not understand. In each of the poems so far, they have been a dwelling into the inner workings of someone’s death, detail after detail, and a thorough look inward at what this situation was like.
In, The Underground Stream, he is laying next to this well imagining what it would be like to fall into this well, this underground stream. Then with this his spirit would be free, and calm, with him being able to fall to silence. It seems like he wants to switch his fate with the fate of someone whom he loved that has died. If he were able to do this, and make it possible he would be happy and the world would be at peace. I thought this was an interesting poem about a man trying to come to terms with the death of someone close to him, and offering his life in return of the other.
This Poem reminded me of a thanotology psychology class that I took. Because it deals with mourning and bereavement, and the steps that people take during the path to coping with a death. Denial and anger, I think this is where he is now, mad and sad about the loss, willing to do what ever it takes to make things right again for him.
It also seemed as though he felt guilty for this death or just guilty for the fact that he’s alive and happy; he says “and thought how to bury my smile.” He is struggling with life, god, and his internal sense of being.
3 comments:
Yeah I thought they were morbid too because a lot of them were about people dying. For example in the first one it's about the girl going to heaven. Also one is about a girl falling and her clothes coming off and then dying when she hit the ground. Very weird stuff.
I agree that these poems were very confusing. I think that as a group they were the hardest bunch to figure out that I’ve ever read for a class. However, I think that you did a great job analyzing the poem. I had a similar interpretation of the first part, but I missed what you picked up on in the second part. The first part seems like a boy/young man is contemplating using the well as an escape route from life via suicide and is picturing the “structureless grass” covering him up. I thought this was a very grim portrayal because he pictures himself still smiling. That image, him smiling and being covered by nature, is haunting to me. I am not sure why he is smiling except that maybe he would be free from life’s pain. Now, I had not thought the last third of the poem was about a dead lover, but that would make sense since the narrator referred to her as his “first love.” I thought that she used to bring him back to reality and to life, as mentioning her snaps the poem away from discussing falling into the well, by reading stories and singing, but that they fell out of love. He said that “all the time I felt / The secret triumph melt,” and I had thought that something changed their relationship, but now I think that you are right that what changed was possibly her death. Perhaps the narrator is remembering her and wanting to be dead because of her death that caused his “joy” to “flow down.”
Dickey is not the easiest poet, but I think that you have a good interpretation of the poem. Your relation to the mourning process completely makes sense because it is not unusual for someone who is mourning to wish that they had died instead.
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