A Variety of Readings
‘Alter Ego’ - Focus on the link and relationship between the persona and the alter ego.
The spiritual aspects of the alter ego being all knowing, and the personas knowledge being incomplete. It is all about experience and individual spirituality.
The temporal nature of the personas physical existence. The connection of her temporal existence and the everlasting of nature.
The metaphor of music is used to transcend time and represent timelessness and creativity. Reference to nature is metaphorically expressed in Harwood’s subtle link to himself and the surroundings.
Notion that death will unite the alter ego and the persona.
Also someone of pantheistic approach/view of the ego. Music like Water. Water is life and essential.
Herself as a burnt flame. The water stops the flame, symbolizing Harwood’s mortality (reinforcing it).
Art survives its creator. Romantics with modernist.
‘At Mornington’- Water is the unifying motif. Through nature the persona can be granted spiritual significance. Approaching not only death but also the day of judgement. In one sense the poem is about the hope of being saved, not to enter hell. God, her saviour.
It will focus on how the emotions and thoughts of the persona/character in the text emerge out of their past experiences that have been repressed. This refers to characterization and revelation about human nature and experience. The critical application for psychoanalytical concepts generally fall into three categories:
- Emphasizing the author’s psychological conflicts as evidence in his or her work
- Focusing on the way in which texts allow readers to access hidden desires and fears
- Analyzing the characters in a text as if they were real people
Such an analysis of the characters may involve the reader finding subtext 9the unconscious, or covert, motives and feelings0 communicated in the characters speech or action.
Psychoanalytic literary criticism may also discover conflict and competing desires in a text. This could involve looking for images, symbols, metaphors, conceits, superstitions, myths and objects that have sexual connotations.
‘At Mornington’ - would focus on how the persona shifts between the past and the present and dreams and reality throughout the poem in order to come to fully appreciate the present and comes to terms with her future and the inevitability of death
’Glass Jar’- focuses on the incident depicted in the poem as a reflection of the composers need or desire to resolve issues within their own paternal relationships.
* The rivalry between the boy and his father, and how this influences his image of his mother is significant
lay in his rival's...
... violence done to her"
this alludes to the Oedipus complex, a concept central to the psychoanalytic theory that explains the unconscious desire of a child for a sexual relationship with the parent of the opposite sex and the rivalry with the same sex parent ensues from that. [WW]
Also linking to the Oedipus theory is the fact boys grew out of this phase due to the fear of being punished by their fathers
"his father held fiddle and bow, and scraped assent to the malignant ballet"
it is clear that the boy is getting punished through a violent dream involving his father and therefore closely links to the Oedipus theory,
Also significant to a Freudian reading is how the monsters he views at night are "envenomed with his secret hate" and use this knowledge to harass him. These monsters are merely a creation of his mind and therefore suggest that he has potential for evil thoughts and desires. [Tennille]
’Alter ego’ - will focus on the lack of resolution between the ego and alter ego. The metaphor of life as a journey suggests that regardless that it seems that the person and alter ego are in the process of becoming unified, they never actually do. The feeling of inadequacy that our expectations, consequence of not knowing the whole self. The desire for complete understanding of the conscious and unconscious selves.
‘The Violets’ – the role that memories play in overcoming feelings of loss and except the transient nature of our existence.
Dominant Reading - reflects the stereotypes dominant within the society to which it belongs. It favours the most dominant members of a culture, reflecting the values and attitudes of the figures of authority within it-for instance the media....etc
Feminist Reading - will focus on how women are represented in it, as well as the relationship between men and women. A tenet of feminist thought is that masculine (patriarchal) ways of perceiving and ordering are ‘inscribed’ into the prevailing ideology of society. Analyzing texts from a feminist perspective can demonstrate how patriarchal assumptions are communicated.
In patriarchal societies, language contains binary oppositions of qualities, such as active/passive, reasonable/irrational, head/heart, reason/feeling or strength/weakness. It is argued that the feminine is always the less desirable of the two.
Harwood refuses to sentimentalise little girls, or say that they are entirely innocent or devoid of cruelty. This is shown in the poems ‘At Mornington’, ‘Prize Giving’ and ‘Father and Child’.
Her comments are on a patriarchal society, one controlled by men.
’Prize-Giving’ - "It is significant that the prof has been invited as an honoured guest to a 'GIRLs school speech night'. The suggestion is that his achievements as a successful MAN will "lend distinction...to the occasion"
In addition, the prof's disdain for the occasion, having rudely declined the initial invitation and the achievements of the young women who hands "He shook/indifferently" he sees them as a collective group rather than individuals.
*Interaction between the prof and the Headmistress is significant to a feminist reading. The fact that he is "supurb in silk and fur' and she is dressed 'humbler in black' suggest that there is an imbalance in power between the genders.
Notably the head fusses and fawns over the professor, she is presented as subservient to him
Interaction between eisenbart and the redhead girl. From the outset the relationship between them is a power struggle. The prof first notices her as she mocks and mimics him.
"One girl sat grimming at him, her hand bent,
under her chin in mockery of his own"
however as the girl accepts her award the girl established immediate power over the prof.
The provocative connotations of the girls actions as she "hitched at her stocking" and "winked" prior to accepting the award are particularly significant. The implication that the girl gains power over the prof thru virtue of her sexuality.
A sage fool of a man becomes uncertain and unbalanced by the ‘titian haired girl’.
The prof's loss of power and autonomy as she draws "his stare with her to the piano" contributes to the construction of an image of a woman with power who should be feared by men. The titian-haired girl is ascribed with the qualities of a seductress, whist her musical talents and the achievement of the music award is marginalised. [Simmey]
‘Father and Child’– A feminist reading would foreground the patriarchal symbolism through references to ‘Old King’; the death of the owl and its links to the feminine and the defeminisation of the daughter, who, like Lear’s daughters, has attempted to rob her father. The reversal of their positions. The lack of a mother figure.
‘The Glass Jar’ – The mother assuming the stereotypical gender role of, nurturer and passive sexual partner. It is she who is depicted as having the burden of rising in the middle of the night to comfort her son. ‘would not turn her face from the gross violence done to her.’
‘The Violets’ – The stereotypical representation of gender roles. Mother as nurturer and embodying femininity and the father as the bread winner.
Post Modern Reading - focuses on how meaning is constructed through the connections between texts (inertextuality). Therefore post modern challenges the idea that meaning is a reflection of values.
In this Harwood makes us aware of our limitations, forces over which we have no control.
She does this by: relating an authentic personal experience in a private and personal world, and, extrapolating from this the larger concerns that people face.
Modernist texts are concerned with the inner life of the persona. This introspection is at the heart of many of the poems: ‘The Violets’, ‘At Mornington’, ‘Father and Child’, and ‘Altar Ego’. In these poems she seems concerned with the truths that lie beneath the surface and just how formative a seminal childhood can be later in life.
Marxist Reading- concerned with the potential of a text to influence and control people through the values and beliefs it represents. It considers literature in terms of how it reflects class struggles and economic conditions. It distorts a picture of society by showing it from a particular point of view.
’Prize- Giving’- A Marxist reading of prize giving would be critical of the view of society presented in the poem and analyse the power relationships between the various characters and how these are influenced by various factors, such as gender, age, education and rank.
It is significant that the poem presents a distorted view of society, in that the school is clearly a middle class institution. The Head, as the leading representative of the school, values pomp and ceremony, having gone to great lengths to create an atmosphere of importance, added to by the attendance of professor Eisenbart 'an honoured guest'.
It is significant that the poem does engage in light - hearted ridicule of the speech-night tradition and the Head's illusions of superiority.
Prof Eisenbart is clearly a member of the privileged class. His academic superiority is evident through academic gowns. As a member of the upper-class he distinguished himself from the masses.
It is significant that the girl is presented as an insubordinate member of the masses, inferior to the Prof in education, age, gender and yet presenting a challenge to him. This could be interpreted as symbolic of her challenging the middle-class, patriarchal beliefs and the values that both the prof and the school represent. Through the actions of the titian-haired girl, the prof is exposed to as a 'sage fool'. He and the element of society that he represents is ridiculed and trivialised" [Simmey]
New Criticism- theory that was extremely influential in the mid-twentieth century-- it basically revolved around the idea that context and composer's identity has nothing to do with a text, and texts should thus be analysed completely as a separate identity [Clerisy]
‘Father And Child’ –The child assuming the role of God, master of life and death. Allusion to the old testament of Samson ‘robbed of power/by sleep’. The word ‘wept’ has strong connotations. Continuing biblical symbolism in the ‘early sun’ and ‘times long promised land’. The child can even be compared to the prodigal, who after abandoning his father returns for comfort.
‘The Glass Jar’ – the eternal struggle of good and evil represented through words like ‘disciples’, ‘exorcise’, ‘holy’, ‘bless’, ‘lost’ and ‘resurrected’. The boys’ fear of evil is ultimately conquered by good, ‘his monstrance stood’.
‘The Violets’ – the comfort and stability offered by a traditional family unit, roles are unequivocally defined.
‘Alter Ego’– the contemplation of the omniscient, omnipresent and spiritual self. It is only through the acknowledgement of this alter ego that we can truly achieve our potential. A belief that, only at the end of life will, the two selves be reconciled in immortality.