Category: Academic Work

Thomas Stearns Eliot, more popularly known as T. S. Eliot, was a writer of great promise and, eventually, great success at the time when the Modernism literary movement was gaining traction. Eliot actually wrote the majority of his famous poem around 1910, but it wasn’t until fellow Modernist writer Ezra Pound discovered the work that Eliot, after some revisions, published it in 1917.

Eliot’s poem was considered revolutionary. Eliot deftly employs many of the standard techniques of Modernism to detail the experiences of the titular character and speaker. He incorporated themes of alienation, both from one’s self and society at large, fragmentation, the unconscious as a motivator for thought and behavior, and a decisively experimental form: rhyme is present but is highly irregular, meter is also irregular, and stanzas range in length from a mere two lines to as many as eleven lines in some places.

The result is that the reader discovers layers of self-doubt, self-mockery, and a lack of self confidence all interwoven into one grand tapestry whose threads feature themes of longing, ennui, paralysis, and introspection. These thematic threads can be analyzed individually, but, as soon as the reader tries to unravel one, the work perversely tightens in other places, making a definitive analysis or final meaning always beyond reach.

The opening line, “Let us go then, you and I” (1), would, at first glance, seem like an invitation to embark on a jaunt or escapade to a friend or partner, and may be romantic in nature. This interpretation is shattered in the next two lines, “When the evening is spread out against the sky/ Like a patient etherized upon a table” (2-3). This simile jolts the reader out of any romantic ideas he might have had and, instead, thrusts him into the cold and the clinical: the sky is not romantic and the speaker and his subject are not lovers going for an evening stroll, they are mentally anesthetized and the sky is inert and suspended, void of movement. This is a description of paralysis, not passion, and is a prime example of the technique of absurdity.

Eliot goes on to incorporate yet another technique of Modernism: fragmentation, specifically of the self. He never establishes precisely to whom it is that Prufrock is speaking. It is easy to assume that it is a companion of some sort, but an alternative interpretation is that Prufrock is actually conversing with himself. This internalized dialogue sets the poem’s whole tone and is thematically important, as it informs everything that comes after. Prufrock might, after all, be conversing with his own anxieties and insecurities, making both an unwilling tour guide as well as a bewildered tourist of his own mind, constantly asking, “How did I get here?”, and, “Where am I going?”

The poem also makes use of what is known as syntactical symbolism, which is when the diction and construction of a sentence reveals meaning beyond what the sentence simply says. Eliot chose to use the environment and its atmosphere to explore Prufrock’s alienation from both society as well as the world at large; this imagery is akin to a map of Prufrock’s mind and subconscious. The city is partially personified, as in the line, “The muttering retreats” (5), and partially psychic in nature, as in “…through certain half-deserted streets” (4) and “Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels” (6). Prufrock, through his diction and description, reveal a psychic landscape of loneliness and desperation. Even the yellowed fog is not spared: it is anthropomorphized as rubbing “…its back upon the window panes” (15), licking “…its tongue into the corners of the evening” (17), and lingering “…upon the pools that stand in drains” (18). The fog is Prufrock: existing in the world but never truly comfortable in it. These images partly reveal and partly reflect Prufrock’s interior: the streets meander like his own indecision; the “…women {that} come and go/ Talking of Michelangelo” (13-14) represent his longing for companionship with the ‘fairer sex’ coupled with his fear of being rejected and derided for not being sufficiently cultured.

Eliot also employed repetition to great effect. Prufrock’s internal repeating thought that, “And indeed there will be time,” (23) and, “There will be time, there will be time,” (26), seem like a soothing, reassuring mantra, but is actually a cleverly hidden trap. Assuring himself that he has copious amounts of time still actually enables Prufrock in his perpetual procrastination. This turns the repetition into something more like a spell or incantation, bewitching Prufrock into comfortable stagnation. The line, “And indeed there will be time/ To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”’ shows the trap snapping shut: Prufrock is allotted time but not action.

Yet another technique Eliot employed was the theme of absolute alienation, not just from other people or the world, but from Profrock’s own physical body. Here, the body is utilized as a source of even more anxiety and self-doubt. Prufrock is so self-conscious that it borders on pathological. He is insecure about his balding pate, as demonstrated in the lines, “With a bald spot in the middle of my hair~/ (They will say: How his hair is growing thin!”) (40-41), as well as his declining physique, as evidenced by line 44: “(They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”). Every supposed ‘deficiency’ amplifies his sense of inadequacy and reinforces his sense of alienation. His body has become an obstacle, an encumbrance, not an extension of agency or zest.

One of the reasons that a definitive interpretation of this poem is so elusive is due to what I like to call ‘The Absent Grand Question’. Prufrock wonders, “Do I dare/ Disturb the universe?” (45-46), but Prufrock, paralyzed, procrastinating Prufrock, never reveals what question he wishes to ask, nor what action on his part would “Disturb the universe.” It is left to be inferred, never resolved: is it a romantic confession (or at least one of desire) that is so crucial that he simply cannot bear to give voice to it? The reader is left unsatisfied, to wonder eternally: What was it? This unasked question echoes silently in the cave of negative space it creates which is a void filled with dread. Paradoxically, not to mention masterfully, the lingering silence is louder than any confession could be.

Prufrock’s final undoing is his conjuring up a bevy of mermaids, sensual singing sirens who represent erotic possibilities and beauty. But, almost as quickly as he has done thus, he reflexively disqualifies himself immediately, “I do not think that they will sing to me.” (125) This line is akin to shutting the door upon wonder, myth, and sensual fulfillment. These things exist, but not for Prufrock (or so he believes), furthering his alienation. The final line, “Til human voices wake us, and we drown,” (131) exposes the flaw of Prufrock existing only in his fantasies: when roused by an intruding force, he drowns under the weight of the real world, a world he cannot navigate, let alone enter.

In his youth, poet John Donne wrote racy libertine verse that insulted women and advocated for intercourse with multiple partners. The subject matter of his poems changed when he fell in love with his employer’s niece, Anne More, and married her. Nuptial bliss seemed to alter Donne’s outlook and priorities, which can be seen reflected in his later works, works like “The Sun Rising” and “The Canonization”. It’s easy to imagine Donne composing these odes to and about Anne. As a writer, Donne belongs to the school of poetry known as ‘Metaphysical’ poetry. Metaphysical poetry is widely known for containing a ‘conceit’: an odd and lengthy comparison between two things that bear little in common. For instance, Donne once wrote a poem where he compared a tear to a navigator’s globe. Conceits differ from simple metaphors in that they are sustained throughout the length of the poem; they can also be played with by reversing the conceit, adding new conceits, and so on.

Donne’s “The Sun Rising” is a stellar example of his wit, dexterity, and authenticity of sentiment. The speaker and his beloved (let’s presume that they are Donne and Anne) awake next to each other in bed. They are so content with the scene and so very in love that they fear any intrusion on their perfect bliss. But intruded upon they are are, only it’s not his employer nor her father, but the morning sun peering through the window and the curtains like a prying neighbor. The rising sun signals the start of a new day and chores to be done, appointments to be kept, food to be bought and prepared, and so on. It’s normally regarded as a harbinger off possibility, for the day is young and anything could happen. But Donne and Anne rue the intruding sun, for it is an interruption on their intimacy and love:

“Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime,/ Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of

time.” (lines 9-10)

Donne and Anne feel that they are above such mortal constraints as time; they believe that their love frees them from having to rise and attend to their duties. Donne implies that love keeps its own hours and schedule. Indeed, the pair believe that they are exactly where they should be: in bed and in love.

Donne is so angry at the intrusion of the sun that he starts calling the sun unsavory names, like “Busy old fool” (1), “unruly” (1), and “Saucy pedantic wretch.” (5). This is Donne’s conceit: he has personified the sun, treating it as if it were a person. He suggests other things the sun should go do in place of intruding upon the couple, telling the orb to “….go chide/ Late school boys and sour prentices,/ Go tell court huntsmen that the king will ride,/ Call country ants to harvest offices….” (5-8), anything other than disturb his love. Donne is petulantly peeved at the sun, an inanimate thing, and responds by acting as if the sun were intentionally interrupting his lying with his beloved Anne. In Donne’s view, not only is the sun intruding, it is actively choosing to do so. He asks of the sun: “Why dost thou thus /Through windows and through curtains call on us?” (2-3) The lovers want to be left alone, and the intruding beams of light are interrupting their time- together as if the sun had knocked at the door and then burst into their chamber.

Donne’s response is to flip the conceit and aver that he is the sun and, thus, has all of the powers and attributes of the star. He mocks the sun for presuming that it has any power in this situation, asking: “Thy beams, so reverend and strong/ Why shouldst thou think?” (11-12), which is Donne’s way of dismissing the sun’s strength and influence. He then boasts that he, himself, is the sun and asserts that “I could eclipse and cloud them (the sun’s beams) with a wink.” (14). Not only is Donne now the sun, but he can do what the sun does “with a wink”, that is to say, more easily. The only thing preventing him from making good on his boast is the fact that, if he did, his beloved would not be able to see him: “But that I would not lose her sight so long.” (14) He then goes on to flip the conceit once more and states that Anne is the sun: “If her eyes have not blinded thine” (15), which suggests that Anne, too, wields the power of the sun’s rays and can blind the true sun just by looking at it.

Donne than avers that everything that is of worth or wealth in the world is already present with him and that, “Thou, sun, art half as happy as we,” (25) He concludes his piece by averring that, since the sun is intent on shining, then it is best that it it warm the couple:

“….and since thy duties be

To warm the world, that’s done in warming us.

Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere;

This bed thy center is, these walls, thy sphere.” (27-30)

Donne vacillates from ruing the rising sun, to claiming that he is superior, to, finally, putting the star to work in warming the couple as they lie in bed in love.

Another of Donne’s works, “The Canonization”, also focuses on love, and, once again, the speaker is trying to be prevented from loving. The piece opens mid- intervention: someone or a group of people are trying to dissuade the speaker from loving, because they deem the love immoral, impractical, inappropriate, or embarrassing. The speaker, however, wants none of this criticism, he retorts, “For God’s sake, hold your tongue, and let me love,” (1) He clearly feels that this unsolicited

advice is unnecessary and lists other critiques that he would rather hear instead, critiques of his manhood, state, age, reputation, and fortune. He would rather be subjected to disapproval of any of these than be prevented from loving.

The speaker has some suggestions of his own for his critics:

“  With wealth your state, your mind with arts improve,

                Take you a course, get you a place,

                Observe his honor, or his grace,

Or the king’s real, or his stampèd face

          Contemplate; what you will, approve,

          So you will let me love.” (4-9)

He is essentially telling his detractors that their energies would be better spent on other pursuits; he cares not what they are, so long as he is left alone to love. Presumably, these very pursuits are the things his critics believe the speaker should be striving for. The fact that he is not turns his love into an act of rebellion: he will not do as the others do, he will do what he wants, and that is to love.

The speaker asks the rhetorical question of his critics, “Alas, alas, who’s injured by my love?” (10) and proceeds to list all the ways in which his love has not harmed anyone. Rather, life appears to be running its usual course:

“Soldiers find wars, and lawyers find out still

          Litigious men, which quarrels move,

          Though she and I do love.” (16-18)

But his critics are treating his love as if it were a threat to the stability of the status quo and must be contained or halted, a sentiment the speaker is clearly arguing against.

The speaker’s defiant countermove is to frame his love as a spiritually productive entity. He retorts:

“We can die by it, if not live by love,

         And if unfit for tombs and hearse

Our legend be, it will be fit for verse;” (28-30)

It’s almost as if the speaker, in a moment of enlightenment or foreseeing the future, has predicted the composition of this very poem. He resists his detractors, refuses their pleas, and, essentially, makes a religion out of his love, canonizing the thing he values above all else.

We were assigned to write a response to three poems we had read in class; I wrote mine as a poem addressing each in turn.

If sturgeon could speak

I doubt they would wax about war or the Confederacy.

Rather, they would lament the numerous dams

That prevent them from reaching their spawning lands,

Or the pollution of every river, lake, and sea

That they desperately try to flee

As it harms their health and re-productivity.

When Death comes I will welcome it with open arms

Not because it possesses any romance or charm

But, though I love life, and always will

I long to know what lies beyond the crest of that hill.

Some say our souls join God in heaven,

But I haven’t believed that since I was eleven.

I rather think that we release our energy,

And consciousness, whatever that may be,

Goes on like an eternal Turing Machine

Running the same program indefinitely.

A once grand house, dissected into tiny living spaces,

Where the residents greet each other with sagging faces,

Because it’s hard to squeeze a dollar from a dime and pay rent

In this blight stricken tenement.

A shared bath and a dream deferred

Are all anyone is allowed in this neighborhood.

Chaucer was, of course, himself heavily invested in language, since he wrote both for pleasure and to fill his coffers. He read and spoke a number of different languages, including English, Latin, Italian, and French. For a man of his day, he was quite the linguaphile. As someone who was knowledgeable about language and also profited by his pen, it is only fitting that he should compose a tale along the line of “The Nun’s Priest’s Tale”, which is wholly centered around language and the power of words, flattery in particular.

“The Nun’s Priest’s Tale” is written in the style of a ‘mock-epic’, meaning that it uses grandiose language, the sort of diction usually reserved for the epic genre, except that here this elevated eloquence is used ironically to tell the tale of a rooster living in an ordinary barnyard of a poor old widow. Right away the reader is made aware of the elevation in style: the rooster, as opposed to being named Tom or John, is given the pretentious sounding name of “Chanticleer.” (404) This was actually a common name for roosters in folk tales and is derived from the French name Chantecler, meaning “clear singer”.

To wit, Chanticleer is noted for his very precise, very clear, and very pleasant crow, “In all the land, at crowing he’d no peer./ His voice was mellower than the mellow organ/ You hear in church on feast-days…” (404) Chaucer is only two stanzas into his poem and already he is touting the powerful qualities of vocalizations, “And where he lived, his crowing told the hour/ Better than any clock in abbey-tower.” (404) Given that the church was the corner-stone of Medieval society and, yet, Chanticleer keeps better time than the church, Chaucer is subtly inserting the power and influence of language over large and powerful institutions, or else he is suggesting that these institutions are at the mercy of words and that their very power is derived from language and how it is wielded. Either interpretation is somewhat flirting with danger, as the church and its doctrine/ power were not concepts that were openly challenged.

Chaucer truly highlights the strength of language and its ability to sway behavior from one course of action to a wholly different one in the part of the poem where Chanticleer meets the “…black fox, iniquitous and sly…” (413) hiding in a bed of cabbage. Chanticleer’s first reactions are aversion and fear:

“At this he never felt less wish to crow,

But, chattering a ‘cok-cok’, he leapt up

Like someone in a panic, terror struck….

He would have fled, had not the fox exclaimed,

‘Good sir, where are you off to? I’m your friend!

Alas that you should be afraid of me!” (415)

The fox uses the persuasive power of language to disarm Chanticleer and halt his flight; furthermore he uses copious amounts of “blandishments and flattery” (416), the ‘oil of communication’, to dupe Chanticleer into closing his eyes and exposing his neck, a vulnerable position for any creature. But Chanticleer, fooled by the fox’s complimenting his father’s as well as his own singing, readily acquiesces to the fox’s cajoling to, “…sing for sweet saint charity!/ Show me if you can emulate your father!”. (416) Chaucer is making the very clear comment on the power and influence that words, when yielded deftly, can not only alter one’s actions, they can make one act in foolish and dangerous ways.

If words can be used to manipulate, the natural antithesis of this would be the power of words to motivate the masses to act for the greater good or to respond to a threat, as Chaucer illustrates by having Pertelote sound the alarm, resulting in the denizens of the barnyard to coalesce and advance on the retreating fox, thereby giving Chanticleer his opportunity to use his words to save his life:

“…if I were in your place,

So help me God, I’s turn round and say this:

‘Go home, you stupid yokels! Plague on you!

Now I’m at the wood’s edge , what can you do?’” (418)

Now it’s time for the fox to play the dupe, for he, too, falls victim to suggestion and pride and opens his mouth to speak, upon which Chanticleer escapes. Chaucer’s point that no one is immune to the influence of words is made patently clear.

If Chaucer is underscoring the power of language and sound, he is also, and equally importantly, stating a contradictory yet complimentary fact: there is a power in silence, as well. Had Chanticleer not fallen for the fox’s flattery and refused to sing, he would have never been caught. Likewise, had the fox ignored Chanticleer’s suggestion, he would have had a sure meal. As Chaucer, himself, wrote:

“Bad luck to him who knows no better than

To talk too much when he should hold his tongue.” (419)

Language is probably Homo sapiens’ greatest achievement: our ability to share information and ideas has raised civilizations, led us to every corner of the globe, and even put a man on the moon. But what happens when two people do not speak the same language? That is when an interpreter becomes invaluable. Mr. Kapasi from Jhumpa Lahiri’s “Interpreter of Maladies”and the unnamed narrator from Maxine Hong Kingston’s “No Name Woman” would, at first glance, seem to have little in common. Mr. Kapasi is a middle-aged interpreter and tour-guide in India who is stuck in a loveless marriage and who experienced the death of his son from typhoid. The narrator is a Chinese-American wrestling with family silence and shame as she attempts to piece together the story of her also unnamed aunt, who became pregnant by a man who was not her husband and was persecuted by the village en masse, leading her to drown both herself and her newborn baby in the family well. A second glance at their stories, however, reveals something unexpected but crucial: both characters are interpreters, albeit of different things. Mr. Kapasi literally interprets not only languages, but social and emotional cues as well (although, not always accurately, as we shall see). The narrator interprets silence itself. She’s parsing cultural traditions, taboos, and shame to reconstruct the story of her aunt, reading meaning into what is said as well as what is unsaid. While Mr. Kapasi translates for the living, however, the narrator translates for the dead. Mr. Kapasi translates the spoken word while the narrator, in contrast, translates all that is not said. Both characters function as observers, translators, analysts, and makers-of-meaning.

The narrator is fighting an uphill battle against a decades long legacy of concealment. Kingston begins her piece with the following warning to the speaker by her mother regarding her aunt, ‘“You must not tell anyone,” my mother said, “what I am about to tell you.”’ (1) , and “Don’t let your father know that I told you. He denies her.” (1) This dire admonishment details the absolute secrecy of the story of the aunt and the wall of shame that surrounds her tale: silence has been the aunt’s legacy and the speaker’s family is intent on ensuring that this remains the status quo. As opposed to expressing rage at the villagers for attacking their home, killing their livestock, and stealing and breaking the family’s possessions, the narrator’s family instead blames the unnamed aunt (who might not have been a willing participant in the act of conception) for the supposed shame she has brought upon the family within their closely knit village. To wit, the village is so closely knit that inbreeding is a very real possibility but, again, this is never spoken aloud. People are simply forced to marry virtual strangers from other villages and move away, “But another, final reason for leaving the crowded house was the never-said.” (3) Shame and silence are this community’s assumed modus operandi and isa heritage of which the family refuses to let go.

Mr. Kapasi, a translator in a doctor’s office by day and a tour guide on the weekends, is fighting a battle, too, only this war is waged within himself. He feels lonely, unappreciated, and all but invisible as he navigates both his newfound middle class status and the tours he conducts for foreigners. His wife is unappreciative of all of his efforts, “Mr. Kapasi knew that his wife had little regard for his career as an interpreter….and that she resented the other lives he helped… to save. If ever she referred to his position, she used the phrase “doctor’s assistant”, as if the process of interpretation were equal to…. changing a bedpan.” (8) She is also seemingly repulsed by him, “….it occurred to him (Mr. Kapasi)…. that he had never seen his own wife fully naked. Even when they made love she kept… her blouse hooked together, the string of her petticoat knotted around her waist.” (11) It is little surprise that Mr. Kapasi should (mis)interpret Mrs. Das’ interest in him as romantic interest, as he has no one else in his life who is providing that for him.

Both characters are drawn to stories that fill a personal and emotional void within them. Mr. Kapasi: lonely, unappreciated, unhappy in his marriage, and yearning for recognition, reacts to Mrs. Das’ attentions as if they are a romantic revelation or spiritual elevation; they plug the hole in his heart and stroke his malnourished ego. He laps up her attentiveness much like someone, lost in the desert, will run head first into an unexpected oasis.. He reacts to her taking notice of him and praising his day job as if her queries, alone, are the life line that will save him from mediocrity and routine. The speaker is trying to fill a void as well, only hers is not only personal, it is also larger than herself. She is a one woman warrior battling years of denial and the very erasure of a human being. She is weighed down by a conflict of identity (Is she Chinese? Is she American? Is she Chinese-American?), cultural oppression, and generational censorship commingled with intense shame.

An additional commonality is that both Mr. Kapasi and the speaker encounter a woman who becomes something of a catalyst for them each, spurring them into something akin to metamorphosis. Momentarily intoxicated by the attentions of Mrs. Das, Mr. Kapasi suddenly becomes quite the romantic; he envisions the two composing lengthy and intimate letters to each other, letters that will bridge the thousands of miles between them, “She would write to him…. and he would respond eloquently…. In time she would reveal the dis-appointment of her marriage, and he his. In this way their friendship would grow, and flourish.” (10) This is new terrain for Mr. Kapasi: his arranged marriage at a young age deprived him of his dreams of studying languages and made him a young husband and father, instead; struggling to make ends meet and dealing with the death of his son and his wife’s subsequent blame of him. The narrator, though not encountering a physical person, encounters the closely guarded secret of her aunt, of whom the narrator had previously never even known existed. The narrator, emboldened by her American cultural exposure, commits an act of rebellion: she writes her unnamed aunt’s story so that the whole world will know to what her aunt was subjected, endowing her nameless aunt with a kind of belated acknowledgment that she existed and bore a child. She relates, “My aunt haunts me- her ghost drawn to me because now, after fifty years of neglect, I alone devote pages of paper to her….”. (5) The narrator and her aunt may not have names, but their humanity and worth is no less valuable for this fact.

A final common thread between the two stories is cultural expectations and pressures: the expectations placed upon each character to behave in a certain, preordained manner or risk ostracization from the community at large by bringing shame and judgment onto either the characters themselves or their families by association. Mr. Kapasi and the unnamed aunt were both coerced into arranged marriages, with the aunt ‘marrying’ a rooster as a stand-in for her chosen husband because he was away and unable to be present at the ceremony. Both marriages ended in disappointment and disillusionment: Mr. Kapasi and his chosen bride do not love each other and she harbors blame towards him that he was unable to save their dying son; the aunt had only enough time with her husband to finally meet him and consummate the marriage before he left to go look for work, leaving her at the mercy of her in-laws, who, “…could have sold her, mortgaged her, stoned her. But they had sent her back to her own mother and father, a mysterious act hinting at disgraces not told me.” (2) Mr. Kapasi, trapped by the compromise of his marriage, the abandonment of his dreams, and the stifling restraints of Indian middle-class propriety, is stuck in a state of perpetual and palpable, yet quiet, longing. The narrator is caught between her Chinese heritage and her American individuality, making her identity a conflict between inherited silence and personal revelation.

Not only are these two stories incredibly riveting and emotionally hard-hitting, they are prime examples of the competent and correct use of punctuation to effect a prosody in a text. While Jeanne Fahnestock, in her book Rhetorical Style: The Uses of Language in Persuasion, notes, “Edwin Herbert Lewis cited the ‘well-known fact that the English sentence has decreased in average length at least one-half in three hundred years’” (265) and that “…it seems likely that the shrinkage has continued” (265), this does not seem to be the case in either “Interpreter of Maladies” or “No Name Woman”. Fahnestock attributes this decrease in sentence length to “… a by-product of changing punctuation conventions. A period now does the work once done with different degrees of separation by periods, colons, and semicolons;” (265) But a sampling of “No Name Woman”, for example, proves otherwise:

“In a commensal tradition, where food is precious, the powerful older people made wrongdoers eat alone. Instead of letting them start separate new lives like the Japanese, who could become samurais and geishas, the Chinese family, faces averted but eyes glowering

sideways, hung on to the offenders and fed them leftovers.” (2)

Kingston, in her first sentence, uses two commas to separate the clause “where food is precious”, which, itself, reflects back on the introduction of “In a commensal tradition”. She could have alternatively written:

“Food is precious in a commensal tradition. Powerful older people made wrongdoers eat alone.”

This construction, however, removes something of the meaning of Kingston’s sentence: first she introduces the idea of “commensal tradition” being enforced by “powerful older people” who passed judgment on “wrongdoers”. She qualifies this dynamic by explaining that it was instilled because “food was precious (scarce)”. Her following sentence uses four separate commas to set off and highlight information she wishes to convey in a specific order. The commas, which act as pauses, lend her final construction a sing-song element, better known as ‘prosody’.

Similar examples can be found in Lahiri’s piece; indeed, Lahiri is widely lauded for her prosody in her writing as well as for what is known as ‘syntactic symbolism’. Writer Virginia Tufte, in her book Syntactic Symbolism: Grammar as Analogue, argues that, “Syntax is by nature more limited than meaning, for it must carry many different meanings.” (Chpt. 14) She also writes, “Syntactic symbols sometimes have the help of poetic diction, metrics, and sound symbolism.” (Chpt. 14) An excellent example of this in Lahiri’s piece is found at the very end of the story, when Mrs. Das accidentally loses the paper with Mr. Kapasi’s address:

“…the slip of paper with Mr. Kapasi’s address on it fluttered away in the wind. No one but Mr. Kapasi noticed. He watched as it rose, carried higher and higher by the breeze, into the trees where the monkeys now sat, solemnly observing the scene below.” (20)

Note that the paper with the address is not attached in a notebook, nor is it a full sized sheet of paper that is less likely to become misplaced. Rather, it is a “slip”: a small piece torn out from elsewhere, almost like an afterthought. Symbolically, this “slip” is lost in a ‘slip’, when Mrs. Das reaches for her hairbrush and pulls both objects out simultaneously. It is worth noting, too, that Mr. Kapasi and the monkeys are the only witnesses to this loss; silent sentinels to a communication that will now never be realized. Finally, the paper floats upward on the breeze, almost as if it is an offering to the spirits of the temple the Das’ and Mr. Kapasi visited that evening. As any reader can discern, Lahiri certainly knows how to load symbolism into her sentences, structuring the syntax the way an architect would draft a dream home.

Analysis of the authors’ sentence construction can enrich the reader’s appreciation of the finesse and craft that went into composing each piece. But the stories resonate beyond their mere mechanics: they are emotional journeys underpinned by some of the most basic and universal of human emotions: love, fear, loss, identity, belonging, despondency, and so many more I would be hard pressed to identify them all. This exploration of emotion and the human condition lend each story a timelessness that, I suspect, will never dissipate.

“All I know for sure is, God has plainly

Bidden us to increase and multiply–

A noble text, and one I well understand!

And, as I’m well aware, He said my husband

Must leave father and mother, cleave to me.

But, as to number, did He specify?

He named no figure, neither two nor eight–

Why should folk talk of it as a disgrace?

‘And what about that wise King Solomon:

I take it that he had more wives than one!” (pp 151)

I am well aware that much of my writing in this course has focused on the portrayal of women in the Chaucerian texts; specifically their lack of voice, choice, and agency. Still, The Wife of Bath is such a complex, self contradictory, and question- inspiring character that I wanted to revisit her in all of her flawed feminism one final time. Indeed, she is such a puzzle of portrayal that more scholarly critique has most likely been dedicated to her than any other of Chaucer’s creations.

The Wife is the subject of much debate to this day: is she a strong female character who has agency and belief in her opinions? Or is she yet another stereotype of the medieval woman: manipulative and deceitful? Or is she simply meant as satire; a sort of parody of the lower class person who has risen above their station but has yet to learn polite conduct? Her opening ten lines are like looking into a bedroom, and court of law, and a debate hall all at the same time. She doesn’t politely knock and ask to speak, she barges into a philosophical brawl over which is superior: textual authority or lived experience. She is intelligent enough to use both to sustain her defense of having married multiple times.

Indeed, in reading Chaucer’s tale of “Dame Alisoun”, we are immediately introduced to a woman who stands very far apart from Chaucer’s other female characters, such as Crisyde of Troilus and Crisyde and the characters of The Legend of Good Women. In contrast to these other female characters, The Wife of Bath is widely traveled, arrayed in fine garments, vocal almost to a fault, and:

“She knew all about wandering—and straying:

For she was gap- toothed, if you take my meaning.” (pp 15)

To be “gap-toothed” was, at the time, supposedly an indicator of unbridled lustiness. Combine that with the insinuation that she was no stranger to “straying” (presumably sexually) and Chaucer leads the reader to believe that The Wife is a spitfire of sexual excess and indulgence.

Despite this early description in the General Prologue, The Wife, while she does ultimately proffer her opinion on sexual relations, does so by utilizing legalese, scholastic syntax, and sermon- style logic, only she molds these to prove her own ends. She defends her position by offering examples from the ultimate authority of her day: the church and the Christian Bible. She quotes the Abrahamic God in Genesis 1:28 when he commands Adam:

“Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

Dame Alisoun doesn’t quite cite the quote correctly or in its entirety, rather she quotes only the section that supports her having had five different husbands. It is clear that we have a woman who is intelligent enough (or deceitful enough) to put forward only mandates that frame her argument in a persuasive manner and in her favor. She returns to scripture to once again justify her having married five times, asking:

“He named no figure, neither two nor eight–

Why should folk talk of it as a disgrace?” (pg150-151)

The second line reveals that The Wife has been subject to gossip and scandal by the locals and she is none too pleased about this. She wraps up her self defense, or, rather, testimony, angling for agreement from her fellow pilgrims, by, yet again, referencing Biblical figures:

“And what about that wise King Solomon?

I take it that he had more wives than one!” (pp 151)

This is especially clever on her part, as it reveals the hypocrisy of Biblical teachings while also pulling back the veil on the ways in which men and women were granted different rights and, thus, were unequal in status.

In writing The Wife of Bath, Chaucer almost seems to be wrestling with himself, trying to decide in which direction he wants to take The Wife. He gives her a very long prologue, which features such agency claiming lines as:

“Experience—and no matter what they say

In books—is good enough authority

For me to speak of trouble in marriage.” (pp 150)

These three opening lines carry a meaning beyond their mere words; in a culture and society that valued male dominated textual authority, The Wife is countering that lived female experience is a legitimate source of knowledge as well, pitting her against the clergy, academia, and male authored discourse. It’s a ‘flex move’ and foreshadows future feminist thought: that the personal is the political and, often, the political gets muddied by the personal. Her opening ten lines do not serve to establish her as morally reliable, but they do serve to demonstrate that one can argue oneself into existence via assertion, contradiction, and amplification. The Wife overstates, generalizes, and negates objections that have yet to be raised. She weaves her argument like a tapestry; threading together nonsequiturs, bawdy detail, concrete opinions, and rhetorical questions like a master weaver.

Not only is The Wife defending her life choices by referencing The Almighty, she is doing so endlessly, publicly, and unapologetically. Her lengthy prologue covers everything from morality in marriage to her own values and ethics (or lack thereof):

“He (Yeshua) spoke to those who would live perfectly;

And, sirs, if you don’t mind, that’s not for me.

I mean to give the best years of my life

To the acts and satisfactions of a wife.” (153)

She even discusses how she handled spousal violence after her fifth husband:

“…punched me with his fist upon the head

Till I fell to the floor and lay for dead

And when he saw how motionless I lay….

I…burst at last out of my swoon.

“He came close to me and kneeled gently down,

…But once again I hit him on the cheek:

‘You robber, take that on account!’ I said.” (pp170)

Now, violence in any context should not be condoned, but the fact that The Wife struck her abusive husband back is truly revolutionary, for Chaucer’s time as well as to this day. The Wife is positioned as a strong and independent woman who is not shy about using her voice, or her fists, to protect herself. This is a vast departure from earlier literary works, such as the Arthurian Legends, where women were mostly silent, spoken about, idealized or demonized (The Madonna and the Whore Trope), or treated as mere objects. The Wife, by being loud, embodied, argumentative, and bent on being heard transforms The Wife herself into being the story, not just an element of it. She’s not just stage dressing; she’s the main attraction.

But reading The Wife as some sort of feminist trailblazer requires the reader to ignore some rather unsavory aspects of her portrayal. The thornier side to The Wife is that she embodies many Medieval misogynistic tropes: she is manipulative, sexually excessive, materialistic, domineering, and deceitful. To wit, she boasts about controlling her elderly husbands through a mixture of guilt, sex, lies, and emotional coercion:

“Ladies and gentlemen, just as you’ve heard

I’d browbeat them, they really thought they’d said

All those things to me in their drunkenness.

All lies-but I’d get Jankin to stand witness

And bear me out….” (pg 159)

If The Wife contradicts the establishment, then aspects of her story like the ones above only serve to underscore the prevailing notion at the time that women in power would be naturally corrupt, selfish, and a force of destabilization. Indeed, Dame Alisoun sees power through the lens of domination, not equality; her ideal marriage is not mutual partnership but a reversal of hierarchy. She doesn’t want to dismantle the patriarchy, she wants to turn it upside-down and perch upon it like a throne. The takeaway? The Wife’s feminism is not egalitarian, it is adversarial. She believes that power exists, and she wants to wield it, reinforcing the idea that female authority is inherently tyrannical.

Despite this, author and critic S. H. Rigby, in his critique “The Wife Of Bath, Christine De Pizan, And The Medieval Case For Women”, makes a rather convincing case for The Wife’s proto-feminism:

“She is thus presented as a perceptive critic of misogynist orthodoxy who beats male

scholars at their own game and creates her own authoritative position

from which to speak in defense of her sex and to convince us of her

views. For such critics, Alisoun is a persuasive defender of the vision of

equality in marriage achieved through the surrender of male sovereignty which concludes both her prologues and her tale.” (pp 134)

Rigby’s assessment is not wrong, and his summation holds water, particularly when he writes that The Wife is a “perceptive critic” who “creates her own….position from which to speak” and is a “persuasive defender”. But his analysis glosses over all that is inherently not feminist about The Wife, mainly that “surrender of male sovereignty” does not engender equality in marriage. Equality engenders equality in marriage. Masculine submission merely creates feminine supremacy and domination.

Notably, Rigby acknowledges the trouble of attempting to qualify or quantity The Wife in one camp or another:

“Indeed, if, as Helen Cooper once said, there is less of a critical consensus on what Chaucer was doing “than for any other English writer,” then there is probably less agreement about what he was doing in the case of the Wife of Bath than for any other part of his work.” (pp 133)

He also notes that the issue is a prickly one, even in academia:

“On the other hand are those critics,…who argue that the Wife does not provide a refutation of medieval stereo-types of women but is herself meant as the supreme embodiment and

confirmation of such stereotypes.” (pp 134)

If Rigby acknowledges the issues with interpreting The Wife of Bath, and other critics from various schools of literary thought and philosophy cannot agree either, where does that leave the humble reader? Once again, Rigby has a solution, “Here at least, one’s choice of literary interpretation cannot simply be read off from one’s political preferences.” (pp 134). What he is endorsing is that it would be a mistake to attempt to apply personal, present- day political ideologies when evaluating such a dynamic and mercurial figure, one that was created some six hundred plus years ago.

For instance, when The Wife details how she would convince her husbands that they had been cruel to her when intoxicated and proceed to shame them into giving into her desires, is she exerting her feminist muscle by using the situation at hand to her own benefit? Is she being the Medieval stereotype of the manipulative and shrewish wife, lying shamelessly to her husbands to procure her own ends through deceit? Or is she merely trying to get her needs met in a society that is patriarchal in construction and dismissive of women? Is there really any way to discern which of these scenarios is ‘the truth’? Are the scenarios mutually exclusive? Does there have to be one ‘truth’? Is it proper to analyze The Wife through a twenty first century lens, or is that anachronistic of critics?

To answer this, Rigby writes:

“Chaucer means his readers to judge Alisoun by the standards commonly applied to women in medieval culture, such as those of the “perfect wife” of the book of Proverbs (31.10–31), who renders her husband “good, and not evil, all the days of her life,” and of the “good wife”

of Ecclesiasticus (26:1–4, 16–24), who fills the years of her husband’s life with peace. That Alisoun fails to meet such standards is indicated by her embodiment of many of the faults of

the harlot of Proverbs (7:10–12) (unable “to be quiet, not able to abide still at home”), of the wives denounced in misogamist works such as Matthieu of Boulogne’s Lamentations of

Matheolus (c.1295, translated from Latin into French c. 1371 by Jehan le Fèvre), and of the women criticized with monotonous regularity by medieval preachers for their vanity, lust, disobedience, and garrulity. Alison is seen as one of those ruddy-faced Epicureans attacked by Jerome for sophistically employing scriptural authority to justify their own sexual incontinence: “of the scriptures they know nothing except the texts which favour second marriages but they love to quote the example of others to justify their own self indulgence.” (pp 134-135)

Rigby makes an interesting point here about The Wife’s employment of scripture to defend her position, but it raises an obvious question: How does he (or anyone, for that matter) know what Chaucer intended his readers to do? Chaucer wasn’t writing out of boredom, he was writing to earn currency, to entertain, and, as any writer would wish, for posterity. He, therefore, had to at least hope that his works would be enjoyed by future generations and, while he obviously could not foretell the advent of First or Second Wave Feminism, he had to know that society and culture were liable to change, just as he saw the changes happening all around him with the rise of Mercantilism and the growing middle class. It is most likely that Chaucer was aware that his works would be interpreted differently with each coming generation.

A third, though less explored analysis, sees The Wife of Bath as meant to be read as satire. She is so over the top with her proclamations and opinions that her character simply must be meant as ironic: she is just a little too boastful to be realistic, just a little too willing to discuss her sex life to be serious, and just a little too fond of talking about her ‘queynte’ to be anything but humor. Rigby writes about this interpretation thus:

“The debate thus comes down to the problem of who is speaking in the Wife of Bath’s Prologue: is it “quite certain” that Alisoun is the mouthpiece for Chaucer’s own views, or is there a gap between the Wife’s discourse and Chaucer’s own voice, one which allows us to see the irony at work in her prolonged confession?” (pp135)

But merely viewing The Wife as satirical seems like an indolent take on such a dynamic character. The Wife simply cannot be put into a box, wrapped up, and topped off with a bow; she is much too complex for such treatment.

The debate surrounding The Wife of Bath will never, nay, can never be settled with any semblance of certainty: there are simply too many facets to her characterization, too many contradictions, and too many paradoxes to say, once and for all, The Wife is feminist in nature, or that she is actually a misogynistic representation, or that she is not meant to be taken seriously as she is satire. And this is a good thing: the ongoing discourse surrounding her keeps alive vital questions regarding gender, authority, and power, not only in marriage but in the wider world. It is imperative that humans, as a species, constantly check in with the status quo and ask “How are we doing? Is there anything that we could be doing better or more equitably? Do all people have agency, freedom, and basic legal rights?” It would be immensely interesting to conduct a study where everyday, random people read The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale and to then record their impressions and feedback. I imagine that this would be a long term, large scale endeavor that would chart not only the changes in interpretation of the tale over the last few centuries (and even the last fifty to sixty years), but would reveal modern thought on the nature of the work and The Wife herself. Such a study would go a long way to providing data about antiquated versus modern norms, gender relations, and general thought about morality and authority. The study results would inform our current social constructs as well as pave the way for future improvements. I imagine that Chaucer, and The Wife, would approve.