The Ash that Covers The Road

Dec 17, 2011 Ashlee Wenrick

The man in Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road,” continues to tell his son, even though the man’s cough now contains blood, that he is going to be fine and he will never leave him. What is bringing about the blood in the man’s cough? The abundance of ash. Falling from the sky. Still on the ground. All around them, ash.

After everything from the man’s old life has disappeared, why is it that the one thing still remaining is the fate from lung disease? Every day people die of lung diseases from smoking cigarettes, but the man has no choice. He isn’t given the opportunity to put down the lighter and quit cold turkey, or to take nicotine to lower his need for the drug. His death is forced upon him. And just as many families try convincing their loved ones to stop shortening their life, the boy asks his father repeatedly, “are we going to die?” or “are you going to die?” though he already knows the answer.

Why does the man tell his son that he is not going to die even though he continuously sits up at night coughing up blood, waking his son in the dark? No one wants to admit that they are dying, especially not to their children. But could McCarthy’s symbolism for the ash go further than just being a cause of separation and barrenness?

With so many people given the choice to stop smoking and killing themselves, McCarthy chooses to force it upon the man:  in a post apocalyptic world, you do not get a choice. Maybe this is where McCarthy believes our world is headed today, and once it is no longer our world, we will not have the choice, but the instinct to protect our loved ones will not cease.

A Work of Artifice by Marge Piercy

When I first read A Work of Artifice, it didn’t play any part on my emotions. It wasn’t until reading it again later, when this piece angered me in a way. It seems very simple, with a simple structure and simple diction, but the deeper meaning behind the words brings out a power in this poem not reflected in any physical way.

The beginning of the poem centers a small tree that had potential to grow, but a gardener, though he carefully tended to it, kept the tree from reaching its full potential. Bonsai trees, rooted in Asia, symbolize the women in Asia:  “with living creatures, one must begin early to dwarf their growth:  the bound feet…” Chinese women’s feet were broken and bound to keep them petite. This act raises the question of what could the potential be of these “potted” women?

The poem also has a sense of questioning the potential of America or European women as well:  they leave their hair in curlers. Being written in 1936, the bonsai tree could also symbolize the “potting” of American women as the women’s rights movements were coming to a close in the ‘20’s As far as women have come today, how much further could we be if we hadn’t been “pruned” by our gardeners from the beginning?

Disillusionment at Ten O'Clock

What Mary said in class about Disillusionment at Ten O’Clock really struck me. Who wants to have boring dreams? I know I want to have more exciting dreams than just plain white ones; I want them to be full of colors – purple with green, green with yellow, yellow with blue. Are the people afraid to dream with color and lace? Or maybe their lives just don’t have enough beaded ceintures leaving them to dream in only white. The last six lines: “People are not going to dream of baboons and periwinkles. Only, here and there, and old sailor, drunk and asleep in his boots, catches tigers in red weather,” seems to explain that the only ones who will dream in color are those who are drunk. Old, drunk sailors don’t have worries about the world; those who are sober worry in their sleep about the real world. All the sailor cares about as he sleeps is catching his tiger.

Toads reminds me of the “Bee Movie.” ­­“We know that you, as a bee, have worked your whole life to get to the point where you can work for your whole life.” Toads questions the reason we work and live:  do we work to live or live to work. The imagery of the poem revolves around a toad, but really, the theme of the poem is a pursuit of happiness. The narrator is unhappy with their awful job and envies those who can live without working. But those people don’t have shoes for their kids and little food, but no one really starves. It doesn’t kill you. But there is something that keeps people from reaching their desired achievements. The narrator comes to the realization that the toad is in him also, and he knows that in order to live, he needs to work, whether he enjoys it or not.Toads reminds me of the “Bee Movie.” ­­“We know that you, as a bee, have worked your whole life to get to the point where you can work for your whole life.” Toads questions the reason we work and live:  do we work to live or live to work. The imagery of the poem revolves around a toad, but really, the theme of the poem is a pursuit of happiness. The narrator is unhappy with their awful job and envies those who can live without working. But those people don’t have shoes for their kids and little food, but no one really starves. It doesn’t kill you. But there is something that keeps people from reaching their desired achievements. The narrator comes to the realization that the toad is in him also, and he knows that in order to live, he needs to work, whether he enjoys it or not.