The Snake / A Narrow Fellow in the Grass

The Snake is a poem written by Emily Dickinson in the 19^th century. In it, the poet describes what begins as encountering a snake in a field. I will be analysing this poem line by line so get ready :

A narrow Fellow in the Grass
Occasionally rides –

                By reading the above two lines, it is relatively easy to tell that the ‘Fellow’ being described is a snake in the grass. So why didn’t the poet just come out directly and tell us ? By not specifying the creature and by using words normally associated with humans (ie: Fellow, rides) the poet aptly personifies the snake.

You may have met him? Did you not
His notice instant is –

                Now look closely at the last line of the above stanza. This jumbled up manner of speaking may not be present merely for the heck of it. The twisted statement results in a vagueness in its meaning – is instant being used to describe us noticing the snake or the snake noticing us. Both are frightened in that one terrifying moment when they come face to face.

This twisted device links to the personification employed in the above two lines; it helps us think of the snake as being on our level.

The Grass divides as with a Comb -
A spotted Shaft is seen,

                The poet now returns to describing the sight of a snake slithering away in the grass. A simile comparing the parting of the grass in the snake’s wake to the way a comb parts hair is employed.  The usage of the passive voice tense in the second of the above lines ( ie: “is seen”, not I saw or he saw) appears to be used in order to make the experience being recounted more relatable and immersive to the readers.

And then it closes at your Feet
And opens further on –

                The grass closes in wake of the snake and a division of grass is seen further on as the snake slithers away from you. The snake is leaving. So who was more afraid? The snake or you?

The sudden switch in the object’s tense should be noted.  The snake closes at your feet. You are involved in the poem, caught deeper in its splendour. This is the poem pulling the reader in.

He likes a Boggy Acre -
A Floor to cool for Corn –

But when a child and Barefoot
I more than once at morn,

The first two lines in this segment don’t contain much relevance apart from the usage of the humanized pronoun ‘He’ to describe the snake; this is possible further personification.

The next two lines in the segment begin in an obviously nostalgic manner. It becomes apparent that these lines are the introduction to a moment in the narrator’s childhood.

Have passed I thought a Whip-Lash
Unbraiding in the Sun

On a surface level, the poet, whilst barefoot in a field thought she saw a whip (or a lash), that had been left in the sun so long ago it had begun to fall apart and unbraid.

These two lines are particularly poignant as the poet has employed some stunning wordplay and imagery. The ‘-‘ separating the whip-lash shows that it is not a whiplash(the motion of a whip) but is something of a whip and a lash. For those of you who don’t know, a whip or a lash was a long thin leather strip which, laying in a field would indeed look like a snake. The  whip-lash is used to describe the appearance of the snake. The whiplash that comes to mind however as one lightly reads the line, refers to the startled and sudden jumping back of a frightened snake.

The verb unbraiding has been brilliantly used to evoke vivid realistic imagery of the braid-like patterns on the snake skin. The present continuous tense in which the verb is used adds a sense of motion to the events, as if the snakes body itself is churning and contorting around itself.

When stooping to secure it
It wrinkled And was gone –

                The poet reaches down to pick up the whip when all of a sudden it disappears. It is at this point that we realize that, although we thought the poet was talking about a snake, she was genuinely talking about a whip. The fact that we assume that it was a snake goes to show the extent of the vividness of the imagery evoked.

Several of Nature’s People
I know and they know me

I feel for them a transport
Of Cordiality

                This paragraph is where things get a little complicated. The usage of the term Nature’s People can be interpreted to be talking about other creatures of nature such as insects, birds, etc. The fact that the poet makes a conscious effort to emphasize that they know her, shows that the nature of the bond between the narrator and nature is a two-way-street. The last two lines essentially display a feeling of gratitude at having the honour of ‘hosting’ nature. The author’s basically appreciating nature in this stanza.

But never met this fellow,

Attended or alone,

Without a tighter breathing,

And zero at the bone.

The fear that is evoked in the poet by the snake is aptly shown in this stanza by the usage of the phrase ‘tighter breathing’. The imagery is once more aptly shown here through the shortness of breath being described as tighter breathing. 

So what does the poem mean? What is it talking about? Well, like all art, there’s no right or wrong interpretation to the poem. Any interpretation is a good one. But seeing as how you are most likely reading this because you have your English exam on Monday, I’ll try to sum up the predominant schools of interpretation that exist with respect to the poem.

1)      The poem is actually about a snake and other animals. The poet speaks on the fear evoked in her by the terrifying sight of the snake. However, she is quick to juxtaposition this with the love and affection (cordiality) that she feels for other animals. By generating this contrast she induces the thought in the reader’s mind; why are we so afraid of the snake? Isn’t the snake just as afraid as us?

2)      The poem hints at the author’s distrust of people. In this context, which is a widely accepted take on the poem, the phrase Nature’s people, refers to the poet’s fellow human beings. She says that she feels glad to know them and happy to have them around. However, she knows the capability for deception, cunning and evil that all of us innately possess. Thus, she is curious as to why she is at ease with such deceptive and possibly evil creatures but frightened by something as innocent as a snake.

3)      The poem’s conclusion hints at sexual undertones. A large number of people, particularly expert critics of American Literature seem to believe that the snake in the poem is used as a ornately wrought metaphor for a dick. The phallus shape of the snake, coupled with the usage of words like whip and lash to describe it adds to this argument. In this context, the ‘tighter breathing’ referenced in the final stanza could be speaking of the skipped heartbeat we experience when we see a really hot chick or dude. The shortness of breath and the tighter breathing are positive in this scenario. Finally, the zero at the bone can be seen as symbolic of sexual intercourse, significantly the act of penetration.

      Personally, I feel that this is one of the least accurate interpretations of the poem. By likening the snake to a dick we force the poem into a very small, limited, and perverse scope. The other two interpretations are accurate and well established, but I felt I should mention this one as there appear to be a great deal of people who feel that this is a valid way of looking at the poem.

So, that’s it.

Good luck.

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Passion in the Desert - Honore De Balzac

The story Passion in the Desert by Honore De Balzac is a short piece on a friendship shared between a man and a panther in the Egyptian desert. Its primary theme is that of the beauty and simultaneous callousness of nature, and also explores the emotions generated when love and distrust mingle.

The story begins with a man talking to a woman who has just seen a man (M. Martin) working with a hyena. While she is convinced that M. Martin must have used some vile means to domesticate the creature to such an extent, the man insists that animals too, can be swayed by the same vices as men. In justification, the man begins to recount his first encounter with M. Martin. The first time they met, they went out to lunch where M. Martin recounted the story of when he was lost in the desert.

During the Nile war, a French soldier had been captured by an Arab regiment and made their prisoner. When provided with a suitable opportunity, the man escaped, only to find himself hopelessly lost in the scorching desert. He camps out near a well, where he finds a small cave in which to rest and shelter him from the sun’s rays. At night however, he wakes up to find that a giant Black Panther is sleeping beside him. Too afraid to move, the man sits, paralyzed in fear, waiting for the morning. In the morning, the panther wakes up, yet strangely makes no move to attack him, its appetite already sated by its meal from the other night.

For a while (the duration of time is not explicitly mentioned in the story) the man and panther live at peace together. They provide each other with a source of companionship. Despite the panther now allowing him to pet her, the soldier still acts warily around the panther. She eventually responds to his call, and he becomes passionately fond of her.

Eventually however, the distrust reaches a climax when, in a moment of fear, the man stabs the panther, owing to the latter biting his leg. He is found by soldiers of his regiment weeping over the lifeless panther.

The beauty of nature is dwelled on extensively in the piece as can be noted through the extremely descriptive language used by the author when speaking on the desert. He compares it to “An endless sea of black grains” and in the very end of the story, “God without mankind.”

The intensely clashing emotions of inexplicable love and logical mistrust are used to draw out the complex emotions that humans can feel only when love and distrust mingle. While such a concept could be likened to many surrealistic and interpretive notions (life, death, relationships, morality, etc.) it is wiser not to introduce any such comparisons as the story seems to be written to exist in a very realistic scope. The author was well known for being one of the first to introduce realism to the European literature scene. In his stories, the human characteristics of his characters serve to convey much more to the reader than a metaphorical analysis of their actions would.

The story is titled aptly as the passion of the relationship between the man and the panther is described accurately and in depth through the thoughts of the man and the actions of the panther. The idea of human insecurity is dealt with extensively in the story as the man continually suspects the panther of wanting to eat him, despite having only experienced love and warmth from the creature. The endless fear of what could happen and what logically should happen, eventually overpower the flickering beacon of optimism in the relationship of the man and the beast. This could be a means of the author implying that we should be less cynical in life, that we should enjoy things as they are, simple and beautiful, and not be overly suspicious, insecure, and distrustful of others.

Communalism and Politics in India - Ashis Nandy

The essay starts off with the reallocation and correlation of communalism to the right examples of the related violence and affirmation that the problem is not impossible to solve.

Example 1: No. of people killed in Communal violence < No. of people killed in street crimes of the last 50 years in Detroit alone (Detroit being one of the most crime affected cities in the world).

Example 2: 2 million people killed in Partition Violence (Communal) < 5 million people killed during separatist movements in the country (non-communal)

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With an example of a family which tried to save their friend from communal violence gets to know that the son in the family was one of the soldiers working towards the main perpetration of the plan. The setting of this story is the communal riot(s) of 1992 caused because of demolition of the Babri masjid.

The main point of the essay comes out during this reading. Internal contradiction occurs which leads to a number of different facets telling us that communalism is a complex phenomenon and not so easy to deal with.

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Up until now we understand that Communalism can be extinguished but because of its complexity, each and every element has to be smartly distinguished and analysed to come up with a proper plan to exterminate communalism.

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Propositions of Communalism:-

1.       Communalism is from its roots is an urban phenomenon. Compared to the villagers there are more communal riots in cities and village city borders than in actual villages. This is something the city dwellers should learn from their “rustic, illiterate” counterparts of development.

2.       Secular issues are usually the issues due to which communal riots are caused. Due to this the non-secularism also seeps in (indirectly) giving rise to Religious issues giving rise to communal religious riots.

3.       Political parties, secretly also encourage communalism as it helps in the promotion of the individual parties and helps gain more individualised power to themselves.

4.       Some communal riots are fuelled by the fanaticism of political parties. As followers of a party get into an argument into followers of other party leading to discrimination and loose parallels.

5.       The Indian social system is traditionally community based and not individualised. So people are discriminated according to the community they are from and not their individuality.

6.       Self-hatred among Hindus is dominant and many of us might have seen such examples. Inclination to Islam or Christianity is commonly seen amongst many Hindus.

7.       Communalism fuels material based politics as the society doesn’t clearly understand (vs.) ideology based politics anymore. One must try and understand the ideas and the ideology which is trying to be established by the political party rather than just checking the growth in GDP that could be caused by them coming into power.

8.       The NRIs fuel this material based politics. This is the same situation as the Tamilians in India funding LTTE and American Jews donating Israelis if looked at properly.

9.       Communal politics seems like a way of secularizing politics.

10.   This gives rise to a new kind of political culture of flesh and not of the mind.

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Important Issues:-

·         Change in the hierarchy of castes in terms of wealth caused due to communal riots includes elevation of castes such as Kurmis, Jats, and Reddys.

·         Laws and legal matter are the only ones that can suppress communal riots.

·         Secularisation creates its own insecurities due to internal conflicts.

·         Secularisation gives rise to increased individualisation giving rise to gradual increase in absence of faith in individual communities.

·         Coalition politics or Allied politics is on the rise to secularise the country, but will it turn out to be conservationism? That is the end question.

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Message in a Bottle - Amrita Baviskar

Message in a Bottle is an essay by Amita Baviskar; an Associate Professor of Sociology at the Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi. Her research focuses on the cultural politics of environment and development. Her first book In the Belly of the River: Tribal Conflicts over Development in the Narmada Valley (Oxford University Press) discussed the struggle for survival by adivasis (Adivasi is an umbrella term for a heterogeneous set of ethnic and tribal groups considered the aboriginal population of India.) in central India against a large dam. Her subsequent work further explores the themes of resource rights, subaltern resistance and cultural identity. Such themes are present throughout the course of this short story.

                
            The story is set on a remote island on the Great Nicobar Island. Throughout the course of the story, the author speaks on the countless bounties provided by nature (demonstrated by the abundant lobsters, coconuts, and fish on the island) and simultaneously, the bounties from the sea swept up onto the shores of the island. Ravi, the protagonist’s guide, gives several examples of such in the following extract:

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He [Ravi] pointed to a large clothes basket. That came from the beach too. Ravi asked, would you like to have a bath? Rustam said why not. Ravi brought a bottle of shampoo, a foreign brand. And said that came from the beach. Then some aftershave. Also from the beach.

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The explanation for the above phenomenon, as provided by the story, is the frequency of travel occurring on the Great Nicobar Sea. Unbelievable amounts, as expertly shown in the story, of objects are swept overboard from freight ships, eventually deposited on the shores of the island by the unchanging tide.

The rest of the essay proceeds to give more and more examples of floating ‘junk’ deposited on the island’s shores. The blurred contrast between the poignantly described beauty of the island and the impact of humanity on it serves to provide a permeatin­g theme of environmental awareness and the need for such.

The final paragraph of the essay emphasizes the magnitude of humanity’s impact on nature by pollution and general apathy. The author speaks on how for hundreds of years, the members of tribes, indigenous to the island, have thrived on materials deposited by the sea, washed overboard from trade vessels. While on the surface this may seem like a positive occurrence, when we dig deeper, the severity of the situation occurs to us by means of the amount of time for which this ‘pollution’ has been occurring.  

A Corpse in the Well - Shankarrao Kharat

A Corpse in the Well is an extract from the book Taral Antaral, an autobiography by Shankar Ramchandra Kharat, an established Dalit writer in the post independence Indian literature scene. The story’s primary themes seem to be on emphasizing the difference in power that exists in villages, and how the Mahars, or Dalits, are treated cruelly and in an almost sub-human fashion. The unfair method in which they are bossed around serves to highlight a broken system and ideology.

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               In the story, the boy’s father, referred to only by the title ‘Anna’, is performing his village duties. A corpse had been found recently in the well, and the Mahar on duty (Anna) was assigned to guard it until the police arrive. Anna had been waiting at the well for the entire night, when his son, the narrator, arrives to give him some food. The father, in an exemplary display of loyalty towards his duty, refuses, saying that he’ll only eat once relieved of his duties. At this point of time, the police arrived, and ordered Anna to fetch the body from the well.

                Anna refuses initially, but, noticing the policeman’s flaring temper, he enters the well. A snake in the well’s shallow water causes a fright in both the son and the father, but eventually the body and Anna are successfully drawn up from the well. As the son heads home, he reflects on the injustice and the deadly work involved in village duty.

                The head constable, or the policeman, is depicted in quite a negative light throughout the story. The fact that he, a police officer, a supposed implementer of the law, resorts to such primeval means of discrimination to get his job done, induces a sick sort of irony in the reader.

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                The theme of injustice is one that permeates the entire story. The Mahars and Ramoshis loyally and whole heartedly serve their village, as is shown in numerous examples throughout the story. Anna’s refusal to eat while on duty is one; another could be his risking of life to recover the body from the well, and yet another is the respect that the Ramoshis and Mahars show the constable; when the latter arrives, the Mahars have laid out a manger of grass and a pail of freshwater to sate the horse’s thirst. Thus, when the Mahars behave in such a fashion, the reader feels greatly shocked and appalled by the way that the policeman responds to such bravery and loyalty towards duty. He abuses them and threatens to beat them. This obvious abuse of power, combined with the father’s air of surrender present throughout the story; such as his giving into pressure from the policeman, coupled with a line in which he says,

                                               “Who cares if a Mahar lives or dies”,

serves to but strengthen the theme of injustice, rife throughout the story.

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When the constable begins to threaten Anna, pressuring him to retrieve the body from the well, the surrounding village elders respond by saying,

                                            “Sarkar (government official), you will go away from here! You will leave this poor Mahar to his fate! We want to go on living in this village!”

In the above line, the author is conveying to the reader, the threat of communal violence. Neighboring villages, from whence the corpse in the well may have come, would not respond positively to their kinsman being touched by members of a lower caste, and thus, the Mahars in the community are responding not out of empathy and pity for the Mahar on duty, but more so out of fear of attack; serving to reinforce the aforementioned concept of injustice.

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