T'ien-Hsin, Impersonal, Sudden Death is Best

 

Chu T’ien Hsin is a Taiwanese author  whose main topic of writing is what it means to be Taiwanese, “gradually moving from an emphasis on Chinese identity, expressing a nostalgic longing for a lost homeland”(Puchner, 1742).  In her story, “Man of La Mancha” however, she focuses on the idea that a sudden death is best if it happens in an impersonal and indescript manner.  This is the best way to avoid the shame that can come upon a person if they do not have their affairs in order when death come knocking at their door.  To further our understanding of her theme, T’ien Hsin writes on first person narrative from the perspective of a gay man, who shares with us his recent near death experience that causes him to revise his appearance.

The story begins where our narrator is working in a chain coffee shop on an essay he must compose for his work.  After he finishes, he realizes that he has way too many cups of coffee and the caffeine is doing a number on his heart.  He begins to feel the frightening and paralyzing “chill from my internal organs spreading out to my flesh and skin”(T’ien Hsin, 1744).  After our narrator manages to get himself to a doctor’s office for some IV fluids, he realizes how close he came to collapsing and public.  He begins to obsess over what would have happened if passer-bys  had to search his pockets, or see his underwear in the commotion that would follow an unplanned demise.  The results of his newfound obsession may seem ridiculous but they bring to light the fear of dying suddenly and embarrassing yourself by leaving behind secrets, whether they are dirty underwear or an untidy and boring wallet.

Although the story’s author is a woman, the narrator of the story drops hints that he is a gay man with a significant other through the subtle description of a fight they had over his new undergarments he purchased in case he were to drop dead in the middle of the street and someone had to see his underwear, “my significant other was all but convinced I had a new love interest, and we had a big fight over that”(T’ien-Hsin, 1749).  Is our narrator’s sexuality a secret in the sometimes stringent culture of the East?  Or is his lover the person he is trying to protect if he should die in a way that is embarrassing?

The author’s use of first person narrative serves her purpose of having us contemplate the narrator’s fear by putting us in his shoes.  How do we, as the reader, feel about the prospect of leaving behind our lives exposed to be judged by our survivors whether they be loved ones or family?  Is it better to leave behind an impersonal legacy instead of embarrassing ourselves?  The narrator purports at the conclusion of the story “death only visits us once in our lifetime, so we should make preparations for its arrival”(T’ien-Hsin, 1750).   However, the obsession with that preparation could rob us of a life worth living if we constantly worry about the legacy we are leaving behind.

Works Cited:

Ed. Pucher, Martin. "Chu T'ien-Hsin, born 1958." The Norton Anthology of World Literature, 1650 to Present. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2013. 1742-1744. Print.

T'ien-Hsin, Chu. "Man of La Mancha." Ed. Pucher, Martin. The Norton Anthology of World Literature, 1650 to Present. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2013. 1744-1750. Print.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Death

Paul Celan was a Jewish survivor of the Holocaust whose poetry emotes feelings of grief and suffering. His experience in the death camps left him so scarred that he committed suicide by “jumping off a bridge into the Seine, in Paris”(Puchner, 1468). The themes of death and martyrdom that overshadowed Celan’s life are most evident in the poems “Deathfugue” and “Aspen Tree”.

“Deathfugue” was Celan’s first published poem and his most famous. Its title in Romanian is “Tangoul Morti” or “Tango of Death”(Puchner, 1468). In this poem, death constantly surrounds the prisoners, especially when they are digging their own graves while under the supervision and beating of the German Commandant. The repetition of “We shovel a grave in the air”(lines 4 and 14) and “You’ll then have a grave in the clouds”(line 24) are the beating drum of impending doom. The irony of the grave digging is a metaphorical one as they know they will not lie in a grave dug into the earth but rather “a grave in the air”(line 32) as their bodies will most likely be burnt to ash upon their demise. Martyrdom is presented in the languid movements of the prisoners doing a dance of death to appease the guard. The prisoners go through the motions he demands without resistance and are resigned to their fate.

In “Aspen Tree”, Celan mourns his mother who “was shot when she was no longer capable of working” within the camps (Puchner, 1467). Images of nature such as wood, dandelions, rain clouds and stars are the juxtaposition of the poem within the poem which mixes the living with the lament of the dead mother. Celan remarks how “My mother’s hair never turned white”(line 2) in the same breath of remarking on the Aspen tree’s “leaves glance white in the dark”(line 1). The living wood brings to mind that fact that life goes on after his mother’s death.

Works Cited:

Celan, Paul. "Aspen Tree." Ed. Puchner, Martin. The Norton Anthology of World Literature, 1650 to Present. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2013. 1470. Print.

Celan, Paul. "Deathfugue." Ed. Puchner, Martin. The Norton Anthology of World Literature. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2013. 1469. Print.

Martin, Puchner. "Paul Celan, 1920-1970." THe Norton Anthology of World Literature, 1650 to Present. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2013. 1467-1469. Print.

Neruda

             Pablo Neruda was an author of mixed Indian and Spanish ancestry who became one of Latin America’s most important twentieth century poets (Puchner, 1421).  He used his voice to publicize social problems in his home country Chile such as poverty as well as everyday life and politics.  In his poem “Walking Around”, he tells the tale of a man who is tired of his life and the everyday.

 A view of the city as a captor emerges in Neruda’s poem.  It appears to trap him with its shops, its people and its narcissistic trappings.  He feels the constant need to become “impenetrable” to its smells and ugly sites.  The poet describes the life of the person in the poet as someone who lives in a city of excess which drives him to the brink of madness and perhaps murder when he says “it would be delicious to scare a notary with a cut lily or knock a nun stone dead with one blow of an ear”(lines 12-14). The narrator feels a hate that manifests itself through physical symptoms, the main being exhaustion, mental and physical.  He states “I am tired of being a man” (line 1), “tired of my feet and nails” (line 9).  He views his death as an escape when he says “It would be beautiful to go through the streets with a green knife shouting until I died of cold” (lines 15-17).

Neruda portrays the city as something that needs to be escaped in order for him to find the beauty in his life.  While Baudelaire mixed the wonders of the big city with its hidden underbelly or seediness and death, this poet shows the city as the aftermath of a party that has left him hung over and used.   He wants to “weep with shame and horror” (line 32) just as the clothes on the line which “weep slow dirty tears” (lines 44-45).  If the city is not escaped, it will swallow a person up in its materialistic and disgusting waste.

Works Cited:

Neruda, Pablo. "Walking Around." The Norton Anthology of World Literature, 1650 to Present. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2013. 1423-1424. Print.

"Pablo Neruda, 1904-1973." Puchner, Ed. Martin. The Norton Anthology of World Literature, 1650 to Present. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2013. 1421-1422. Print.

 

 

Gender

Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis, known as Machado, is considered one of Brazil’s greatest writers. Being black in a time when slavery was still legal in Brazil, Machado had little formal education, except for “listening in to lessons at a girls’ school where his stepmother worked in the kitchen” (Puchner, 910). In his short story “The Rod of Justice”, he tells the story of a young man, Damiao, who has run away from the seminary where he was placed by his father, to the home of Sinha Rita. Sinha Rita is a powerful woman who has the ear of the boy’s godfather and the one person he believes can save him from a horrible life in the seminary.

Sinha Rita uses her female gender and sexual power to become the most impressive character in “The Rod of Justice”. Her power over the men in the story is mental, preying on their need for both a mother figure and a temptress. Sinha Rita considers herself a contender among these men while she deems the only other female characters in the story, her slaves, to be the least worthy of her consideration until it is time for her to inflict physical distress upon them. While it is never fully explained why she holds so much power of the men in this story, Sinha Rita is loved and feared by them all.

Damiao fears his father and has determined his godfather to be “a soft muttonhead”. While both of these men in the story exude some power over the young man, his godfather’s mistress “who is eager to show her power over both her lover and her slaves” (Puchner, 911) proves to be the most formidable. Sinha Rita is wealthy and owns many female slaves, including a sickly young girl Lucretia, who she constantly threatens with the rod. The mistress asserts her authority over the men with her words and threats of snubbing them; Sinha Rita affirms her supremacy over the slave girls with threats of violence.

When Sinha Rita ask Damiao why he does not entreat his godfather, her lover Joao Carneiro, to approach his father about letting him leave the seminary, he tells her that he does not think he will pay any attention to him. In reply, she retorts “Well, I’ll show him whether he’ll pay attention or not…” (Assis, 913). Indeed she does show him when she meets with Joao. Assis writes “his chest heaved, the eyes he turned upon Sinha Rita were full of supplication, mixed with a mild gleam of censure” (Assis, 914). The mistress is brandishing her sexual power over Joao when she threatens “Joaozinho, either you rescue this boy, or we never see each other again” (Assis, 916).

The underlying theme in this story is Damiao’s fascination with the delicate and sickly slave girl, Lucretia. Early in the story, when he makes the silent vow to protect her from the rod of Sinha Rita, it is expected that he will become her champion. However, this hope is squelched when it is realized that Sinha Rita is the only one with any authority in “The Rod of Justice”. Damiao has to choose between defying her to save Lucretia, or Sinha Rita’s support contingent on his remaining in her good graces; he chooses the latter, not wanting to disrupt his chances for Sinha Rita’s assistance.  When Lucretia begs Damiao to save her from her mistress’s beating, “he reached the settee, picked up the rod, and handed it to Sinha Rita”(Assis, 916).  Sinha Rita’s power over all is uncontested.

Works Cited:

De Assis, Joaquim Maria Machado. "The Rod of Justice." The Norton Anthology of World Literature, 1650 to Present. New York: W.W Norton & Company, 2013. 911-916. Print.

Puchner, Martin. "Joaquim Maria Machado De Assis 1839-1908." The Norton Anthology of World Literature, 1650 to Present. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2013. 910-911. Print.

 

 

Marti and Dario

Walt Whitman is considered the most influential American poet of his time. He “celebrated the most overlooked people, from slaves and prostitute to immigrants and prisoners” (Puchner, 646). Latin American poets Jose’ Marti and Ruben Dario, who were the Whitman’s of their time and place, found inspiration in the works of Whitman.  This inspiration allowed them to depict their own hardships  during their revolutionary eras through the uses of landscape and nature.

Jose Marti was a Cuban writer who “entwined his revolutionary political activities with his art” (Puchner, 680). In his poem I Am an Honest Man (Guantanamera), Marti uses the aspects of nature to define his emotions much like Whitman does in his poem “21”. Marti proclaims “In the mountains, I am a mountain” (line 8) and “the dark night, rain over my head, the pure rays of lightning of divine beauty”. The security of the landscape and tribulations of the weather are like the emotions he feels within his troubled soul.

Ruben Dario claimed his homeland as Nicaragua, Chile, Argentina, Colombia and the continent of Europe (Puchner, 689). Dario lived in troubled times in each of the countries, and the unsettled sentiments of his life carried over into the tone of his poetry. Like Whitman and Marti, he uses nature to reveal emotion. In Fatality, Dario describes “the tree is happy because it is scarcely sentient; the hard rock is happier still, it feels nothing” (lines 1-2). This line refers to a life of change making life eventful but sometimes to be hard of feeling keeps us from getting hurt. “To Roosevelt” mentions Whitman by name, assigning kudos to the poet.  Dario again utilizes nature and its elements. Dario compares life to a “fire” and “progress is an eruption” (line 16). Only when emotions overflow in people who can bear no more does change occur.

Works Cited

Dario, Ruben. "Fatality." The Norton Anthology of World Literature, 1650 to Present. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2013. 695. Print.

Dario, Ruben. "To Roosevelt." The Norton Anthology of World Literature, 1650-Present. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2013. 693-694. Print.

Marti, Jose. "I Am An Honest Man (Guantanamera)." The Norton Anthology of World Literature 1650 to Present. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2013. 681-682. Print.

Puchner, Martin. "Joe Marti 1853-1895." The Norton Anthology of World Literature. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2013. 680-681. Print.

Puchner, Martin. "Ruben Dario 1867-1916." The Norton Anthology of World Literature, 1650 to Present. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2013. 689-691. Print.

Whitman, Walt. "21." The Norton Anthology of World Literature. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2013. 650-651. Print.

 

 

An Essay on Man

Alexander Pope was considered a literary genius in 18th century England.  Although his early life was uneasy due to his Catholicism in a time of the Protestant regime of William and Mary (87), his essays and philosophical poetry brought him to the literary forefront.  Pope’s “An Essay on Man” attempts to reconcile the belief of a God designed universe with the existence of evil and confusion in the world to promote an acceptance of divine order.  He maintains that there is a divine plan for everything that occurs in life and nature and if humans knew too much of the reasoning of God behind those events, they would be robbed of the hope and happiness that faith provides and knowledge destroys.

In “An Essay on Man”, Pope asserts that there is so much more happening in the Universe than one eye can see. He states “Perhaps acts second to some sphere unknown, touches some wheel, or verges to some goal, ‘tis but a part we see, and not a whole”(lines 58-60).  Man cannot begin to understand a situation he only knows a small part of and should leave that understanding to God who is prepared to shoulder that burden.  Pope expands this thought further when he notes “Heaven from all creatures hides the book of Fate, all but the pages prescribed, their present state” (Puchner, 77-78).  If man knew all that lied in store for him, positive or negative, where would the blessing of hope lie?  In order to have hope for the future, man must put his fate in the hands of God, “hope springs eternal in the human breast: Man never Is, but always To be blest” (Puchner, 95-96).

The mystery of our universe’s perfect order also attests to a divine law in the midst of what could be misconstrued by man as disorder.  “Each beast, each insect, happy in its own: is Heaven unkind to Man, and Man alone” (lines 185-186) challenges that man’s pursuit of knowledge of everything that exists, will exist and has existed, has fleeced him of contentment, in turn creating chaos.  Instead of finding joy in life as it occurs, he wants to understand the rhyme and reason of everything that should be left to God.  When man is always searching for answers, Pope asserts “who finds not Providence all good and wise, alike in what it gives, and what denies” (lines 205-206). 

The ultimate argument of Pope’s assertion of a divine order is his description of the fine tandem of the universe.  “Let Earth unbalanced from her orbit fly, Planets and Suns run lawless through the sky; let ruling angels from their spheres be hurled, Being on Being wrecked, and World on World” (lines 251-254).  How else can this delicate balance be explained if not for the existence of God?  The answer to this question was addressed in a conference I attended held by an apologetics group called “Come Reason”.  Apologetics ministries give Christians the tools to explain their religion and their faith with non-believers or skeptics.  The topic for the session I attended was how to explain the existence of God with all the chaos of today’s world, with chaos being primarily evil.  In much the same manner Pope used science and religion to affirm divine order in “An Essay on Man”, the apologetics minister asked us to consider the improbability that a universe such as ours could just occur out of nothing.  How could such a delicate balance of elements occur to support human life without the hand of a divine being, God or otherwise? Pope describes the “vast chain of Being, from which God began, Nature’s ethereal, human, angel, man...” (lines 237-238). The arguments provided both by the apologetics and minister and Pope are compelling and thought provoking in determining whether God exists. 

Works Cited

Pope, Alexander. "An Essay on Man." Puchner, Martin. The Norton Anthology of World Literature 1650 to Present. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2013. 90-97. Print.

Puchner, Martin. "Alexander Pope 1688-1744." The Norton Anthology of World
        Literature, 1650-Present. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2013. 86-        89. Print.

 

 

 

Montaigne

In” Of Cannibals”, French writer Michel Eyquem de Montaigne argues that what appears to be barbaric to us may only appear so because the culture in question is not our own. Montaigne quotes Roman playwright Terence when he says “I am a man, I consider nothing human to be alien to me” (Puchner, 1649). Barbarism is defined by the writer as “whatever is not one’s own practice”. In his examination of tribal society, Montaigne demonstrates what may be considered barbaric is not at all when the reason for the actions are considered.

Montaigne describes the tribal society of cannibals as “alive and vigorous their genuine, their most useful and natural, virtues and properties, which we have debased in the latter in adapting them to gratify our corrupted case” (Montaigne, 1653). In the western world, society is so far removed from nature that logic is twisted to fit our own ideas of what is acceptable. The tribal society is still uncorrupted and living how God intended, with virtue, truth and logic. In discussing this concept, Montaigne makes the point “These nations, then, seem to me barbarous in this sense that they have been fashioned very little by the human mind, and are still very close to their original naturalness. The laws of nature still rule them.”(Montaigne, 1654). Although these tribal practices are distained in our western world, they make perfect sense in this natural environment of the tribes.

Montaigne’s definition of barbarity brings to mind a current issue in western news today, the Syrian “Cannibal”. The United States has agreed to arm resistance groups in Syria in their attempt to overthrow their oppressor, President Bashar al-Assad. A video has been posted and disseminated to the world press of a Syrian rebel commander biting into the lung of a previously deceased soldier loyal to President al-Assad. Westerners are in an uproar of this supposed act of cannibalism. On further examination, it appears possible that this Syrian rebel leader is behaving much the same as the tribal warriors as described in “Of Cannibals”. According to the rebels, this opposition soldier was convicted of war atrocities such as rape and murder of women and children. This is much the same logic the tribal society had with their prisoners that were killed quickly and eaten later for committing atrocities on their society. Montaigne declares “I think there is more barbarity in eating a man alive than in eating him dead. So we may well call these people barbarians, in respect to the rules of reason, but not in respect to ourselves, who surpass them in every kind of barbarity” (Montaigne, 1657).

Works Cited:

Montaigne. “Of Cannibals”. The Norton Anthology of World Literature, Beginnings to 1650.

    Ed. Martin Puchner. Vol. 1. New York: W.W. Norton, 2013. 1650-1665. Print.

Sunjata

In Sunjata: a West African Epic of the Mandes People, a tale is told of tradition and heritage. The main character of the epic, Sunjata, leads a life of hardships to reach his prophesized glory. This story has been told for generations, assisting the “principle Mande clans frame their identities in terms of descent from the ancestors describes in epic tradition” (Norton 1514),

West Africans have taken heed of the story of Sunjata and have adopted wedding rituals from the epic as their own tradition. The bride-escorting song (lines 750-798) describes the rituals and their origin from the wedding day antics of Sunjata’s father Simbon, and his mother Sogolon Conde’. The carrying of the bride originated from the carrying of Sogolon by the co-wives to their home. “The women picked up the bride and run with her, That was done because of the condition of Sogolon Conde’s feet” (769-771). The act of the Mande bride popping her head in and out of her husband’s door three times symbolizes Sogolon’s three lashes from her soon to be husband to her head because due to her escapades. Her first act of defiance was trying to pierce her husband’s eye (802). The second was when she was lashed by her husband following her trying to burn his face with her “scalding breast milk”. In the third entrance, Sogolon tried to “spear Simbon in the chest” (831) with his ebony walking stick. After all of these attempts at injuring her husband were thwarted by him, she finally consented to marrying him to fulfill her destiny as the mother of Sunjata. She accepted the marital gift of the ten kola nuts and prepared a brew for Simbon to drink. She sat on his bed as the final gesture of acceptance. “That is why when a new bride is brought, If you do not see her sitting in a chair, If she does not sit on her husband’s bed she has something on her mind. She does not want to marry this man; She has another man’s name to confess” (870-874).

 

A tradition that exists in Indian Weddings today similar to Sogolon Conde’s preparation of the kola nuts for her husband to drink is the Var Mala ceremony. In this tradition, the Indian bride and groom put flower garlands around each other’s necks as their final act of acceptance of each other as life partners. Both the tradition of the kola nut brew and the Indian tradition of the garlands are similar in that they signal acceptance of the marriage however the origin of the garland is quite different. While Sogolon Conde was originally forced into her marriage and was broken down after the three attempts to harm her husband to be into complacency, the garland was a symbol of a bride’s proposal to her husband and his claiming of the garland was his acceptance of her.

 

Works Cited:

“Sunjata: A West African Epic of the Mandes People”.  The Norton Anthology of World Literature. Ed. Martin Puchner. 3rd ed. Vol 1. New York: Norton 2013. 1514-1578.

 

Basho

Mattsuo Basho (1644-1694) was one of the most prolific haiku writers of his time in Japan. He chronicled his travels and the haiku inspired by them in The Narrow Road to the Deep North. Poets such as Basho “pioneered a new style in writing prose essays(haibun) such as travelogues, and they produced striking oil paintings (haiga), which are sparsely and poignantly sketched in ink as haikus are sketched in words”(321). In the following video Matsuo Basho, created by Raul Santiago Sebazco, Basho’s poetry is explored and set to music and haiga, beautiful and delicate paintings that render the spirit of the haiku.

http://youtu.be/zXvzgR3A9_I  

The first illustration in the video shows the trail Basho followed on his journey. He was inspired by “famous poetic sites” (324) to write haiku that summed up his experience in nature. Following is the painting of an older man evoking Basho, an old man worried that he may not make it through this trip alive. Further in, we see the image of a woman combing her hair with the line “wrapping rice dumplings in bamboo leaves with one hand she fingers the hair over her forehead”. The creator of this video chose the simple sketch to share Basho and other poets of his era’s interest in the beauty of everyday life.

The pictures take a turn towards the autumn season signaling the close of the year as well as the life cycles of trees, insects and wildlife. The passage “with the air of a century past, the fallen leaves on the garden” is accompanied alongside a snow covered landscape. Haiku such as “that they will son die is unknown to the chirping cicadas” is paired with picture of a woman clipping the last water lilies of the season to show acknowledgement of the seasons impending close.

We are signaled by Sebazco that winter is upon the landscape when he pairs Basho’s stanza “In the fish shop the gums of the sea bream are cold” with sketches depicting fishermen on their boats in the bitter cold, still making a living on the bream that are caught on their lines from the freezing water. Opposite the line “watching the comorant fishing boats in time I was full of sorrow” shows a woman writing much as Basho did, contemplating landscape as writing inspiration

Basho felt his age on his journey. Sebazco balances the stanza “This autumn- old age I feel, in the birds, the clouds” with ducks on the water and an old man contemplating how they swim on in spite of the challenge of the impending cold. They must live their life despite harsher circumstances of nature. “Ill on my journey my dream wanders over a withered moor” is harmonized with a bridge and a full moon at night, ending of a day, a bridge to the other side of death from life.

Works Cited:

Puchner, Martin, ed. "Matsuo Basho."The Norton Anthology of World Literature. Vol. I. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2013. 324-325. Print.

Basho, Matsuo, "The Narrow Road to the Deep North." The Norton Anthology of World Literature. Ed.  Martin Puchner. Vol. I. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2013. 325-336. Print.

Classic of Poetry

 The Classic of Poetry are poems from the Zhou Dynasty. “Tradition credited Confucius, the most important of the early philosophical masters with the compilation of Classic of Poetry” (756). Confucius believed that society could be put back in order if the Chinese learned morals and virtuous behavior. Compiling these particular poems exalted his teachings in a matter that could be understood by all.
    
In Classic Poem VI. Peach Tree Soft and Tender, the moral of this poem is that a good woman’s virtue grows stronger over the years within her marital family. Examples of this growing strength include “how your blossoms glow!” (2), “Plump, the ripening fruit”(6). As her goodness grows so does her influence), “its leaves spread thick and full” (10).

Use of rhetoric or drama to prove a point is used in XXIII. Dead Roe Deer. Loss of a woman’s chastity while still a maiden is likened to “A roe deer dead in the meadow” (1). We know it is her chastity because of lines 3-4 “The maiden’s heart was filled with spring; a gentleman led her astray”. Losing your virtue can be like a death when given in vain.

Confucius felt “it is possible to harmonize one’s natural impulses with social norms and thus become an efficient, harmonious agent in society” (769). In XXVI. Boat of Cypress the character depicted in the poem is feeling lost. The poem delves into torment that no family love can assuage, “I behaved with dignity, in this no man can fault me” (17-18). To keep harmony within society, maintain your dignity even in the face of emotional despair.

 Confucius was fairly consistent in his moral values depicting physicality outside of marriage. LXXVI. Zhongzi, Please discusses a woman’s fear of her virginity being taken by a lover would cause torment in her family and society. The loss of maidenhood is likened to an invasion with lines such as “don’t cross my village wall” (2) “don’t cross my fence” (10) “don’t cross into my garden” (18). Discretion is alluded to in “but I dread my father and mother” (5), “but I dread my brothers” (12), “but I dread others will talk much “ (21). Confucius believed “The natural and spontaneous basis for respect is the relationship between child and parent. From this experience, respect is extended to other figures, such as elder siblings, seniors, and rulers” (769).
    
One shortcoming in Confucius’ choice of the Classic Poems to encourage morality is the poem XCV. Zhen and Wei. Because we do not know the relationship of the pair of lovers, the sex could be conjugal or illicit.“Let’s go then look across the Wei, it is truly a place for our pleasure.” (7-8). The wording calls to mind prostitution. Are the peonies a price or are these lovers meeting for a rendezvous with a loved one?

 Kindness has bounds is the moral of poem CXII. Huge Rat. Confucius said “In his words humans owe each other “goodness” or “humanity” that is, empathy and reciprocal concern, mutual respect and obligation” (769). This poem relays the feelings of someone who does for others but never gets repaid will eventually turn bitter. Lines such as “yet you pay me no heed” (4), “You show no gratitude” (11), “you won’t reward my toil” (20),“I swear that I will leave you” (21), teaches the lesson that you can’t always have something for nothing.

 

Works Cited

Classic of Poetry.  The Norton Anthology of World Literature. Ed. Martin Puchner. 3rd ed. Vol 1. New York: Norton 2013. 756-770.

 

 

Somadeva

Somadeva, May 21, 2013

 

Characters depicted in The Red Lotus of Chastity use disguise as a means of reaching their goal of attaining riches and as retribution to those who try to cause them harm. Disguises are used to inflict cruel intentions towards others as well as to "foil evil" (1273). The performance of these charades propel the women towards their objectives but demean the wicked desires of the men involved.

Greed motivates the nun Yogakarandika's use of disguise as a righteous Buddhist to humiliate the wealthier merchant class and damage them financially. Yogakarandika gleefully recounts the tale of her pupil who, dressed in disguise as a servant, was employed within a wealthy household. The pupil’s goal was to rob the family after earning their trust. When she is caught, the pupil disguises herself again as a possible lover for the wealthy homeowner and bites off his tongue. The nun additionally uses disguise for monetary gain at Guhasena’s home with the purpose of breaking Devasmita’s chastity to procure payment from the four merchant sons. The nun tells Devasmita that her husband is being unfaithful to her while on business in Cathay. Yogakarandika tries to sway Devasmita into committing adultery by saying "Our highest duty, you know, is to yield to the demands of sense and element" (1277) The nun disguises the four devious merchant sons as her pupils in order to get them into the household to try to sleep with Devasmita. The four merchant’s sons agree to this arrangement for the humiliation of fellow merchant Guhasena who is also staying chaste.

Knowledge of her husband’s faithfulness due to the thriving red lotus drives Devasmita to disguises her servant as herself. They drug the four merchant sons branding them with the mark of a dog’s paw. After further consideration of the merchant sons’ embarrassing failure to steal her chastity, Devasmita disguises herself as a male in order to thwart the plans for any retribution the merchant sons might try to take on her love, Guhasena. Devasmita takes inspiration from the old story of Saktimati, the faithful merchant’s wife (1278-1279). Devasmita and her maids disguised as merchants accuse the four merchant brothers of being her runaway slaves and cause a scuffle. The brothers are captured, and Devasmita is paid for their release.

Disguise allowed Devasmita to protect her husband from the four merchant sons and leave Cathay with extra money in their pocket. The four merchant sons realize the degradation due to them from their dastardly deeds. The reader is not rewarded with an account of what happens to the evil Yogakarandika. We are rewarded with the knowledge that Devasmita and Guhasena live happily ever after. "Honored by all upright people, Devasmita, with the ransom received and the husband she has rejoined, returned to their city Tamralipti and never again was she separated from the husband she loved" (1279).


Works Cited


Somadeva. “The Red Lotus of Chastity.” The Norton Anthology of World Literature. Ed. Martin Puchner. 3rd ed. Vol 1. New York: Norton 2013. 1272-1279.