Blog 7

Louise Erdrich, William Carlos Williams, and E.E. Cummings take three very different approaches in how they convey the theme of love, and the emotions and desire that result from a sustained love. Love is a very broad term to use for a theme but the specifics to this are found in the structure and the word usage in the works.
In the poem “l(a”, Cummings lets the words speak through the structure of the poem. The theme of the poem, loneliness, is conveyed inside the parentheses while it is slowly spelled out. He attempts to physically show how agonizing loneliness can be by relating it to a falling leaf. A leaf does not fall directly to the ground on a set path. Instead it moves back and forth allowing air to resistance to maintain its windy, delayed flight. This poem reminds me of someone who has lost a spouse and is just trying to go through the motions of life until the day they pass on. Their life now consists of floating without cause or purpose and their loneliness is all that they recognize.
In the poem “This is Just to Say”, the speaker is unable to resist the temptation of going into the refrigerator and eating the plums. I thought plums was a great food to choose as temptation because ripe plums are so soft, juicy, and their color radiates a deep purple that is almost irresistible. But a tricky part of this poem is that the speaker eats all of the plums, not just one. They cannot express any form of continence and self-indulge to the fullest extent leaving none for any one else in the morning. This inability to resist temptation is what often leads people away from their lovers at night. The short story “Love Medicine” was long and had many tangents to it but I liked it because it kept me thinking the entire time. The speaker is constantly battling himself, trying to figure out his own life while helping the lives of as many people as he can. Grandpa Kashpaw is tempted by Lulu Lamartine, who has loved him her entire life, and one time he succumbs to her temptation but is distracted at the very last moment when her wig falls off revealing her completely bald head. Grandma is extremely upset over his flirting and wants to rekindle their love. He comes up with a ridiculous idea for a love medicine to use two turkey hearts to save the marriage of an old Chippewa couple. This plan fails miserably when Grandpa chokes and passes away. The burden is on both Grandma and the Lipsha’s shoulders because they interfered with love’s natural way. Their love was spread out through time and their entire life. Grandpa “appears” because he was not able to express his love before he passed, but it was there. These misunderstanding of love caused them to search in the wrong places for it.