Regret and Loneliness

Louise Erdrich’s “Love Medicine,” William Carlos Williams’s “This is Just to Say,” and e.e. cummings’s “l(a” either deal with different types of desires and remorse or with loneliness. “Love Medicine” and “This is Just to Say” both revolve around themes of longing and regret, yet the characters experience different levels of regret. “Love Medicine” also relates to “l(a” because both works bring up the issues of loneliness and solitude.
In “This is Just to Say,” the speaker admits to giving into his desire to eat the plums that the person he is addressing is “probably saving for breakfast.” Although he asks for forgiveness, he goes on to say that the plums were “delicious, so sweet and so cold,” so he obviously is not too upset or disturbed by his action. He apologizes, yet he probably does not feel any regret, especially since he acknowledges that he was aware that the other person was probably saving the plums for a specific reason.
Unlike the speaker in “This is Just to Say,” Grandma Kashpaw and Lipsha Morrissey in “Love Medicine” feel truly regretful about their actions. Grandma and Lipsha both desire Grandpa Kashpaw to show his love for his wife, Grandma Kashpaw, again. They decide to feed Grandpa a goose heart so like the geese, which mate for life, Grandma and Grandpa Kashpaw can love each other forever. When Grandpa dies after choking on the goose heart, both Grandma and Lipsha blame themselves for his death. They both feel at fault and feel great remorse for trying to create love magically instead of allowing it to naturally take place.
Grandma Kashpaw in “Love Medicine” accepts Lipsha’s idea of eating the goose hearts out of pure loneliness because she no longer feels loved by her husband, Grandpa Kashpaw, just as the speaker in “l(a” deals with his own loneliness. The poem “l(a” stresses the theme of loneliness by breaking up the word “loneliness” so that each part of the word stands alone. The form of the poem imitates the motion of a falling leaf, an image the speaker associates with his loneliness. Also, the word “one” (as part of the word “loneliness”) appears on a line of the poem, followed by the letter “l” on the next line, which could easily be mistaken for the number “1,” referring to singleness and solitude.
“Love Medicine,” with its universal themes of desires and sorrow and of loneliness, can be connected to the poems “This is Just to Say” and “l(a.” The speaker in the first poem desires the plums and apologizes, yet he does not appear to be truly regretful. Grandma Kashpaw and Lipsha desire Grandpa’s love and in trying to get his love, they inadvertently lead him to his death. They, however, feel truly sorry for what has happened. Grandma had just been lonely without Grandpa’s love, just as the speaker of “l(a” expresses his loneliness in his own way.