Wednesday, March 14, 2007

The three pieces of writing we read deal with two common themes; loneliness and giving into temptation. E.E. Cummings’ “l(a” deals with loneliness, William Carlos Williams’ “This is Just to Say” is about giving into temptation, and Erdrich’s “Love Medicine” deals with both.
In the poem “This is Just to Say” the narrator is leaving a note about the plums he has eaten. The plums were not his and he found them in the icebox. The narrator is leaving the note to inform the plums’ owner that he has eaten them. The narrator knew the plums were not his but decided to eat them anyways. From reading the poem I inferred that he saw the plums and debated eating them. He wrote “which you were probably saving for breakfast” which shows he took some time to think about eating the plum and whether the owner was going to eat them. After he took the time to think about why not to eat them he gave into the temptation anyways. He must think the owner of the plums and himself have a strong enough relationship that the owner will forgive him.
E.E. Cummings’ “l(a” is about loneliness. The poem talks about a leaf falling off a tree. The poem has very few lines with one to five letters on each line. The very structure of the poem conveys loneliness. E.E. Cummings also broke up the word loneliness and formed the word one on its own line. While reading the poem you can picture a single leaf falling all on its own and the lonely fall it makes to the earth. On top of that image the structure and form really highlight the theme of loneliness.
Louise Erich’s “Love Medicine” is about a grandfather who has lost some of his mental capacity due to growing older. The story shows a boy and his grandmother trying to get their beloved grandfather back to “normal”. The whole time we see the characters struggle with temptation and loneliness. Liphsa and his grandmother are both lonely without their grandfather being around. Lipsha gives into temptation and tries a love medicine on his grandfather hoping it will bring his grandparents relationship back to how it was. Due to outbreaks of bad luck, Lipshaw takes an easy way out and instead of getting two hearts from geese he settles for buying twp turkey hearts. The grandmother forces the grandfather to eat the hearts which causes him to die. In the end we find out no medicine or remedy is needed to fix love, but only love can fix love.
In the three readings we saw common themes of temptation and loneliness and the effect they can have on each other. In “Love Medicine” we saw characters give into temptation because of their loneliness. In the poem “l(a” we saw how the author conveyed the loneliness not only in the poem but in the structure of the poem itself. And in “This is Just to Say” we saw an example of someone giving into temptation.