Sunday, May 22, 2011

Response to "Faulty Heart", "The Lull", and "The Nani"

In my interpretation of "Faulty Heart" I think that the speaker is talking about having a constant change of heart. I feel that the speaker is a some point in his/her life where he/she is facing some major decisions and has found themselves at a crossroads. The fourth stanza is kind of an "outside looking in" situation because the speaker feels as though other people seem to make decisions easily and turn out happy whereas the speaker can not seem to find a decision that will leave the heart satisfied. Stanza 5 translates to me as how the speaker (as well as readers) go to bed at night with the trouble lingering in their heart and when they awaken the next day, no resolve has been found.
The constant pestering, caught moth, child's beating fist etc, described in stanza six help to illustrate the speaker's on going nagging sensation. The comparison of the heart to a child's fist can be characterized by a temper tantrum, the constant thump thump thumping that can only be stopped by satisfaction.
In Stanza 7, the speaker says he/she gave up singing to it, possibly pacifying it with easy decision making or avoiding making decisions at all. "one night I will say to it: Heart, be still, and it will." This is the author's way of saying one day he/she will finally reach a point of contentment and satisfaction and the constant pest will stop.
Though the final stanza seems insistant the speaker is referring to death, I chose to find an alernative to what the speaker could have been talking about.

On Molly Peacock's "The Lull", I can honestly say i have no idea what it is about. Maybe I am trying to hard to find the coveted deeper meaning but i am also struggling with finding meaning on the shallow level. All I can get from this is two children looking at a dead possum carcass, one is disgust and the other in a form of wonder. "Dreams, brians, fur, and guts: what we are." I think the speaker is making the comparison between humans and all animals. Once we get past tails and claws, we are all made of the same thing. "dreams, brains, fur, and guts...flesh" i really can not pick anything in particular that makes the poem confusing nor can i name a specific element of change that would give it more clarity.

"The Nani" puts me in the mind of a young man who has left his home country to live in another, perhaps for college or maybe to find success and fortune only to return home embarrassed and empty handed. The Nani (whom I interpret as a grandmother figure) welcomes him home with open arms. First, by making sure he is well fed. She catches him up on all that has gone one while he has been gone, chit- chatting about "this and that". He remains silent and only watching her moving through the kitchen preparing food for him. he notices how Nani has aged and knows that she does not have many years left to live. He mentions how Nani is "this and that" to him (the big and the small, the major and the minor). The speaker wonders how much of him will die when Nani dies, which leads me to believe that perhaps he was raised by Nani or perhaps Nani is the only person who offered him any kind of support.  

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