"Yoko" by Thom Gunn

“Yoko” is a dramatic monologue; it’s a kind of a love poem. The interesting thing about this poem is the dog perspective view of the world that we get.  A lot of poets choose to write about love, landscapes, different things, but a poem about a DOG, we don’t get that very much.

The poem starts with the dog describing the everyday activities that he does, the scary feeling when the firecrackers on the sky explode, and his master – the one man he cares more than anything in this world.  The view of the world from a dog’s perspective is very interesting and Thom Gunn describes it in vivid details i.e.  when the leader takes the dog on a walk, he starts investigating with his nose the road he walked previously mentioning along the way certain activities that he did like taking a piss, certain smells he remembers,  the wind , the running… 

My favorite line of the poem is: “returning to you (as I always will, you know that)”. It just shows the strong bond a human being has with a dog.

"The Stranger" - Part Two - Chapter IV - V

In the final two chapters of “The Stranger” Meursalt starts becoming aware of what people really think about him. He starts showing some emotions and seems to have matured while in prison. The trail continues, but it’s a weird trail and Meursalt doesn’t really feel a part of it. The prosecutor connects the upcoming case of a son killing his father with ‘the stranger’ as “killing” his mother.  Attitude towards other people is taken into account more than the actual killing of the Arab. Later he gets the verdict that his head will be cut off in a guillotine.

               
As the clock is ticking, so are the seconds remaining in Meusault’s life. That little hope he has for the appeal to succeed and to be a ‘free-man’ again is keeping him alive. While behind bars, he wonders how to escape, how to stop the guillotine, and even comes up with his own idea of what he would do to the inmates who face death penalty ahead of them. He thinks that he would give them a ‘dog’s chance’ that the killing pill would work nine out of ten times, but they would still have a chance. He views the justice system and the whole process as a ‘machinery’ and when the priest comes to talk to him about God it doesn’t interest him and feels like the priest is a part of machinery also.

He tries to convince that life is not worth living and at the end of the day we all die, it’s just a matter of time. In fact he is preparing himself mentally before the due date comes. Every night he waits for the d-day to come and remembers his happy moments in his life, but he feels that the society which chose the way he was going to die would view his whole life by the final chapter – the killing of the Arab. ‘Because the world is indifferent towards me, I will be indifferent towards the world’ Meursault keeps thinking. The novel ends with Meursault last wish being a big crowd cheering when he was going to be executed, so Albert Camus gives us food for thought whether the process did go through or not!

"The Stranger" - Part Two - Chapter I - III

In Part Two of the novel we have ‘The Stranger’ – Meursault arrested for what he has done. He tells the magistrate that his case is ‘very simple’ while being interrogated and constantly gives unreliable answers. Throughout the chapters the untrustworthy narrator gives us a single point of view, which seems a bit bias. The stranger doesn’t want his examinable life to be examined. We also learn the religion views of the author, and the stranger in this case. When the magistrate pulls a religion thing with him by showing him a crucifix he doesn’t react at all, at tells him he does not believe in God!

For the very first time in his life, Meursault feels like a part of something important, a part of a group.  Everyone looks at him for answers and he feels like he has the center of all attention. However, this only happens in court séances. When he is in the cell, his biggest difficulty is how to kill time. Nevertheless, he manages to do quite well by counting objects/details, remembering memories, and mostly sleeping.

There’s a lot of inconsistency in his character. He is often distracted by little details that are completely meaningless. While going through different court séances and testifies he finally has an emotional response, when Celeste testifies. There is a weird ending on the third chapter, when he thinks about the past – all the memoires, sun, beaches, all the feelings, senses as a free man. And thinks about where he is right now, the prison – sees it as an important chapter in his life and maybe begins to think like a prisoner.  

"The Stranger" - Chapter IV - VI

As the story goes along ‘the stranger’ keeps becoming stranger and stranger. We constantly get his disconnection from the real life. He lets himself being drawn by events and doesn’t try to direct his life. The outcome of the choices that he doesn’t make, determines his life! The outside world doesn’t affect him at all and when his boss offers him a “change of life” to move to Paris he says it doesn’t matter. He seems happy with his life. Indifference is shown!

The stranger starts slowly to fall in love with Marie, but refuses to answer his girlfriend’s question whether he loves her or not.  He keeps complimenting her about her look and her smile and yet when she asks him to marry her, he replies “if that’s what you want, then so be it”. Again a lack of interest is exposed. During these chapters we also learn more about Raymond, portrayed as a bully. Raymond acts like he is a tough guy, but indeed he is a coward and that is revealed later in his conflict with the Arabs.  We learn more about the old man, Salamano, as well. He had lost his dog, with which he had a strong emotional relationship, like it was a real person! He got the dog after his wife died and that maybe explains it more.

The SUN – is implied as a very interesting symbol in the narrator’s life. It is directly related with his feelings.  So, when he shoots the Arab, he is sort of pushed by the sunlight to do it. After he kills the Arab he fires 4 more shots to his inert body to show his anger towards him for ruining the beautiful day on the beach!

"The Stranger" - Chapter I - III

Albert Camus on his novel “The Stranger” describes the feelings of a man that undergoes a ’tough’ period following his mother’s death! Actually, the strange son in the first chapter shows no explanation of his sadness or whatsoever. He is ice cold towards every person in his life and doesn’t mention any good or bad memories he had with his mother but rather illustrates an outsider who is completely detached from the real life. The alienation feeling continues at the funeral where he doesn’t want to get involved with the closest people his mother has had in her life, like the old man and her best friend.

In chapter two and three of the story the stranger is described as nothing has changed in his life and life goes on. The feeling of the isolation is portrayed as the man creates his own little world by moving everything in one room. There’s also too much explanation in vivid details and the repetitive words i.e. “It wasn’t my fault” and “Wash my hands” let us wonder about the guilt feeling the stranger might have and some kind of responsibility that he is trying to ‘wash’ away…In addition there’s a little hint that the stranger has lost the feelings for his mother when she moved to the retirement home symbolizing her ‘death’ rather than the physical death.

"Trans-Siberian Prose and Little Jeanne from France"

In his poem “Trans-Siberian prose and Little Jeanne from France” Blaise uses modern language to describe the round trip that he took from Moscow to Paris. Even though the poem is written back in 1913 it is still a modern poem that doesn’t rhyme. Repetition is used to emphasize certain things so that the reader and the author are on the same page. Blasie reveals several elements of his life, names every activity, and gives us something to think about while we create a picture in our mind. We come through different feelings that the author is experiencing while in train. The first feeling that he felt was the feeling of loneliness! He was separate from his common environment and felt like an ‘alien’. He has the need for power, the feeling to have everything under control, that masculine stance. 

At some point while the train was moving author mentions Russian Revolution, or basically war in which he is given a gun to protect some jewelry. This is of course him being a Hero in his own fantasy! Next thing he mentions is love, little Jeanne from France who was supposedly sitting next to him on the train. “She is completely nude, she has no body, she is too poor” the author describes her like she is nothing, but still loves her very much. As the train moves along the road several cities along Europe are mentioned as the author was trying to define life from every train movement. He seems he has lost the illusion of travel and distance.

My favorite line of the poem is: “We are a storm in the skull of the deaf”. It shows that no matter how hard he is trying to unveil the meaning of life; his efforts are not paying off!